Sevilla- It's definitely hotter.

Wednesday-

We woke up early yet again to head to Atocha train station to catch the fast ave train to Sevilla. After some croissants and extremely strong coffee for breakfast, we all boarded the train and found it pretty difficult to keep our eyes open.

Dad would laugh out loud to the movie he was watching with headphones while we all listened to other people’s phone conversations consisting of only “Vale, vale, vale, vale, vale.”

We arrived in Sevilla and barely fit in 2 taxis to make it to our hotel La Casa de la Juderia which means the house of the Jewish quarters. Each room is so unique and the hotel is quite the maze interrupted by beautiful patios.

After getting settled, we ventured out to the middle of town and ate some pizza and salad by the cathedral. It is super hot here, 42 degrees Celsius, so hot I don’t even want to know what that is in farenheit. So, we sat near the mist machines at lunch and mom would get up and run to stand under them as they sporadically came on.

Afterwards we toured the cathedral that’s in the Guinness Book of World records for being the largest cathedral in the world. It is even more grand and incredible than that in Segovia. It was one of the fam’s favorites thus far.

We could see the tower (that we avoided climbing this time) built in the 1200’s from a beautiful orange orchard. So cool.

On the way back toward the hotel, we stopped for some much deserved helado at the same place we ate lunch. Then we came back and crashed for a late siesta and woke up later to venture out to the Plaza de Espana. It looked so beautiful around 9pm when the sun was just beginning to go down, not to mention it was a good deal cooler.

From there we headed out to eat in the light of the illuminated cathedral and had some of the best gazpacho and paella thus far.

We got to sit around and just enjoy the night air til about 11:30pm and then go back to the hotel and just sit around in one of the little patios.

Me, Mike and Jen made our 2^nd attempt to play go fish with the crazy cards and we succeeded a little better this time.

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Thursday 7-29-2010

We woke up early and went down to a great continental breakfast buffet. Our first sight seeing adventure of the day was Sevilla’s alcazar. This is a huge fortress/ residential palace which was started in 914 but the majority of the palace was begun in the 13^th century. The first trip around the world was planned in this building in the admiral’s room and there was also a storage room for all things found in the new world. Below, there is an old roman-like bath house and the majority of the alcazar was decorated in Mudejar tiling. I’ve contracted Michael to build me some ornate doors, benches, a pavilion, and a musical fountain for my future house like we saw in the alcazar. (He said he would do it if I first built the palace). Later, we proceeded to get lost in the maze garden and even saw a family of peacocks in a different garden.

After the alcazar, we ventured into the museum dedicated to Spanish expeditions to the new world. There were old letters and drawings of maps that were done by Columbus and other explorers dating back to the 15^th century. It was one of our favorite parts of the day.

Later we visited la Casa de los Pilatos. This was a Sevillan royals house that visited Jerusalem and decided to design his house after Pontius Pilate’s house. It was really big and also decorated with tons of tiles and ornately carved ceilings with a courtyard in the middle and garden’s surrounding it.

For lunch we stopped in for some more gazpacho and ham and cheese sandwiches and escaped the heat under an umbrella. Today wasn’t quite as hot as Wednesday but still toastier than Madrid.

In the afternoon we took a siesta then went swimming in the pool which was on the roof! It was so neat to look out over Sevilla and see all the beautiful rooftops.

At 7pm we saw a flamenco show at El Patio Sevillano. I had been there when we came to Sevilla before but some of the performers were different and some of the numbers were changed so I felt like I was seeing it for the first time. We sat on the fifth row and from there you can see in the face of the dancers that they are dancing from the heart and most of the time without a choreographed routine. It was incredible.

After the show we walked down by the river and Michael marveled at the bridge. While we were down there Michael swore he could smell chocolate and churros that he’s been craving since the first night we got them. Sure enough, 4 blocks later we found a churros stand. What a nose!

We ended up going back to the same little street by the cathedral to get dinner. We shared tortilla, gazpacho and vegetable paella which everyone enjoyed. On our way back to the hotel we got a few pastries and listened to an amazing violin player next to the cathedral.

Like usual, we sat on the patio in the hotel and talked til we were ready to go to bed and then me, Mike and Jen went and played go-fish in my room and stayed up talking until late. Then it was just time to pack and get ready to head out in the morning.

Small town Spain and Big time castles

Monday- Segovia!

This morning we left way too early on the metro headed for the train station. If dad’s not an hour early, he’s late. We took the ave fast train around 9am to Segovia (only a 20 minute ride) and ate breakfast looking at the aqueducts.

