Madrid

    This morning we woke up and took a cab to the train station where we would ride 4 hours to Madrid. Loading the train with my humongous bag was yet again obnoxious, but its fine because I have alot of clothing I get to choose from every day. The train ride wasnt all that bad because it was a combination of sleeping, reading my book "Bossypants" by Tina Fey (hilarious, get it at target now) and watching Morning Glory in spanish with spanish subtitles. Once we finally arrived in Madrid, we taxied to our new hotel and were greeted by air conditioning, a man who took my suitcase from my hand and a bottle of champagne. Amen. We settled into our hotel room, changed into shorts to bear to heat and headed out to explore Madrid in the short amount of time we are here. We decided we just wanted to walk around the main areas of town and see the famous plazas. First I needed to eat however, so we asked the concierge and followed his advice to a cute tapa restaurant for sangria and meat/cheese on bread. We then strolled through a few famous parks and plazas and enjoyed the culture of this city, we also stopped once for gelato. We went in and out of different stores and mom got a spanish flag (she has been looking for one all trip), and I bought myself a stuffed animal bull with a spanish flag bow. His name is Juan Pablo and I love him. I also bought a pretty hand painted fan because everyone uses them here because it is almost as hot as literally sitting bare-assed on the sun itself. Almost. We then walked to the famous Palace in Madrid where the king and queen lived and every room is extremely large and has hand painted gold babies on the walls and about one chair in each room. It was cool to see and pretend to live in such a fancy place for 12 minutes. 

       I wonder what my life would be like if I lived in a place like this. Hide and Seek would be totally legit. We walked around a little more and then headed back to our hotel. We lounged around and drank champagne and watched Sex in the City in Spanish and had room service delivered. A nice calm night in Madrid, and the last night together with my momma. Tomorrow I am onto my adventure in Oveido.

Alhambra

    Our second day in Granada began early and we headed off to the Alhambra for our 8:30am entrance time. The Alhambra is a huge complex that includes gardens where the kings used to spend their leisure time and big palace type buildings where they sat and contemplated big decisions (I assume). I also have no idea if this beautiful collection of stones and mosaics is at all related to the water brand. We walked around for a while and enjoyed the prettyness of everything and luckily saw everything before it got to be too hot.

    After walking around the Alhambra, we took the bus home and had tapas and claras and sangrias in the plaza outside our hotel. In Granada, they give you free tapas with every drink you get. Brilliant idea. Speaking of brilliant ideas, I had one for what we should do with the rest of our afternoon. After lunch, we went to these old baths where you get into freezing cold water, and then boiling hot water and then a pool of just regular temperature water and enjoy the soothing atmosphere of the bath caves with soft music and candle light. As if this wasnt enough, in the middle of your bathing experience, a spanish gay man will come get you and say its time for your relaxing massage. It was one of the best massages I have ever had, and I have had a whopping two. But still, it was amazing and extremely relaxing and the best way to spend the afternoon. Pure genius. After enjoying our baths and saunas and overall relaxation paradise, it was time for us to leave. We went back to our hotel and fell right asleep because we were too relaxed to do anything else. 
     When we woke up, we went back to the cute little plaza where we had lunch the day before and enjoyed a nice dinner accompanied by claras and churros con chocolate (churro type donuts dipped in hot chocolate). We then headed home to pack up and prepare for yet another journey through Spain, next stop: Madrid.

Granada

     The first day in Granada began at 5 o'clock in the morning where we had to go to the airport to fly into Granada. When we arrived, we took the public bus to the plaza where our hotel was located because it was cheaper than taking a taxi but hauling my gigantic suitcase onto a public bus was close to the worst thing ever, aside from working at Mcdonalds or something. We finally got to our hotel but we werent allowed to check into our room yet because it was still obscenely early, so we went across the street for breakfast instead. We then went to the hotel to get clothes out of our suitcases to change into for the day which involved awkwardly unzipping and scrounging through my suitcase to find some shorts (because it was 8,000 degrees) in the middle of the lobby. When we were changed and returned our suitcases to behind the reception desk, we took the local bus to this area of town called Albayzin which is known to be the old muslim quarter of Granada. It was across a valley from the famous Alhambra and had a stunning view of the historical monument. 

