Dining in Dénia, Exploring Xavea

One of Bryce's teachers has a friend living in Dénia, and so we arranged to meet Megan and her Spanish husband Vincente for lunch at a cafe in downtown Dénia.  Our previous encounter with Dénia was unimpressive, mostly because we didn't know where to go.  Our lunch meeting was in a pedestrian-only part of the old town, and after seeing this part of Dénia, I'm now a fan.  There is a winding maze of car-less streets, and the lane our lunch spot was on had a plethora of cute little eateries and tapas bars.

Megan and Vicente have been living in Dénia for three years or so, and were carrying around their five month old son. They spoke highly of this part of Spain.  Megan works as a talented photographer who shoots a tremendous amount of weddings (http://www.meganspelman.com), and Vincente is an illustrator.  During lunch, I had a great opportunity to work my Spanish, as Vincente's English was not quite as good as my Spanish.  We did the traditional Spain-style lunch, talking and eating casually for 2 1/2 hours or so.  This particular place (Xocolat or something similar) served us a delicious meat and vegetable stew over cous-cous. I finally had to get up and walk around a bit, as much as I enjoyed their company.  Bryce and Laurel were very patient with us during obvious adult time, and they chimed in to the conversation occasionally.  Bryce also enjoyed playing with the baby, and their Guatemalan street dog "Birdy" who was waiting for us patiently outside the restaurant.

Bryce holding the Cutest Baby in the World

After lunch, Megan and Vincente recommended we go take a look at Javea (Xavea), another popular beach town a short drive away.  I had read about Arenal beach, so that's where we headed. The kid's patience with us paid off, as we found ourselves at a beautiful sandy beach, with shallow water and great body surfing waves.  The ocean was still slightly "refreshing", but I managed to acclimate and get out there and swim with them for a half an hour or so.  It definitely rejuvenated me.

Javea looks like a really nice place.  It has a mysterious, very steep mountain nearby that seemed to always be covered in clouds.  The Arenal beach has a lot of nice looking shops and restaurants, and the promenade was clean and well cared for.  Vincente told me that 50% of the residents in Javea are non-Spaniards - Brits, Germans and a few French make up most of the rest of the population. And I can see why people would love to live here - besides the beach, the town seemed well organized and very pleasant.  We didn't get to see the old town. but maybe next visit?

Mundo Mar, Dolphin Encounter

by Bryce

Today was an awesome day at Benidorm's Mundo Mar, but from mom's point of view, it was more like "I'm not swimming with the dolphins, the water will be to cold!". After a long ride to the amazing Mundo Mar, it looked like there were plenty of things to do there. The place looked amazing at the start. I looked inside the ticket building and bang! The words were flashing before my eyes: TRIP ADVISER CERTIFICATE OF EXCELLENCE! I could not believe that I saw this. "Pasar" said the ticket lady. I thought to myself, "OH MY GOD, this place looks awesome".

Three seconds after we got there, a lady said "do you want a picture with a lemur?" I said, "Claro que si" even before I thought it. The lady brought me into a lemur cage packed with lemurs and screaming preschoolers. All of the sudden a lemur flew on my shoulder. Cold small hands gripped my shoulder as I laughed uncontrollably. I sat down as a women snapped my picture and told me to pick it up at the ticket office at the end of the day.

After a long time of getting pictures done with animals, making a friend or two, eating, and watching shows at the theaters, we finally headed to the place we really came here for: The delightful Dolphinarium. We were quickly greeted by a Spanish woman with a very good English vocabulary. She asked if we're going to swim with the Dolphins, and after our tickets were taken, we were on our way to Mundo Mar's Dolpinarium. First, we were taken to a changing station. I was quickly equipped with a shiny wetsuit. After waiting for the trainers to get the dolphins ready we hurried to get a chance to swim with them. Next, we were welcomed by a trainer named Pedro who was in the dolphin show with his group of dolphins, Frera and Jaunito. He explained all about the dolphins, but all I could hear was me gnawing at my rugged nails while my teeth chattered with nervousness and excitement. All the sudden we walked in a tank with two dolphins splashing happily in the water. Pedro introduced us to the two dolphins, Frera and Camino. Finally, he asked me to get in the water. Immediately a dolphin swam up to me and I was asked to get in a pose. The dolphin kissed me on the cheek as I laughed because of all the excitement pumping through my blood. After I got a picture holding Frera's fins and everybody else got their pictures we finally got to pet the dolphins. Camino whizzed by me as I extended my arms. Once I touched her everything went into slow motion. I pushed my left arm farther over her body. She felt like heated silk. Finally, I snapped back to my senses as Camino gained speed in the double dolphin whirlpool. Pedro whistled the dolphins back as he told us that we're going to play with the dolphins. First, he showed us how to make them sing by moving his fingers. After that two random people were used as volunteers for the log trick. Pedro whistled something to the dolphins as they swam away and in two swift moves jumped over the two people. I was asked to be the next volunteer for the log trick. I lay as still as a Medusa victim, or in other words, a log. In a moment two dolphins swiftly leapt over me and for a while all I remembered was saltwater stinging me from all angles and and two athletic dolphin bodies sailing over me. After that I learned how to make dolphins twirl. Once I got out of the pool I was given with a new Mundo Mar towel. After the encounter, I was so thrilled that I wanted to do everything again.   

