Granada

The first weekend that Nathan was here we went to Granada in the south of Spain.

This will be a picture overload so I'll try to limit my words...

Capilla Real

I have a slight obsession with Queen Isabel so of course we went to see the Capilla Real where the caskets of Isabel, Fernando (her husband), Juana (her daughter) and Felipe (Juana's husband) are.

Queen Isabel

In addition to my slight obsession with Isabel, I also love the doors in Spain. This door met both obsessions. It might be hard to see but on the left there is an F for Fernando and a Y for Isabel. History note: when Isabel was alive her name was spelled "Ysabel" so in all of the old timey churches, statues, etc. her name is spelled with a Y.

Science Museum 

Definitely the best science museum either of us have been too. 

Nathan had some one-on-one time with Einstein.

They had a very neat Escher exhibit.

They had a body exhibit which included this real heart from a whale (maybe a fin whale?). Aahh. So big.

They had a T-Rex exhibit which included robot dinosaurs that moved.....

.....and dinosaur skeletons.

We went up this tower and got a great view of Granada.

 

 

 

Nathan learned about the proper posture while sitting at a computer...

....while I had fun driving a little kid bike around a pretend road.

La Alhambra

The next day we went to La Alhambra - built by the Moors in Spain.

La Alhambra at night

El Día de los Reyes Magos

In addition to Christmas, in Spain they celebrate El Día de los Reyes Magos. The kings come the night of January 5th and kids wake up to presents on the 6th.

We went to the parade in Madrid on the 5th. It was amazing how many people showed up. We didn't get the best view but were able to see most of the floats. Some people were obviously more aware of the crowds than we were and brought ladders to stand on. 

 They had some pretty amazing floats but since we were so far away and behind an enclosed bus stop (so couldn't use flash) I couldn't really get any good pictures.

My favourite float included two big fish...

...and jellyfish (I love jellyfish!)

The three kings were on the last three floats. 

The parade was pretty impressive - it definitely put the Holidazzle to shame. 

A traditional pastry eaten on El Día de los Reyes Magos is a rosca de reyes.

I saw places selling them with cream or chocolate mousse in the center or plain. We bought one with cream and had a nice breakfast of rosca de reyes y cafe. Mmm. 

Feliz Navidad! Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas y Happy New Year!

Nathan returned to the states today after his marvelous visit to Spain. We had a great time traveling and I'm thankful he was able to be here for Christmas y New Years. 

For Christmas we went our for Chinese food (as is our tradition)....

And put our presents under the make-shift cardboard Christmas tree I made. 

For New Years we went to Puerta del Sol to watch the clock change to midnight with huge crowds of people.

To get into the festive spirit we both bought a sparkly hat to wear. 

 In Spain it's tradition to eat 12 grapes along with the 12 chimes of the clock once it's midnight. We had 12 grapes each and were ready to eat them. I'm not sure how (or if?) Spaniards are able to actually do this but we majourly failed. I think we both got to 4 grapes each before we were laughing so hard that we were drooling grape juice all over ourselves. I blame it on the fact that we could only find grapes with seeds. 

We'll try the grapes again next year. :-)

Long weekend travels

Tomorrow morning I am heading to Bilbao y San Sebastian with some mates. Gracias to a Thursday holiday in Spain I get Thursday y Friday off of school - perfect for traveling!

Once I return my new sd card reader will soon arrive and I can post some more photos!

Gracias garbage!

I was running  late to meet someone and walked out my door. Lo and behold, I spied this map laying on top of the garbage across the street. How could I pass that up?

So I grabbed the map, brought it in and then ran to meet  my amiga. 

I question who threw this great Spain map away but appreciate that I was the first to spy  it and that it is in pretty good condition.

It now hangs on  my wall above my love seat. It makes my apartment look much more homey to have something on the wall and the fact that it was free makes it even better.

Other things Jessika has awkwardly spied next to the garbage and taken as her own... a vase, a drawer (to keep my shoes in..) and a wooden crate that had been used to deliver fruit (and now holds yarn).

Aceitunas. Me gusta!

One day this tent appeared in the plaza right near my casa.  It was an interactive educational tent to teach people about olives. I'm pretty sure it was geared towards kids (colouring pages, tiny benches for the informational cartoony video, etc.), but I went in anyways.

I walked in and was handed a bag with three cans of olives so even though it was definitely for children at least I walked away with free olives!

One can is full of olives stuffed with anchovies. Yuck. I'm saving those for Nathan to eat.

Toledo. p4 - Nature walk!

Either this wasn't in Toledo when I was there or I was lame and didn't realize.

I was on my way back to the bus station when I saw a sign for a nature trail. 

Luckily my bus ticket back to Madrid was open ended so I could leave at any time. 

Off to explore and  go on a relaxing fall walk!

The trail went around the outside of Toledo so for most of the walk I had a view of the impressive city walls.

Could Toledo be more spectacular?

As I walked on the trail I came across tons of random ruins.

There was a tiny tiny dark stairway so I went to the top of this to get a better view of the river and city.

These ruins looked  like they were turned into a community garden. And what's that I see? Rain barrels? Someone loves Mother Earth.

There were a ton of ducks in the river. If I go back I'll be sure to bring some bread to feed them.

Now for some two photos of Jessika standing awkwardly.

I'm hoping that when Nathan comes to visit we have time to walk the entire trail.I was on it for a long time and stopped walking as I realized I was near the bus stop. It'd be fun to walk the entire trail.