Alicante

A few weeks ago, I attended a training session in Alicante for my volunteer organization. It was a three-day weekend, all expenses paid, so I figured it was a good opportunity to 1) learn a lot; 2) meet cool people; and 3) see a new city. I was successful on all accounts, but it wasn't all ebullient sessions with charming professionals and me at my brilliant best in an amazing beach-side town. It was... something else.

I have a really late schedule here in Madrid, so I knew when I saw that the sessions started at 9:30 a.m. that I better try to start waking up a little earlier a few days before the conference. A few days became one... the day that I had to take the four-hour train from Madrid to Alicante. So, I started the trip on about 5 hours of sleep, but I was sure I could recoup it that night. I took the train with a fellow volunteer and friend, which made the delirious voyage easier to manage... almost pleasurable.

When we arrived and checked in, we found that we were just in time for dinner. We freshened up, dropped our bags, and headed down for some traditional Valencian paella! We ended up at a table with three guys from Jerez, which is in Andalusia in the southern part of Spain, and one guy from the Canary Islands, a Spanish province off the coast of Morocco. I had heard stories from my students about people from the south as well as people from the Canaries. Their accents are difficult for Spaniards at times, so for me in my sleep deprived state, it was like a train wreck of confusion, right there at the dinner table. My friend is from Ecuador, and has only been in Madrid a month, so first thing after the introductions, one of the guys from Jerez made a crack to the next guy who joined the table (from Cordoba) that he hoped that he wasn't also from another continent. I did not find it funny, but after a little while straining to understand, and adding a little bit to the conversation here and there, I realized that they were generally nice. But their accent was nearly impossible for me to decipher :(

Before bed, the conference coordinator reminded us all that we needed to be downstairs by 8 a.m. for breakfast to make sure that the conference started on time... WHAT?! I skipped the first night bar crawl in the hopes of catching up on sleep, but I awoke the next morning to my very kind roommate's very nice way of chiming me into consciousness having only gotten a total of about five hours of restless sleep. I was COMPLETELY delirious by this point.

I made it to breakfast and was in my seat right on time for the training, but it was a long and tough ride until lunch. When we broke for lunch, I was so relieved, but ended up at the table with the same group again. This time, I literally did not understand anything. They were all joking and speaking in total street slang, and everyone kept bursting out in UPROARIOUS laughter. My blank expression made it completely obvious that I didn't understand. I just bowed my head and ate as quickly as possible, and then escaped to my room where I skipped the next session and napped for three luxurious hours.

When I made it downstairs for the following session, I realized that I had missed the speaker that I really wanted to hear due to scheduling changes, and got stuck sitting through the one that I'd already pretty much heard in another training conference. WHATEVER. At least I was well rested for that night's bar crawl.

Alicante is a resort city on the Mediterranean coast that fills with tourists in the summer time. They come to take advantage of the beautiful beaches on the Costa Blanca (white coast) and to party until dawn in the abundant bars and discos in the city center. While a visit in November is not the same experience, I'm sure, there is still a pretty hopping scene, and of course, they still party until dawn. Spaniards would not have it any other way.

We all met in front of the hotel at midnight and went out as a group of at least 20 wandering in the cool night air. The first place we went was El Forat, the oldest gay bar in Alicante. Very nice, cool people, pretty good Latin dance music, fun, although it kinda looked like someone's kitschy living room. One of the folks in the group was a male-to-female transgender woman named Erika. She was probably about 6-foot-2 barefooted, and pretty rotund, but a TOTAL fashion victim and always the center of attention. She kept telling us that she wanted to show us her special dance routine set to this Latin pop song, but the DJ didn't have it. She suddenly decided to improvise to whatever was on at the time, and it was like Divine overtaken by an epileptic fit. She was flailing her limbs in every direction, her head spinning around like in the Exorcist or something, literally flinging people off the dance floor. One of them hit me, and I almost broke the mirror on the wall behind me trying to get out of the way. The best part was that she had NO idea that she was creating such a scene. Like half of the people on the dance floor (the ejected ones) were glaring at here or just looking kind of confused and bewildered, and she, hair flying in circles, giggling, forever sexy, the seductress to us all. I LOVE HER!!!

After the dance incident, half the group had already split off into various factions and left to other bars and discos. Finally, our faction decided to go to Missing, supposedly the most happening disco. I was on the verge of returning to the hotel, but a couple of nudges and *poof* - insta-disco-boy. The disco was your usual vapid gay pickup scene. I think that there must have been some rule that you had to be under 18 with a fake ID to get in, but somehow our ENTIRE group slipped by security. The music was good, the energy was fun, and I stayed as long as I could keep my eyes open. By 4 a.m., I knew I needed to go, so checked with the other folks and finally found that Miss Erika and one of the Andalusians were ready. We wandered the streets and stopped at a late night store to keep with Erika's traditional after-bar Pringles tradition. We talked about nothing and enjoyed it while we got lost and then found our way again, and FINALLY ended up at the hotel by some act of divine intervention. I accidentally came across a tourist site on the way, so snapped a quick photo with my phone cam.

Alicante's Central Market

So, I made it back in time to get a little more sleep than the previous two nights. Due to the aforementioned scheduling change, the sessions didn't start until 11 a.m. the next day. (Perhaps God's way of making up for the cruel Southern accents situation.) We were done by 2 p.m., giving us just enough time to take a stroll along the beach at sunset! The weather was much nicer than in Madrid - probably about 75 degrees and sunny. The first thing we saw when we got onto the beach was the 16th century Santa Barbara Castle.



The beach was virtually empty, and the water FREEZING, but we had to check, right? Don't worry, we just rolled up our pants and waded. Alicante's white sandy beaches are one of the big tourist draws to this area, and I must say, this one was pretty nice. There was a pretty intricate sand sculpture about mid-way down the beach.



After wandering for a while, we sat on the boardwalk and listened to the drummers in the distance while the sun set.



Then, it was back to grab our bags and catch the four-hour train back to Madrid. Tired, but with heads full of new knowledge and strange experiences to remember.