Sevilla-my favorite city in Spain

Two weekends ago we decided to go to my favorite city in all of Spain. Last time that I was here with my high school spanish class, we went to Sevilla and I fell in love with the city. Needless to say, I was pumped to return to this city and I was really excited to both see Sevilla and to spend an entire weekend away from Madrid. We traveled by bus since that is the cheapest way to get around Spain and we left Madrid at 11. The bus ride lasted for 6.5 hours and although we tried to sleep, there is only so much sleeping you can do on a bus ride. We got there sometime around 6 am and after getting about a max of 1 hour of sleep we stumbled off the bus and tried to find our hostel.

Kelli and I on the bus as we are leaving Spain. We look ready to sleep a little right? Yeah right.

When we first got there it was way too early to check into our hostel, but we dumped our bags off their and then hit the city while running on 1 hour of sleep. This is the wall that used to surround Sevilla. Here are Katie, Kelli and I in front of the wall. Can you tell we are a little slap happy? lol, I love these girls!

Katie showing off her excelent model poses in front of the weall

Kelli was so tired she decided to take a nap on the sidewalk

A beautiful building we found as we wandered through Sevilla

We eventually stumbled into a park and there was a pretty river with cool bridges on it. Tyler told me it was part of a beautification project for all of Spain. Here are Katie and Kelli in front of one of the bridges. It was funny because we ran into a bunch of fishermen on this river and they all had super long fishing poles that are meant for catching large fish in deep waters. We decided that there must be only one fishing pole manufacturere in Sevilla so they all have the same goofy poles.
My all time favorite picture of Nik as he stretches in front of another bridge

Fortunately by about 10 we found this ledge and we decided it would make an excellent bed for us until we checked into the hostel in another 2 hours.

We took a 3 hour nap once we checked in and were ready to see Sevilla again. We found that there are lots of carriages for tours of the city.

The group minus Kelli in a Plaza that we found

This is an old hospital that has no been turned into the parliment building for Andalusia (Sevilla is the capitol of the southern region of Spain).

We finally got to this beautiful piece of architecture. This is La Giralda, a famous cathedral of the city and my favorite part of Sevilla. The view from the top is breathe taking!

This is what the statue at the top of the building looks like.

Once you climb 39 stories (there are no stairs though, just ramps-this was so that the king and royalty could climb the tower using horses and not have to climb it themselves. pretty cool huh?)


A part of the cathedral.


A view from the top of La Giralda-this is the Plaza de los toros or bulls stadium.

Another view from the top-the two spires on the left are the Plaza de Espana which is absolutely gorgeous.

Nik, Tyler, Katie and I at the top of La Giralda

Looking down at the courtyard in the center of the cathedral. Katie, Kelli, Nik, and Tyler resting after the long trek up and down the tower

Another beautiful building in Sevilla-I love this cityAfter La Giralda, we went to the royal palace. It had islamic influences in the building and it was sooo beautiful.
Look at the details on the wall!

There were these gorgeous purple flowers all over the place and they covered the walls in this courtyard

Kelli and I in front of the pretty purple flowers

The outside gardens though were the best part. I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life.They had these cool flowers that were yellow in the center and then slowly turned to orange on the outside. It was like a rainbow flower.

There were even peacocks in the garden!

It was a maze of flowers and greenery. I loved it!This was an awesome fountain that looked like a moss covered hill.Next we went to Plaza de Espana. For all of you Star Wars fans out there, in the second movie, a scene of the princess in Nabou (sp?) was shot in this plaza.

It is so gorgeous here!

Katie showing off her ballerina skills in the Plaza

We found a plaque that represented Madrid, so it was only natural to take a picture of the group in front of it.

The girls in front of the fountain in the center of the plaza. Yay Sevilla!

Katie and Nik trying to show their sexy faces and failing miserably at it.

We soon returned to the hostel and got ready to go out for the night. Before we went though, Nik decided to give himself a haircut. But we only had one bathroom and 5 people who had to get ready. It made for an interesting experience. The best part was how proud Nik was though of cutting his own hair. He is now known as the barber of Sevilla.

We found out that there was a festival for the patron saint of spain and there was actually a bond fire in the park. We are pretty sure we won't see another bon fire for the rest of the summer here so it was a nice reminder of home.

Whenever we go out Katie and Nik are always a riot together and we have the best time. This picture pretty much sums up everything.

Overall we had an amazing time and the next day we were on to Cordoba to see the famous Mosque.