Yep, here's where we ate breakfast...

Michael was amazed and kept inspecting and petting the aqueducts. Engineers, what can you do? The fam loved the small town Spanish feel of Segovia with the small cobblestone streets and really old buildings. There we saw the plaza mayor, cathedral and castle. The fam almost died climbing the 152 steps in the spiral staircase to the top of the tower and wanted to kill me for making them do it, even though they loved the view. Mom climbed the stairs one leg at a time so now only her right leg hurts, crazy woman. I think Michael’s favorite part was the secret door in the moat that we speculated was for a dwarf door or where they hid their dragon.

View from the top

By this time it was 3pm and we hadn’t eaten lunch so we opted for Ice cream instead. Since our train left around 4pm we grabbed 2 taxis back to the train station around 3:30. The taxi driver talked my ear off and I apparently translated for jen and mike with 2 word phrases. I was just hitting the highlights, haha.

Starving and exhausted, we hit up San Miguel Market for lunch- jen got soft bread we’ve seen in Spain because she now avoids ham at all cost and mom and dad got little sandwiches. From there we crashed for a Siesta.

In deciding where to eat dinner that night, Dad wanted to go to one restaurant and the concierge talked him out of it and instead recommended 2 other restaurants: one that doesn’t exist and another that was closed. So, we ate at the closest restaurant and had the best meal yet.

We ate dinner near the cuevas with some amazing tapas: mushrooms, fried eggs and vegetables, patatas bravas, croquetas, melon and jam, gazpacho, pork tenderloin and filet. Yum.

On the way back to the hotel, we looked in lots of souvenir shops and ended up by playing cards to give as a souvenir. Well, we decided to test them out like any good gift-giver would do and found that the suits were: cups, ham legs, swords, and coins instead of diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades. So with this faulty card set that had numbers 1-12 for a total of 48 cards, we attempted to play Go Fish, until we realized none of us actually knew the rules. So instead we played an interesting game of rummy where Michael fondly named the people on the cards gender-confused Vikings because we couldn’t tell what sex they were from their interesting outfits. Me and Michael laughed so hard we cried, probably because we were so tired but also at the ridiculousness of the situation. Soon after, Michael fell asleep and me and Jen got to catch up on a little girl time before going to bed.

Tuesday-

This morning we went back to Café and Te for breakfast for a huge breakfast where everyone made me order for them on multiple occasions. After breakfast, we walked past the infamous gummy bear shop on our way to tour the palace. I think everyone enjoyed seeing the huge rooms, old silver pieces, Stradivarius instruments, and armor. To let our feet rest, we drank some Cokes in the park and watched some tiny Spanish kids play soccer, it was precious and man do they start early! In an effort to conserve any ounce of energy we had, we abandoned our attempt to see the cathedral and instead went out to the museo de sorolla and got to get off at Ruben Dario (fondly pronounced RRRRRuben Darrrrio by me and Courrrrrney). This was a beautiful museum in Joaquin Sorolla’s old house surrounded by Andalusian gardens designed after Sevilla and Granada. From there, our attempt at lunch turned into cokes and tapas. At our 2^nd attcmpt at lunch, we confusedly attempted to order from a non-existent menu and then figured out we should have just listened to the waiter the first time around as we ordered from the correct menu. It turned out great though and we ate crepes with onions, bacon, cheese and raisins (interesting combination, I know, but it really was delicious), and ham and tomatoes.

From there we rode the metro to gran via and made a valiant effort at shopping on gran via but the rebajas have all the stores picked over. We did end up finding flower’s for Jen’s hair at Blanco so she can feel like a real Spaniard. From there, we went to find the infamous nuns. I buzzed the nuns a few times and no one answered the door. I was scared the fam was going to think the magical cookie making nuns were only in my imagination but eventually the squeaky nun woke up from her siesta and buzzed us in the huge door. You should have seen their faces when all that went down. Shock and awe. We weaved down the hallway to the lazy susan and ended up purchasing some almond flavored short bread cookies. They were delicious and I think the fam had fun on their first nun cookie experience.

After this we headed back for a Siesta.

At 8m we had reservations at Botin, the oldest restaurant in the world for dinner. This place has been up and running since the 1700’s. It was a neat old place and we climbed to the 3^rd floor to eat dinner. We had the best gazpacho yet, ham and melon, roasted chicken, and desserts of flan, white chocolate cheese cake, and apple tart. On our stroll back home we stopped in a handmade jewelry shop and they gave us some icecream. Michael ate that on top of his other desserts and was wired. So as we bought some Spanish fans from the street vendors, he was getting pretty sassy in whipping them out and fanning himself. We were just having way too much fun. Later it was a group effort to help me re-pack my overflowing suitcase so we could head out to Sevilla in the morning. We even got to skype momma J and see Maggie for a second before heading to bed.

