My Adventures Abroad: Swimsuits Optional

¡Hola!
First off, the weather here is gorgeous! Sunny and in the 60's! And it's only February! :)
So I had a busy fun week to share with you all :) First off, is my cuisine class. We made Fideua, a pasta like dish with lots of seafood. We added clams, muscles, shrimp (with heads and shells included) and many other things. It was delicious, (I even ate the shrimp whole, they were good, but I prefer headless and shell-less). Next we made tortilla de patatas. This is a very popular dish is Spain and is very good. It is made with eggs, potatoes and onions. You then pretty much make an omelet like dish. I off course managed to burn myself a little and broke my tortilla during the flipping process... ohhh well. For desert we made an unhealthy version of french toast.. aka torrijas. You soak the bread in milk, dip in eggs then deep fry them. Afterwards, you coat the torrijas in sugar and eat. Overall the class was fun and I can't wait to try out some of these recipes at home (without the burning myself and breaking my tortilla part, of course :).
I had classes till Thursday, then Friday I had my favorite adventure in Spain so far. Two friends (Anna and Sarah ) and I were going to rent bikes and ride them to a famous beach about 5 miles away from here. We for some reason couldn't rent bikes, so we decided to walk. We started walking, but ran out of road after less than a mile. So we started walking on the beach, over giant rocks for the most part. We then realized that there was a road on the other side of the wall that we were walking on...! So we scaled the wall, got lots of funny looks from the drivers and a few honks because we are hot americans ;). We walked on that road for a while, then ran out of road again! So we went back to climbing over giant boulders and walking on the beaches. I loved it though. We found some beautiful little beaches, that I prefer more that the public beaches. These are called calas in Spanish :) We also found a sofa on some random cliff overlooking the ocean, haha. I wish that my XC team had been there, based on our history with random couches found in nature ;D. We passed through a lot of local small towns, some were so empty we felt like we were in a horror movie about tourists, haha. We finally made the beach, San Juan. We stayed for a little, then took the bus back to Alicante. On this trip I noticed that swimsuits truly are optional here... on our hike we saw about 3 naked guys and numerous women with only half a swimsuit... ohh Europe.
I also started running again. I ran a total of 2 times this week, which is a good start I think. For those who didn't know I quit the XC team at NAU, and haven't been running too much since then. I ran along the beach, and it is a gorgeous place to run. Although I made the mistake of running during everyones afternoon stroll today... and Spaniards walk so SLOW and take up the entire sidewalk at the same time. Very frustrating for someone trying to run..
Last night I went out with my host sister and her friends. It was really fun, but I still need to adjust to their schedule. We didn't start getting ready till midnight, left at one, and stayed out till 6 in the morning! I skyped my parents after I got back. They were a little shocked that I woke up early, but even more surprised when I told them I hadn't gone to bed yet! haha
Oh and today was the birthday of a family friend, Paco. So we went out to an Italian restaurant yesterday and today my host mom made octopus today. She said that I came to the best house for octopus, and I can see why. It was delicious!! Afterwards we had some chocolate cake that I made. They were a little taken aback when I told them that there could not be a birthday dinner without cake as long as I was there. So I made a cake, without measuring tools, but it came out delicious! :)
Well, I believe that is all for now. Everyone enjoy their Superbowl game today! I am off to watch Real Madrid vs Real Sociedad :)
♥Torin