Spain=Amazing!

I just got back onto the ship from Spain! It was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had. I had a blast.

 

My friends and I got off of the boat on Saturday and went straight to the train station. We took a two hour train ride to Seville. It has to be one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Once we got off of the train we needed to find our hostel...we were only about a 15 minute walk, but somehow managed to go in the complete opposite directions, turning it into over a 3 hour walk..with our heavy backpacks with all of our clothes and stuff for the three days we would be there..and with it being about 100 degrees (and no I am not exaggerating). It was miserable, but hey I was in Spain so there was no complaining. We finally got to our hostel and it was nothing like what I was expecting. It was actually nice haha. We had to get two rooms with there being seven of us. By the last night we were all bunking in the same room.. two to a bed. There was a German woman staying in one of the rooms that we had and she snored extremely loud and decided that the heat needed to be on. We were like WTF?!? haha so everyone staying in that room ended up coming to stay in our room. We had the a/c on high and was like a meat locker but was sooo nice ;)

 

I don’t think I have ever walked so much in my entire life. We walked everywhere...and I mean everywhere. Each day we got up and walked around Seville. It is one of the nicest cities I have ever been to with rich culture and amazing people. I could not believe how nice the locals were. When we were on our long walks, which usually turned into us getting lost, one lady got out her map and literally drew a route for us and gave it to us. She was so nice. Even the people who didn’t speak any English were so patient and understanding when it came to the extreme language barrier.

 

We did, however learn the hard way that not all places took Credit Cards and there weren’t many places to exchange American dollars for euros. At one point we were all borrowing money from each other because we needed euros to pay for things, but it all worked out in the long run. So word of advice if you ever travel to Spain, is exchange your money before you go , because it is the biggest pain in the butt to try to do it mid-trip.

 

I did get to see a real Spanish Bull-Fight which was exciting. It was veryyyy intense to say the least. I got there and didn’t really know what to expect. I knew that the matador killed the bull, but I just wasn’t really mentally prepared for it. I actually starting to tear up at one point. I’m glad I went and got to experience the Spanish culture in this sense, but I think one bull fight in this lifetime is plenty for me.   

 

The next day we took the train to Cordoba. It is a great city with some amazing architecture and landmarks to see. We walked to the Mezquita mosque, which is full of history and the detail in the carving is incredible to see. Once we were done walking around the city, we took the train back to Seville and stayed in the hostel for one more night and then got up the next morning to make it back to Cadiz for our last full day.

 

I wish we were able to spend more time in Cadiz, but from what I saw it is a city with a beautiful Cathedral and many little town squares and amazing culture. On our last night in Spain, we went out to celebrate Mackenzie’s 18^th birthday!! It was a lot of fun and a great way to spend our last night.

 

All in all, Spain was amazing and I would go back in a heartbeat :)