Spain with the Fam

7-24-2010: Saturday-

I woke up really early this morning to catch a cab to the bus station to catch another cab to make it to the Hotel Posada del Peine in Madrid to meet the fam. Everything went off without a hitch but I ended up beating the family to the hotel by a good hour. I was worried I was in the wrong place, they had lost their luggage, or they were lost somewhere in Madrid. I found out their flight was delayed an hour when they made it safely to the hotel. It was so good to see everybody after so long and it was a sweet and slightly teary-eyed reunion.

After getting settled in our tiny dwarf room with 3 beds and a slanted roof (we hit our heads at least once a day), we explored the plaza mayor and ate at the museo del jamon where Jen decided she was not a fan of ham and could easily become a vegeterian after seeing the actual ham legs hooves and all hanging from the ceiling.

Mom with her ham, cheese, and egg sandwich which quickly became an obsession:

After lunch we walked through sol and gran via just seeing the sights and getting a feel for Madrid. We soon headed back for a much needed nap and rested until dinner time. As we headed to dinner we met Courtney for tapas in the caves under the plaza mayor. Here the fam had many 1^st experiences: chorizo, tortilla de patata, peppers, hard bread, and croquetas.

After dinner we ventured out to ventas to see the bull ring and Quintana, my neighborhood where I used to live. There we got helado at our cafeteria and saw carmela’s (my madre) house but she wasn’t there. Since the city is even more beautiful at night, we went and saw the palace and cathedral and walked back to collapse at the hotel.

Me and Miguel at the bull ring:

Me and Courtney with our pizza man Sieat-

Jen and Mike with the symbol of Madrid:

Sunday-

We woke up earlier than the rest of the city who had been partying the night before—trust us, we know, we can hear all the drunk people singing in the plaza mayor until the wee hours of the morning-- and searched for breakfast. It was then I remembered Spaniards don’t really believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day so we searched high and low for someone to give us more than a crouton for breakfast and we ended up at a place calle Café and Te. We got what they call “desayuno Americano” (American breakfast) and some amazing freshly squeezed O.J.

From there we walked to the outdoor market called the Rastro where we bought some super cheap dresses. For some rest we headed to my favorite place in all of Madrid: Retiro Park. Here the fam tried fanta de naranja (orange fanta, so much better than in the US) for the first time on the steps of the monument of the lake and now they’re hooked. There was also a symphonic band concert in the park and we could hear them from our spot near the lake. We walked around Retiro and saw the beautiful crystal palace and rose garden.

Retiro's rose garden

I hope they are as obsessed as I am with Retiro. Basically starving to death and having walked like 20 miles, we decided it was time to venture out to el espejo for lunch. Here the fam had their 1^st experience with leche merengada, gazpacho and ham, egg and cheese sandwiches (their fave).

Jen and Mike with their ice cream at El Espejo:

Feeling a little refreshed, we walked to the Prada and exhaustedly saw a little over half before we collapsed in the atrium and decided we should call it quits for the day. Dad was having a blast telling us all about the paintings and you could really tell he was loving it. The we headed back to the hotel for a siesta after a long day of touring. That night we made it out to the plaza de Santa Ana for tapas and paella. Afterwards, I had a chance to say good-bye to Courtney and some of the Samford crowd that was headed back to the states in the morning. Carmela, my madre, met me and the fam at valor for chocolate and churros and I had so much fun seeing my two worlds meet and get along. They were precious together and I enjoyed so much being their translator for Carmela’s funny stories.

Miguel loves his churros and chocolate:

Saying goodbye to Courtney :(

Kookoo kachoo

This morning we met at the school at 10:30 to go the the Casa Lis. This is a modern art noveau and art deco museum. Yeah, those terms mean nothing to me either. But, I can tell you what was there: lots of ugly dolls from the 19^th century, some fans, and a temporal exhibition of Picasso. The best part of the trip was the actual building. It’s windows and roof are stained glass and it’s located down by the river. The roof stained glass actually depicts the constellations over the house and is so beautiful. I’ve decided I want a stained glass roof in my next house.