    We wandered through the area filled with locals who went to the market to pick up their daily meat to cook dinner, it was adorable to see all of the hobbling little spanish women passing each other and say hi to everyone. It was a cute little local area and it was refreshing to not be surrounded by white tourists. 

   We then took the public bus back down to our neighborhood and had lunch and sangria in a local plaza. Being in Granada is a nice relaxing break from all of the insane walking and pretty sights we have been taking in.  We got off the bus and on our way to lunch, we stopped in a church that was dedicated to and housed the crypts of Princess Isabella and Prince Ferdinand (the people who funded Christopher Columbus' trip). It's nice to see so much history around and mom was incredibly happy to be living everything that she teaches to her students.

    After lunch, we strolled through the plaza and peeked into the street shops full of random spanish souvenirs. We headed home for our daily siesta. After waking from our siesta, we went out for tapas and more sangria at a recommended restaurant around the corner from our hotel. By the way, our hotel is pretty cute and it has a balcony with a view of the Alhambra where we can watch the sun both rise and set.

   After our tapas dinner, we went home to get ready for our nightly activities. We were going on an adventure to see flamenco dancing in the very same place where Michelle Obama herself watched flamenco dancing. We got all dolled up and went down to the hotel lobby to meet the woman who escorted us to the tour bus full of an array of people from different areas of the world, however the majority of the people on the bus were from Asia and had their mouths covered with the kindof masks that only doctors dealing with diseases should wear. We were on our way to the flamenco show in which a complimentary sangria was provided, win. This show had some of the most talented and amazing dancing I had ever seen and we were sitting so close to the sweaty performers it was intoxicating. The show lasted for about an hour and was extremely fun to see and it felt like a necessity when visiting Spain. 

Clearly, I was made to be a Flamenco Dancer

  After the wonderful show and getting a wonderful view of the Alhambra lit up at night, we went home and went to sleep because we are now permanently exhausted. 

La Playa

   Our last day in Barcelona was full of things to see, we started our morning earlier than the previous with the Casa Batllo: another one of Gaudi's masterpieces. This house is made of swirly walls and blue tiles resembling an ocean. The handrails feel and look like waves and the walls of the house look like fish scales. Every part of the house was inspired by nature and what I can only imagine as some serious psychedelics. The Casa Batllo reminds of Alice in Wonderland and some sort of crazy dream, but it was really interesting to see all of the small details that were payed so much attention to. 

View of Casa Batllo from across the street

railing made to look like an ocean

     After the Casa Batllo, we took the metro down to the marina for an afternoon on the beach. We walked around the shopping center there and I got some fun bracelets, and then we had lunch at this place called pan & co (meaning bread and company). We had sandwichs on baguettes and beer and continued our walk across the wave shaped bridge crossing the marina. 

  We then walked over to the Barceloneta Beach and walked along the water until we ran into a beachy sandy bar and had sangria and daiquiris.

Daiquiri on the beach

   After strolling along the beach for a while, we stopped into a recommended bar according to the guide book we carry around. It said it had a hippie feel so of course we were game, we got there and it was empty because it was 2 in the afternoon but we had a clara anyway. 

    Mom wanted to go back to one of the stores she liked near our neighborhood to buy some ceramics so we went in different directions because I preferred to siesta. After she came back to the hotel and lounged around for a little bit, we walked through our neighborhood to a recommended restaurant called Metic de Gotic where you choose what kind of meat you want and the sauces and then they cook it, it was very tasty. Celebrating our last night in Barcelona, we had a bottle of champagne and enjoyed a lovely meal before packing and getting up at the ungodly hour of 5 to catch a plane to Granada. 

   I realize through these pictures it seems as though all I do is drink, but its okay because I am 21 and in Spain with my momma. That being said, I promise we do many other very cool things.

Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia

Ceiling of the Sagrada Familia

Stairs up the Sagrada Familia

   Barcelona is an incredibly fun city and I could easily see why people come and then never leave. Too bad I love home too much to ever be this far away, but I do love this country. Our next day in Barcelona, we enjoyed sleeping in a little and then took a taxi to the Sagrada Familia. This is an exceptional piece of architecture built by Antoni Gaudi and it defines the city of Barcelona, everyone says that if you can see nothing else, see this. It is so complex and the details of the rock are unique and unlike anything I've ever seen. It also has some of the most amazing stained glass that I have ever seen. 

