I hate two things in life. Early morning flights is one. Today I had to get up at 0430 to catch my flight to Alicante for the Hive Open Days later this week.
The other thing I hate is Alicante . It is infamous in UK for Brits going there for their stag and hen dos. They get wasted for a few days and make a total ass of themselves creating a bad name for Brits abroad. Had it not been for this meet up, Alicante will stay firmly at the bottom of my to go list forever. Alas, Hive had other plans for me. Still, my hate for Alicante proved me right even before I arrived.
There was a group of 10-15 guys on my flight on a stag do. They sat in front of me, and boy, were they noisy and deafening. Even the who woman sat behind me shouted at them to shut up. The guys must have bought all the alcohol in board during the two hour flight and were drinking non stop at 9am in the morning. They were so rowdy and annoying. And to make things worse, the loudest, and most foul mouth guy sat directly in front of me. He even tried to knock down the beer can tower with his miniature bottle of spirit from across the aisle. How can grown up men be so childish and inconsiderate!! I was so glad when we finally got off the plane, my ears were hurting so much 😵💫
After we settled down at the hotel and grabbed some lunch, we went for a walk around town. We stumbled upon the mushroom street. It was fun to see the cute mushroom sculptures and the kids playing there.
I read that Santa Barbara castle offers great views of Alicante and I always enjoy seeing a place from high above. However, I didn't fancy the half hour walk up hill in the heat, and ended up walking around the marina instead.
It was lovely to stroll along the Esplanade. The palm trees offered a nice shade and the mosaic pattern walkway was a very nice touch.
Suddenly a guy tried to give me a bit of paper. Thinking he was trying to sell me something, I no thanked him. But he was quite insistent and showed me the content. Within a few short seconds, he'd managed to take a photo of us, process and print it. It was actually very impressive. He says it's for me and asked me to keep it. I was happy to do so, don't want my face to end up as rubbish. Now I felt a little bad about it and was wondering if I should leave him a nice comment on his social media. When scanned the QR code, it took me to a restaurant. Ah! Clever advertising. Now I don't feel so bad about it 😄
My last stop of the day was to the neighbourhood of Barrio de Santa Cruz in the old town. It's at the foot of the Santa Barbara castle and involved a little climb. The area is famous for the quaint narrow streets lined with pretty colourful houses. The main one is Las Macetas Azule, The Little House of Blue Pots. There were a few other ones done by up nicely as well.
After a long and rather eventful day, I needed to call it a day. I was very happy to see a big bowl of lavender in the hotel lobby when I got back, they smell so nice. Perfect to wind down for the day.
Alicante isn't that bad actually, and I think I may like it more when I meet my friends in the next few days.
HPUD Guessing Contest with 200 HP prize
Gentle reminder, there's less than 24 hours left to my little contest to celebrate me breaking 200k HP. If you would like to join in for some fun and a chance to win 200 HP, check out my post below.
@livinguktaiwan/breaking-200k-hp-and-what-fell-into-the-water
Tip - someone has guessed correctly
