The Rents in Spain!

I had the privilege to spend 11 glorious days traveling Andalucia with my parents. You have no idea how refreshing it was to see them. We enjoyed many tapas (small dishes), flamenco, RAIN (hah), La Alhambra, and our own company. WE decided that the theme of our vacation was "cerrado" which means "closed" in spanish. This makes sense because basically everywhere we went everything seemed to be closed because of local holidays, international holidays, national holidays, or just the spanish decided they did not want to open, hah. I still don't think I am accustomed to the Spanish view of time...ah well.

Throughout the 11 days we did some major sight seeing of all the things that were open, ha. We hit up Malaga, Ronda, Granada, Marbella (super rich harbor), Tarifa, Bolonia, Vejer de la Frontera, Cadiz, El Puerto de Santa Maria (my town), and Seville. If I were to explain all of it, it would take forever. Some of my favorite parts were seeing the Alhambra in Granada which is an amazing moorish fortress built in 1527. It was built to mirror paradise on earth and here are some pics of it.

Fountain

Place called General Life

A theatre in the Alhambra

Mom and I walking through the Alhambra

The gardens en La Alhambra
This is Tarifa, it is Europe's number one place for surfing, windsurfing, and kitesurfing.

Visiting Cadiz for me was so much fun. Cadiz was discovered in 1100 B.C. and is known to be the oldest city in all of Europe. Cadiz is super close to my home town and I had been there a couple of times. However, seeing it through my parents eyes really showed all the amaziness of it and how much there is to do. I have decided if I stay another year I would definitely commute from Cadiz, no doubt.

Seville was the last leg of our trip. Seville is trully an amazing city. It has so much history behind every corner. I wish we could have spent more time there but it was just enough to see the major sights. One story worthy of telling, HA. A little bit of Spanish culture for you. The Spanish technically celebrate Christmas on the 6th of january. They do this to celebrate when the three wise men (los reyes magos - the magic kings) arrived to give presents to Jesus. The night of the 5th the three magic kings roam around the town with a parade and everybody comes to watch. Anywho, we were already told not to drive in Sevilla but we thought we thought better. OH how wrong we were. We arrived on the 5th DURING the parade. PS. Sevilla is quiet a large city. As we are following our internet directions and I am saying, "Dad, turn left here" we look up as cops are blocking the road telling us "NEGATIVE" (my personal addition). From that point on I had my nose to the map yelling out turns and street trying to find our hotel. We basically drove all the way around Sevilla, even through streets where we had to turn our mirrors in to be able to squeeze through, that was scary. Finally, we decided that we had to stop and eat and wait for all the craziness to stop. Yea, it was nuts.

We got to see a flamenco show in Seville. It was very interesting and for the first part I think my parents were a little weirded, aka my dad...but then they really started to enjoy it.

This was found in the cathedral below and I just thought it was an interesting photo.

La Catedral de Santa Maria in Seville. The largest Gothic cathedral and the 3rd largest in the world.

La Plaza de Espana in Seville. It's made of ceramic and I believe for the '92 expo.

All together it was an amazing vacation and SO good to spend time with my parents. I miss having those people that are close to you and truly know you, ya know. I am blessed with two amazing parents who love the Lord and for some reason love me, yesssss! Love you guys.