Hotel Real De Veas Arcos de la Frontera

Hello again!
As I said previously, I'm going to jump around a bit and not just go day by day in this blog. Therefore, this entry begins on September 19th on a train heading to Cadiz, Spain. This was my first adventure in Spain with my friends outside of Cordoba, my first excursion.
Honestly, I can't even remember exactly how I met all the people I've become close with on this trip. Well, I guess that's not true. I already told you how I met ...

... to communicate. We were able to watch Flamingo dancing at the center in town as there was a special performance that night and the star was a young man who grew up in Cadiz and Loly and her husband have known as a child. After the show we went to lunch with Sergio and Oscar their sons. Oscar is older and speaks a little English and looks just like Jon Vaglio. Crazy. That morning both sons were at a casting call for a movie to be made with Tom ...

... of the sweetest sherry called "Nectar" for 8 Euro. I really didn’t like their regular sherry though. They were pretty cool though. When celebrities or royalty come visit, they have them sign a barrel of Tio Pepe instead of signing a guestbook! And they have a family of mice that are sherry connoisseurs. One of the distillery ...

... something to see. After the show we headed to another white village town called Arcos de la Frontera. This was another cobble stoned hillside town set among 2 churches and a convent. We had a nice lunch and walked around the town. The streets were narrow and tiny and mike did a great job of navigating through the narrow roads (he's getting much better)...we left and started our 2.5 hour drive from there to Nerja our destination for the next 7 days ...

... Benalauria. The restaurant was an old converted olive mill. It was very cool inside and had 3 levels and an outside terrace for dining. We started off outdoors, but the bee's were scaring us so we moved indoors and sat next to a woman who was in her late 70's holding court with her 3 friends. She spoke 7 languages and was really interesting to talk to. It was nice meal. Again, great salads! We headed back to town and decided to eat in and pack up our things ...

... a cafe for some tapas and they had the following offers on the menu: "Housekeepers meatballs", "Larded meats", "Scrambled of beans kills with ham", "Fried little whiping", "Kidneys whit sherry". Ouch my head. Any of these sound appetizing?? We were highly amused..... We stuck to some basic things, rather than attempt to test out what they really mean by these items.

... spoiled!! Of course you know us, we had to rush off because we was time for the first bull run of the day!! We rushed up the steep hillside, and followed the small crowd to the area they had fenced off for the bull to run in. We got there just in time for a great view behind a couple of short old Spainards. We kept hearing chanting and yelling and we could feel the excitment building in the crowd. Kids were running back and forth from one side of the ...

... faces black to portray the African American characters... definitely not ok in the US, but here no one seems to find it offensive. And that was pretty much how we spent the night - walking around from plaza to plaza, meeting new people, and laughing a lot at our awful spanish. We had to stop in a cafe around 3 or 4 in the morning so that we could get some caffeine to keep up with the Spaniards, and when we left at 7, the party was still going strong.

... entire flight (and most of the train ride) And got into Jerez by 11. I took a cab to the house we have here. I hung out for a little, zoned out on some tv, then walked around the city alot. I like Jerez because it's a decently sized city but because there are no new big buildings it feels much more rustic then many other cities. On Sunday most things are shut down though, so most of the time I was just looking at ...

... away (the small backpacks we had on must have given us away - how were we to know?). Took the 4 pm RENFE train to Seville. Went at 140 mph to get us to Seville in less than 2 and 1/2 hours. Checked in. The hotel was far from the city itself but seemed ...