canary islands - santa cruz 2

our hotel in santa cruz

today was a free day and many people took full advantage of it. several colleagues rented cars to explore the island. some went to a volcano named pico del teide and brought back some great pictures (here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_del_Teide). a few went windsurfing and many others just stayed in to practice and take it easy. i was part of the last group mentioned that didn't do very much.

che-hung chen (violist) and i walked around town a bit and then proceeded to look for the beach.



beautiful park across the street from our hotel

i actually studied spanish in high school but let me tell you, not much has stayed w/ me. i was pretty much repeating the same question, "donde esta la playa?" to several people we walked by. a lady at the front desk of the hotel said it was only 5 or 10 minutes by bus and pointed it out on the map. we had to walk a bit to catch the particular bus and since the weather was nice, we decided to just go by foot. as we walked along the ocean, all we could see were oil refineries. we kept thinking we would see something around the next bend but after 1 hour of walking, figured we should turn back.





after all this walking, we had worked up quite an appetite so we went to a place next to the grocery store that had this picture inside.

how could i resist?

unfortunately, it was closed as many other restaurants are during the mid-afternoon siesta period. so we found another place where i totally butchered the spanish language again while trying to order a sandwich. as we walked back to the hotel, we passed by the 1st place again and it was now open. so che-hung kindly volunteered to eat the sandwich i just bought so i could order this heart-attack in a bun.

it actually wasn't as good as it looks in the picture

for dinner, several of us went to a recommended tapas place for some incredible food (we ended up going to 2 that were side by side). no matter how badly i sound when i order from the menu, everyone has been so patient and nice. they even advise us on what to order and so far, haven't been wrong.



tomorrow is our first rehearsal in the morning so i better go to sleep. buenas noches!