Then, with the nightmare of mystery meat bocadillos awaiting us at the school, me and Courtney opted instead to get tapas by the Cathedral. I have never eaten in a more beautiful setting. The cathedral was to my right, a beautiful old street to the left, and Courtney across from me. We had some gazpacho, tortilla and salad.

Later in the afternoon I had my oral exam and Dr. Jensen said it went fine. One exam down, two to go.

Class was as usual and we reviewed for our exams tomorrow. They expect a lot out of us this time around because we’ve been here so long. After class we visited our favorite stores one more time, Sigueme for me and H&M for Coco. We both have a slight addiction, so much so that I was wearing a dress I bought at Sigueme when I went to buy another and I owned the one the cashier lady had on. That’s when you know you’re in trouble. Not to worry dad, me and your credit card only have 1 more day in Spain without you!

Tonight calls for some heavy duty packing and studying. We’ve also got to follow Nemo through the rest of the “Gran Azul.” See ya soon padres! I can’t wait!

My heart beats like a cold potato.

Today we left home early with our bocadillos in hand and went to the plaza to grab a coke and study. Studying is always better when this is your backdrop:

So, after we decided our sandwiches were mystery meat, we decided to just go to our favorite restaurant Las Torres and get a sandwich mixto (ham, cheese, and egg). The sweet manager we always talk to came up and told us to squeeze the fun out of Salamanca for our last 3 days.

In school we pretty much just reviewed for our upcoming exams. Afterwards, the group walked around attempting to find World Cup championship t-shirts which is much easier said than done.

On our way home, we stopped by the dvd store to return little Hannah Montana. When we walked in, the owner handed Courtney the movie poster she so dearly wanted a few days ago of Tiana y el Sapo and said “un regalo para ti!”. He gave it to her for free! How sweet! Because he was so nice we decided to go ahead and rent another movie, this time it’s Buscando a Nemo. Hopefully you can all translate that one for yourselves.

It’s been precious so far:

“Sigue nadando, nadando, nadando” = “Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming” “Pez son amigos, no comida”= “Fish are friends, not food.”

Precious.

Dinner was a hamburger with green beans and potatoes on the side and melon for dessert. Miguel also declared his love for Carmen with a cheesy phrase that apparently all the kids say to each other: “Mi Corazon palpita como patata frita.”

Somehow this is romatic but it directly translates as “My heart beats like a cold potato.” Yuck if you ask me but she loved it and turned red and started fanning herself. Dinners around here are always interesting.

Mooooovies...

7-18-2010 Sunday

Sunday we slept in to try and recover from our Portugal adventure. Later in the afternoon we watched Tiana y el Sapo (Princess and the Frog) that we rented from a little DVD shop across the street. It was the cutest movie and even the songs were in Spanish. Precious.

Lunch was the craziest combination of foods: a mound of rice with tomato sauce on top, 2 hotdogs, fried zucchini, and a fried egg. Nasty. I’m glad I had eaten a late breakfast!

To escape the afternoon heat that makes our room a sauna, we met Taylor at McDonald’s to get a head start on our homework so it would make this week more fun.

Dinner was pasta salad and lomo with peppers and orange jello for dessert.

7-19-2010 Monday

Monday morning we started out at the library, still attempting to finish our loads of homework. Then on the way back home our construction worker friends stopped and talked to us for a bit, they’re funny with their American music always blaring. For lunch we had meat and potatoes with watermelon. Now, at dinner I can’t help but chuckle every time I look at Miguel because today he ate nearly a half of a watermelon by himself, seeds and all. And, as he was finish off the salad that was in a big glass bowl, his shaky hands caused him to clang around a bit and it sounded like music. I couldn’t stop laughing.

School was tolerable but I was still tired from the weekend. Our commercial teacher was out so we just had to read and translate and article and then we could leave early. We walked around with Dr. Jensen for a bit, she’s so cool and was supportive of us using our commercial knowledge in the real world, aka shopping J

Then we headed home stopping only for some delicious pastries and to return our movie. We rented Hannah Montana and rushed home to start watching it. It was not nearly as cute as Princess and the Frog. All of the songs were in English and the voice-overs were all really squeaky. Bummer.

Pastries from Gil. Now you see why I can't resist??

We fell asleep before dinner and I could hear our madre saying, “Where are the girls? Did they leave for a party?” Haha, she obviously doesn’t know us that well. Nope, we were sleeping. For dinner we ate gazpacho, fried fish and French fries, and chocolate pudding.