International Klutz

I've always known that I have been somewhat coordinationally challenged throughout my life. I am always running into tables and stubbing my toes and tripping over my own feet so I've come to terms with the fact that I am a klutz. I mean for heaven sakes about a year ago I tripped over a tent pole and broke my elbow. That definitly qualifies as a klutz at home. However, yesterday I proved that I am an international klutz.

Before we take the kids upstairs to go to class we all play outside on the playground. I was chasing around one of my students because he was trying to tickle me and I tried to dodge to the right when I realized that I was not in the right shoes to be dodging anywhere and I was losing my balance. I flung my arms out and tried as best I could to regain my balance, but I knew it was a lost cause and I hit the ground hard. I looked down and saw that I had scrapped my knee, which is something I haven't done for the past 8 years. I felt like a 5 year old again, horsing around with friends and then getting injured on the playground before school starts. It wasn't that bad of a scrap, but my knee was bloody and I was trying to play it off like it wasn't a big deal but all of the kids kept asking me about my knee to see if I was ok. Eventually my coworker saw my knee too and we both had to leave the kids to clean up my injury.

Needless to say there are some things that I wish weren't international and my klutziness is one of them. If that could somehow have stayed at home in my room then I would have loved it. Unfortunately apparently being a klutz is a universal trait and even when you are thousands and thousands of miles away from home, you can still scrap your knee.

Segovia

Last Saturday we decided to go to Segovia. Kelli and I took a bus there and on the bus we met a guy named Andrew who was staying in Madrid for the summer. He found a program online where he stayed with a family and for 3 hours a day taught their children how to speak english. He was a really cool guy and since he was traveling alone, Kelli and I invited him to walk around Segovia with us. Segovia was really different than Toledo, it was a much bigger city and was much newer also. When we first pulled into Segovia it looked just like any normal city. There were lots of businesses and restaurants and nothing was really special. We found out though that the beautiful part of Segovia is the older part located in the center of the city.

There is a wall encircling this older part of the city and it almost looks like a fortress when you walk up to it. There is an aqueduct that runs into this older part of town and it is 2000 years old. The aqueduct is one of the three important things to see in Segovia.

Here is Kelli in front of the aqueduct. The water is caught in the top part of the aqueduct and it is an enormous and long structure.

Kelli and I in front of the Aqueduct

Here is where the aqueduct meets the wall surrounding the older part of the city. It is so beautiful.

Here I am at the top of the wall where the aqueduct meets the wall. As you can see, it stretches out for a long way.

Once we entered the older part of the city, we saw beautiful buildings like this one.

I love going to cities like Toledo and Segovia because it is like we have been transported back in time

The second "must see" in Segovia is the Cathedral. It was a beautiful building. I liked it a lot better than the one in Toledo

The last thing that you have to see in Segovia is the Alcazar or Castle. It is massive!

While we were there Nik finally caught up with us.

The Alcazar was absolutely gorgeous.

Here is Kelli with her knight in shining armor (haha-get it?)

This is the royal bed of Isabela. It was teeny. Apparently they didnt have King size beds back then.

Nik is trying his hardest to pull this cannon ball out of the cannon, but it just isnt working

There was an outer wall to the castle that had a great view of the mountains outside the city.
We also found a well outside. The boys decided to have a spitting contest to see who's spit could reach the bottom first. Yeah, we're a real classy group Spain has really cultured us.
Nik, Adam, Kelli and I in the reflection of the water in the well. We dont really know why the water is so dirty. Adam guessed that it was a well full of people's spit and since the palace is really old and lots of people visit it then that is a lot of spit!
When we looked down from the outside there was this gorgeous garden below the wall.
In the Alcazar there is also a massive tower. I don't think I have ever climbed so many stairs before. They were very steep steps and the staircase spiralled up to the top of the tower. Whenever we ran into someone coming down the stairs they were always encouraging us to keep going. In turn when we went down the stairs we encouraged the other tourists who were climbing the stairs. It was like a mini pep talk hub. Here are Nik and I peaking around the corner of the staircase we were hoping to be done soon, but this was only the half way point.

Once we reached the top we realized it was totally worth it. The view was gorgeous and we got to see the entire city and then some.

This is Segovia-birds eye view. The big building on the right is the Cathedral. You can see at the wall surrounding the city at the edge of the tree line too.

Once we climbed the tower Kelli wanted to get a view of the castle from far away so we took a hike through the woods and found this view of the castle. Like I said before, it is massive.

I love Segovia!