visit to the islands

The whole reason why I was in Barcelona solo-dolo is because my good friend Jon was gonna come visit but was forced to cancel last minute. Not only did that leave me with little time to make new plans, but I already had a round trip ticket to Barça for a week so I said ok I'll go and see what happens. I decided I couldn't spend the whole week there so I said F-it and cashed out on a trip to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, somewhere I had always wanted to visit and had friends on vacation. It was last minute so the only affordable ticket was on the Tuesday and it turned out everyone there was leaving Thursday at the crack of dawn, so I essentially had a day and a half with them and another day and a half solo, as I left on Friday. I still had a lot of fun though.

The place blew me away with its beauty and definitely exceeded expectations. We had a huge house in the south of the island with a pool and a great view. Everyone was super nice (especially considering I was the outsider who randomly showed up at the end of their trip) and I really appreciated them taking me in! A bomb fajita dinner, fun night at the bars, and a full day at the beach where I got my first sun of 2010 (and a nice lil' top coat burn). Then, early Thurs. I headed to Santa Cruz, the capital, to do more exploring.

The city (and everywhere on the Island) felt more like the Caribbean than Spain. The people were so nice and the city is quite clean and has a ton of foliage, trees, plazas, and parks to keep it green, not to mention the verdant mountains that form the gorgeous backdrop of nearly any view. On the bus ride the landscape is just peak after peak of velvety green mountains and it blows my mind trying to imagine how they must have first started to build on the island. It appears to be well taken care of and not necessarily overly populated or built-up. It was great getting to know somewhere new and take some pictures!