After dinner, we hopped on the bus because we weren’t about to walk a few miles after eating that, and headed to the river. We found the Puente Romana after a bit of confusion and met up with Taylor, Molly, and Carmen to just enjoy the ambience of nighttime. We strolled from there up through the city and found a park to sit and talk. Later as we made our way home, me, Courtney and Taylor stopped to play on the playground before hitting the sack.

7-20-2010 T-T-T-Tuesday

Side note: only 2 months til my birthday ;)

Today we did nnnnooooothing. This morning we slept in, finished Hannah Montana, and ate lunch with our padres. We had some sort of strong chopped meat with pasta. Que fuerte! School was as usual. The most exciting thing I did today was buy a bus ticket for Saturday's early morning trip to Madrid! I can't wait to see my crazy real padres and family! Saturday come soon!!!!

Portugillians

7-17-2010

After about 4 hours of sleep (apparently with vividly loud dreams, sorry Courtney) we awoke before the sun and headed out to the train station. We had no idea what to do when we got there so we waited with an unsuspecting Portuguese (fondly named a Portugillian by my precious roommate). we thought was waiting to get on the train but was really just waiting to smoke his last cigarette. Weren’t we so nice to wait on him? So we found our seats—they were initially taken by a woman and her little boy who we now think snuck onto the train because we saw them later being chased down by an official train personnel. There were such characters on this train: one guy in camo pants and an intense rain coat who was ready if the train happened to drop him off in the middle of the desert or in a boat in the perfect storm, some British guys who we named Johnny and Harry (Harry had a skunk like hair-do), and another guy who said nothing to us on the train but then we saw like 3 times in Coimbra and he was ecstatic to wave to us. So without any announcements of train stations we figured out where to get off through the disaster of triple translation (Portugueseà Spanishà English). Que dificil.

Anyways, the train station turned out to be in the middle of nowhere and they didn’t have any maps so we had no idea how to arrive in the middle of somewhere. So after a difficult conversation with the man at the train station and a collaboration of 2 taxi drivers, we decided it was best to walk for about 2-3km to the middle of the city. Some of the first words you should learn in any language are: Right and left. So when you awkwardly say the name of a place you can understand how they tell you to get there.

So as an act of God and no thanks to the 3 people we asked on the way, we weaved through the narrow streets of Coimbra to finally arrive at the main plaza of Coimbra, Portugal. By the way, plaza in Portuguese is more like Prasha. Confusing. Portuguese sounds like you’re talking to a drunk European who’s attempting to speak Spanish, French, and Italian all at once. I didn’t understand a word of it.

Since we got there around 9am, we stopped into the Santa Cruz Café that used to be a church and still has stained glass. It was weird asking for a menu in Spanish, as if that’s easier to understand. We had a really nice waiter and we had some muffins and coffee before searching out a map at the tourist center a few blocks away.

We found a great park that ran along the Mondego River. The city was so beautiful as the backdrop for the River. The University, cathedral, and tons of houses sat on top of the mountain. They were all packed in there, white with terracotta roofs, so picturesque.

We ran upon a huge grass bear in the park too. There were lots of pretty bridges too, I thought of you Michael. Once was strictly a pedestrian bridge and had water-colored sides that kind of looked like stained glass.

Coolest Pedestrian bridge ever. Michael, you should design bridges like this:

So after discovering a bit of the city and a local market, we started up the mountain towards the university. We stopped half way up and had lunch. We found the safe grilled chicken, soup, and café. The coffee was tiny and probably mixed with dirt. It was so strong I couldn’t even take 3 sips, and I really like strong coffee.

After surviving lunch, we hiked up the rest of the mountain and found the university and cathedral. They were both beautiful.

Portuguese nuns in baseball caps. You don't see that everyday!

Bank of the Holy Spirit: Storing up treasures in Heaven.

We also ventured across a different bridge to visit Dos Pequenitos, a complete city in small form. It cost money to go in so we just observed through the gate but it was precious. By this time in the afternoon we were exhausted from getting up so early so we laid under a tree and took a nap by the river for about an hour.

We eventually made it back across the river to buy dinner to go and headed back to the train station in a taxi because we couldn’t possibly physically walk any further.

We met some sweet Spanish ladies in line for the train and they must have told me 20 times that they were cousins that lived in pueblos right next to each other—25 kilometers by coche. But they were so nice as they later wished us luck 40 times as they got off. We finally made it back to Salamanca by about 12:30, satisfied with an amazing day and still not believing we just jetted on over to Portugal for the day. My life is so surreal right now.

My new favorite flower:

P.S. I'm apparently obsessed with sailboats, bridges, and shoes. Thanks family for rubbing off on me :)