     
     After going to the Sagrada Familia, we took the metro back to our neighborhood and met up with friends of ours from home, John and Christina. John went to and used to work at Athenian and has known our family since we have been there. Their son, Jak, also is one of my campers so their whole family is around and they happened to be in Barcelona the same time as us. We went out for tapas and claras (beer with this lemonade stuff, its awesome) and he gave me all these places to see throughout Spain. He studied here and lived here for a couple years so he knows everything, so it was really fun and helpful so have him around to tell me what everything was. We walked around the Barric Gotic and enjoyed the sunny afternoon. 

Christina, Me and John with our clara's

     After a long afternoon of walking around, mom and I went home for a siesta at like 6:30pm. We woke up and it was raining to we opted to stay in and enjoy the complimentary wine provided by the hotel on our balcony. 

Spanish Living

   Our first full day in Barcelona started with a historical walking tour of the Barri Gotic which was full of narrow spanish looking streets and alley ways mostly free of cars. We stopped in one of the pretty plazas with a fountain designed by Gaudi (The most famous architect and artist of Barcelona). We had tapas and sangria, and I ordered both of these in spanish. I think my ability to speak this native language is going pretty smoothly, I translate everything for mom and I ask everything in spanish. It's hard though because I will ask something and be confident in my correct way of asking, then they will respond in really fast and lisped spanish and I'll be like "yeah no. no idea what he said." Its incredibly useful. Overall, me turning into a spaniard is going pretty well. We then went into the famous cathedral of Barcelona, which was beautiful, and we walked around the block surrounding the church. There is so much incredible architecture that is everywhere in these cities and its so fascinating for us to see, it makes me wonder what foreigners come to the U.S. to see. I mean we have cool things but since I've always lived there I wonder what is so great to see in the U.S. that other places dont have, physically I mean, not like liberty and justice for all or whatever. Also, side note: I have no idea the difference between a church, a cathedral and a basilica. So I will use them randomly throughout my stories.

     We sat and had coffee at a cafe next to the cathedral and listened to an elderly lady belt out some soprano notes that felt very old romanesque. Walking throughout the neighborhood was fun because it was so easy to get lost and run into so many pretty things about the city. We turned around a corner and saw the remnants of what used to be Roman walls from when Rome controlled the city. They are still standing from daaaays ago and it was very cool to see the physicality of such rich history, mom especially loved this. We went through another plaza that is known for being the political heart of the city where many protests are held, there was even a protest for something or other as we walked through. This is the kind of city that I love to shop in because there is so much color, one of my favorite stores called Desigual that is in both New York and San Francisco was started in Barcelona and there is a Desigual store on literally every corner, kinda like Starbucks. I enjoyed some shopping at different spanish stores and chuckled at the language barrier in terms of translations and just overall wording. On the walls of Desigual was "smile is great happy time", and my all time favorite was a shirt in a store that read "smile for me, just another time, click, what a great picture!!, its easy with a handsome like you, thanks baby!!". I died. We were tired and trying to catch up from the craziness that was Paris so we went back to our hotel for a siesta (The spanish take siestaing very seriously and it is a fantastic way of living). After relaxing on our balcony overlooking La Rambla and napping, we went out for dinner at the recommended Los Caracoles, which means snails. I didnt get snails, although we did get really good paella (traditional spanish food) and this white asparagus that is also traditional here and was actually quite tasty. After a fine spanish meal, we meandered home and called it a night.

Lady Singing in front of the Cathedral

View from atop the Cathedral

Courtyard inside the Cathedral

Roman Walls

Los Caracoles

Plaza & Fountain that Gaudi built

Spain.

Visuals

Water Lillies

Restaurant at top of Orsay Museum

Arc de Triomphe in the daylight

The climb to the top of the Arc de Triomphe

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower up close

Champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower

Paris beginning to light up

Eiffel Tower lit up

Eiffel Tower's Twinkling Lights

Jim Morrison's Grave

Moulin Rouge