Dolphins and Lemurs: Oh boy!

by Laurel

So, today was a kid day. Yahoo! We decided to go to Aqualandia and Mundo Mar, but Aqualandia (waterpark) was closed so it was just a Mundo Mar day (FIY, Mundo Mar is Ocean World in Spanish). We were signed up for a dolphin "experience". You apparently learn a few commands and make the dolphins do what you asked. So we got to Mundo Mar, and it's like "OMG. We got ourselves into this awesomeness?". There was a large flamingo enclosure near the entrance (which reminded me of the SF Zoo) and the flamingos were all fluffed up and happy. Typical, they had five plates of seeds in the enclosure! Most of the local birds were snacking on the plates, but when a flamingo came, they all flew away. So we walked along and checked out cool outdoor and indoor enclosures. The one that fascinated me was the meerkats.  They had a short topless enclosure that was outside. The meerkats were standing on thick logs higher than the enclosure! I was surprised one didn't jump out onto my shorts.

I suggested that we walk around more, so we did, and then we came to this lemur house where kids were going in the cage and the staff were taking pictures. We waited in a line (with lemurs trying to swing onto our shoulders) and finally our turn came. Bryce quotes: "I didn't even need seed, and this lemur came swinging onto my shoulder like a parrot". One came to me too, but after the staff took a picture. The lemur (which I mentally named Joe) grabbed my hand and looked at me all weird. Joe's hands were cold and clammy. I don't know why it felt cool.
 
So we walked around more, checking out other cool animals, and we came to the scheduled place where we would meet the dolphins. This really annoying song was playing on the speakers- "Mundo Mar, where animals are rock stars!"- which made me a little upset. For such an awesome park, they should have a better theme song. I learned that it was the starting song for the dolphin show, so we took seats and watched really amazing trainers do stuff with dolphins.

They were really good, and Bryce kept on commenting "I wanna do this when I grow up!".

After another hour, it was time for our dolphin "experience". We had to change into bathing suits, but I was really shy, so I had to wait for all the other women to evacuate the one-room changing room. Then we got on wetsuits and met the trainers. We were training with two dolphins: Camino and Frera. We had the dolphins jump over us, and each "group" of two learned different hand signals. Dad learned that waggling your fingers meant "Sing". That didn't sound pretty. Me and Bryce learned that turning around in a circle with one hand up meant "Turn". Camino (my training dolphin) kept on turning even when I put the attention signal up. Frera stopped when Bryce did. After more photos, we climbed out and changed again. It was really fun!

Els Poblets - Costa Blanca

Today we made our longest car journey - a five hour drive from Orgiva to our new home for the next few days: the Costa Blanca. Known for its white sandy beached and agreeable weather, we are all pretty excited to experience yet another side of Spanish living.

Our house is in a beach village called Els Poblets, near the more well-known beach towns of Denia and Javea, and 45 minutes south of Valencia. Upon arriving in Els Poblets, we noticed a very different vibe here.  First of all, it's off-season, so the town has a sort of post-apocalyptic feel about it as we seem to be just about the only people here.

Secondly, all of the signage around town is in Spanish, English and German.  On our short walk, we encountered three different German restaurants, and no tapas bars.  If Germany had a beach town, this would be it.

Finally, the architecture is, well, weird.  Our house is a turret style, and the rooms are circular.  It's reasonably comfortable, and has a pool.  And we noticed many other turret style homes in the area.

The owner also seems to be a bit of a cheap-skate.  Not to generalize on Germans (especially since both Sue and I have German roots), but during the rental process a 20% offer on the web site was not honored, and when we arrived they attempted to charge us extra for internet access - in spite of no mention on the web page.  Plus, the owner insisted on Pounds instead of Euros at the same number.  With the Spanish, I think they would have been more accommodating.

In the evening, we walked down to the nearest beach, and settled into a restaurant (with a German/Spanish menu) with a view of the Mediterranean. It was all very pleasant, but the beach was big rocks held together with some sort of dirt ball. It looked more like a fisherman's beach.

Still, the area looks interesting, we've seen promises of great beaches, and we're optimistic we'll find a lot of cool things while we are here.

Update: The next night, we discovered an amazing Indian restaurant called Halawi in a neighboring village. We eat a considerable about of Indian cuisine in San Francisco, and the food here was better than any I have eaten in SF.  Maybe it was a reaction to our diet of gazpacho, Spanish tortillas, patas bravas and ham bocadillos over the last 6 weeks, but our meal of chicken tikka masala, butter chicken, lamb gosht (lamb with chick peas) and palak paneer (a spinach and cheese dish) was one of the best ever.  Desserts were awesome too. I never would have expected great Indian cuisine here. Go figure.