May 19, 2019 - Joshua Henderson


 Today on May 19, 2019, we departed from our hotel in Barcelona to leave for Valencia. But before we go to Valencia, we stopped by Peniscola, another coastal city with aesthetic and historical beauty. When we reached Peniscola, the Mediterranean Sea captivated me with its beautiful array of blues, and how the sun glistened off of it perfectly. 
A view of the Mediterranean Sea from oldtown Peniscola.

As we strolled up the castle, I was pleased to see fish and ducks swimming in what appeared to be a person-made river. We went higher and higher in altitude and the higher we got, the more mystifying the view got. After about thirty minutes of walking, myself, Jasmine, Jazmine, Danielle, Rachel, Mariah, Jocy, Mekayla, and Anna sat down at a local restaurant and ate lunch. We all ended up ordering different combinations of the of the special that they were offering. My order was croquetas de pollo (chick croquettes) y salchichas con huevo y patatas (sausages with eggs and french fries). I loved sausage and french fries were good, but I didn’t enjoy the croquettes as much. They were by no means bad, they just weren’t for me. Along with that came bread, water and a cup of ice cream at the end. Dining in, in Spanish culture is very different because your servers go a much longer duration of time without checking in on the table and sometimes don’t check at all. I think some of this can be attributed to Spain having  more polychronic sense of time than the U.S. In Spain, it is typical for people to stay a while after eating their food just to converse with one another. After we got done with dinner, Jasmine, Anna, Rachel, and I decided to do go around to stores and do a little bit of shopping. I bought a Barcelona futbol shirt that I thought was pretty cool for 10 Euros. After that, Anna and I decided to explore and get higher in altitude. We had to pay 5 euros each, but you couldn’t put a price on the views that we were able to get. You could see the coastal line on both sides, the fine architecture of the housing, and the Mediterranean in all its glory. 
A view atop the city.

Another view overlooking Peniscola.

 Once that was over, we all boarded the bus and road back to Valencia. The bus rides are nice because of the beautiful landscape that is viewable out of the windows. Once we got back in Valencia, it took us an hour to get home because of how long we had to wait for the bus. This all was made up though once we got home because our homestay family said they were ordering Chinese takeout. 

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