Hey, what's up? I'm finally back in the U.S. after my 2.5 week vacation in Spain. It was amazing! Basically I need to make more money to afford to go back there again.
School ended easily and graduation was what it was (got a great seat though) and then on the 29th we were off to Spain. Madrid, Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada, Barcelona, then back to Madrid. At Madrid we visited the royal palace and the art museums like the Prado, the Reina Sophia, and the Thysson Bornamisso. We were present for a few holidays, mainly May Day and Dos de Mayo, a Madrid holiday commemorating an uprising against the French during Napolean's time. We also took a trip to Segovia and did football-related stuff: touring the Santiago Bernabeu and attending an Atleti match. Madrid was definitely my favorite place. I absolutely love the metro system there, and people actually spoke Spanish to me. Unlike those other places... Anyway we then went to Sevilla by bus. Cheapest and best scenic bus ride ever - like 18 Euro for a 6 hour bus ride! Sevilla, since we were in the old part, was very touristy. Lots and lots of french-speaking tourists. As the days went on, the tourists increased, as expected. And Sevilla got kind of hot until it rained. Which ended up sucking for the time we were in Granada.
But first, after seeing the Cathedral and the Alcazar and the Plaza of Espana (definitely check that out if you are in Sevilla), we went through Cordoba to get to Granada. We went to see the Mezquita, and we would have seen more if we could have stored our luggage somewhere. But all of the lockers were full by the time we got there, since they shut down the lockers in the train station and the bus station had like 15, so we took our luggage with us to the Mezquita and took turns sitting outside with it. Anyway we then were in Granada to see the Alhambra, which required us waking up at 6 AM in order to get an early spot in the line to buy tickets. Unfortunately the rain made it quite cold in Granada - maybe 50 F or so. The Alhambra is huge, though.
After Granada we headed into Barcelona. We had hoped to get a train ticket, but it was full by the time we tried to book, so we took a 13-hour bus. Basically we didn't get too much sleep. We went through Valencia, though, and it basically looked like a city. And there was Catalan on the signs. Catalan, by the way, looks like a mixture of Spanish and French, with some words looking like combinations such as "sortida" for exit. In Barcelona there was a lot of Gaudi things, such as Park Guell and Casa Battico. The City History museum was so cool, especially when we could walk around some of the Roman ruins. The souvenir shop owners in Barcelona were insane. Basically it's impossible to buy anything without being bothered first. Well my only souvenirs from Barcelona were from the FC Barcelona store and from an El Corte Ingles, which is the huge department store chain in Spain, and at that place I bought a CD for a Madrid-based band.
So everything was going well until the "last" night. Well it was supposed to be the last night except we were robbed and my friend's passport was stolen. That fucker had no idea how much of a disaster that was. We were scheduled to fly out the next morning, so we had hoped we could quickly get a passport and catch the flight. However, we found out that the embassy was closed because of a holiday - a Saint's holiday on May 15. So luckily the Madrid hotel that we stayed in before had a free room for the night and we stayed an extra day as well as paid a shit load of money to get a new flight home. But after 3 flights, we finally made it home.
So I am home, and I am doing fine. I have things to catch up on, as usual, but it really does feel nice to be home and especially eat non-restaurant food.
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