March turned out to be the craziest month of my life, and when I say crazy I mean it in the best way possible. It kicked off with the loss of my crutches and the boot, which I had no regrets with shoving them in the back of my closet, and from there the fun began. I managed to visit several different cities across Spain and a few in Ireland and came back to Barcelona with a life time of memories.
The madness began with my first trip the first week of March, three days after being released from my boot. I took a ten hour train ride to Granada with a friend of mine from the program and we later took another over to Sevilla. Granada proved to be a real test on my foot, as the city was all on a hill and we had to walk everywhere to get anywhere. After struggling through a ten hour train ride (we had some wine to help us through it), walking proved to be much needed.
The city was quite old and small, with a very picturesque feeling to it. I almost felt like I was in one of Monet's impressionist paintings, the way the shrubs and trees were decorated in the hills. Everything was so green and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. We dumped our things off in our hole-in-the-wall hostel and spent the day touring the city. We ended up taking a visit to the Alhambra, which took one hell of a walk to get to, and had our breath taken away by the prestige of the palace and hillsides. I couldn't stop taking pictures and by the end of the day the battery in my camera had died.
 |
| View over Granada |
 |
| Streets in Granada |
 |
| Alhambra |
Later that night we went tappa hopping, which consisted of walking from
tapa bar to tapa bar to sample different tapas and ended our night in a hooka bar. The tapas were all amazing and proved to be the perfect dish with beer. After dinner, we treated our self to gelato, which is to die for in Spain, and then called it a night.
The next day we took off on a train to Sevilla which turned out to be my favorite city in Spain. It had a very southern feeling to it and people were incredibly friendly. We took time to visit Plaza España, the Plaza de Torros, the gardens and other parts of Sevilla. The town wasn't too big so two days was plenty to tour the city.
 |
| Row Boating around Plaza España |
Our first full day in Sevilla we enjoyed a nice row boat ride around Plaza España, that is until it started pouring down rain, and we had to frantically paddle back to the dock. People huddled together underneath the Plaza to keep dry and cheered for us as we rowed back. By the time we were out of the boat the rain had stopped and were left sopping wet. It was a bit unfortunate, but I enjoyed the adventure nonetheless.
 |
| Flamenco Dancers |
I had an incredible time our first night in Sevilla. Marisa and joined our hostel in a trip to a Flamenco show at a private showing and watched a male and female dance flamenco. Their passion and agility was amazing and we stayed after to get our picture taken with them. Afterwards, we made our way to a bar along the river that had a live band and the whole bar was dancing flamenco. Women and men stood together happily on the floor clapping their hearts out and I could feel the Andalusian culture in the air. It was a night to remember.
 |
| Plaza de Torros |
We ended our time in Sevilla the following night with a tapa tour through our hostel where our guide told us about the meaning behind tapas and how they are a part of the Spanish culture. We were joined by two other couples from different hostels, one from Canada and the other from Germany and ended the night with a two hour conversation about each others hometowns. It was interesting to hear about the way people live in different countries and I left Andalusia feeling very cultured.
My foot was sore and achy after I got back, but I regretted nothing. I had some great adventures in the south of Spain and from there only more were to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment