Spanish Adventure

  Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Granada, Gibralter, Spain
Monday, October 2, 2006

After Paris we went to Barcelona for 3 days.

Street Performers

It was our first time on our own and we got lost coming from the airport to the Hotel! We eventually found it but only after lugging our huge backpacks around for 45 minutes trying to find it! Luckily Kara knows some high school Spanish because I was totally lost! Of all the hotels we stayed at, I liked this one the best. They gave you free drinks whenever you wanted and they had a snack bar that was open all day. So we just ate breakfast and lunch there and it save us quite a bit of money. We visited the Aquarium, which was way over priced. (the Seattle aquarium is way cooler) The Picasso museum was absolutely fabulous because we got to see his work from beginning to end. The transformation he went through was so vast. Since Picasso is from Spain, his work is everywhere. Every time I saw it, I loved it!

Mont Serrah

We visited Montserrat and thought we could see all of Spain! We also got to just walk around and enjoy everything that is Barcelona from the street performers to the flower markets; it is such a busy city!
Madrid was a stop we made for about 2 days. We saw the Museo del Prado, which was so huge that we only made it through half of the first and the 2nd floor in 3 hours!

The Royal Palace in Madrid

The Royal Palace took us about a day to get through because we bought the headphones that tell you about its history.

Botanical Gardens in Madrid

In Madrid we were getting homesick so we decided to have an "American day" and we ate at the Hard Rock Café and watched Pirates of the Caribbean. One night we ate at a restaurant and made friends with the people that worked there. So we spent the evening trying to interpret Spanish! It was so fun and I gave away one of my bracelets to one of our new friends so she would always remember us!

Row Row Row Your Boat

We rented rowboats one day and spent an afternoon rowing around.
Our last stop in Spain was Malaga. It's on the Costa del Sol and we spent a week there. It was so hot and we had no air-conditioning!

Riding the bus!

We stayed at Kara's timeshare so we had a kitchen and were able to keep some food for breakfast and lunch in our room. During our time there we visited a crocodile farm,

Gator farm in the Costa Del Sol

laid by the pool, laid on the beach, saw the Caves of Nerja, went Salsa dancing. (Which I was surprisingly good at!)We spent a day in Granada where we saw the Alahambra.

Granada

Of all of the palaces I saw on my trip this was the most amazing. It was not lavish like the others but it was very open and water was a big theme so their were ponds and streams all over. The gardens overlooked Granada and were filled with exotic plants.

The Alahambra

We spent another day visiting Gibraltar. We actually weren't interested in seeing it but my dad mentioned they had crazy apes there so we decided to go.

The Rock of Gibralter

Gibraltar was interesting because it's a British territory in Spain.

What a View!

So when you go there you have to have your passports and it feels like you are leaving the country. The rock of Gibraltar was huge and the apes my dad was talking about roam freely!

Crazy Monkeys

I got lots of pictures! It actually reminds me of Italy a little bit!
Stay tuned because we went back to Paris!