Europe 2008 - Day 6

Ola Everybody

Even though it has been really convenient to have computers in the hostels we have been staying in, they are so slow! making it difficult to upload pictures, etc.

Our second day in Spain was spent walking through more gardens and visiting the Alcazar palace. It was really beautiful dating back to the 7th century. Very interesting with all of the different influences on the architecture, detailed hand carvings in the doors and walls.
Outside in the beautiful gardens, Chris was pooed on by a duck flying overhead. We took some great pictures of this and Im glad it was him and not me!

That night we went on a free tapas tour organized by the hostel. We went to two tapas bars and had typical sevilla food - some sort of sliced and deep fried eggplant with a cheese garlic sauce on top.. mmm! We´ve also been drinking lots of red wine, sangria, and beer. At The next tapa bar we had calamari, which was really tasty and then to end the night, we went to a flamenco show (for free) in what looked like an underground garage. It was pretty fun and Chris took a nice video, which he got caught for (we were told before hand-no videos) and in the video the woman shakes her finger at him. Haha. Overall, we noticed that Sevilla is much more touristy than Madrid (and commercialized). There were tons of tourist souvenier shops and a Starbucks on every street corner it seemed like. We never noticed this in Madrid and are glad that we spent some time there.

The next morning we got up at 5am to take the train to Granada. We arrived around 10 am. This train wasn´t as fancy as the highspeed train we took from Madrid to Sevilla. It was more VIA rail like and the scenery was really beautiful to look at as the train wound through the mountains en route. We arrived at the hostel, relaxed, and spent some time trying to plan the latter part of the trip. This hostel is really authentic and ornate. Granada in general has a much different atmosphere than other parts of Spain we have seen, mostly influenced by arabic and the middle east. There are lots of shops around the hostel selling gypsy-like clothing in all of the rich colours that I like with sequins and jewels. And so yesterday - we mostly just walked around the city checking things out. We Found a local market and bought some fresh fruit, cheese, meat, etc. We went and checked out a couple of monasteries, walked by another cathedral. For dinner, we stayed and ate at the hostal since we were pooped by 9pm. For 5 Euros, we got a drink, unlimited salad and paella, and a dessert. Tasty! The paella was really great, and was cooked in this massive paella pan above a gas flame. (Chris took a picture).
After that we went to bed.

There is this palace - the Allahambra that is the main tourist attraction around here. We are not sure whether or not to visit since we have already seen a few. We are thinking of taking a hike through the mountains later this morning.

The weather has been fabulous - 32 degrees in Sevilla and likewise here. We are starting to get some colour!

We are going to try and upload some photos on facebook. Its not working out so well at the hostal, so we might try at an internet cafe.

Hope everything is well back home. Miss you and love you all.

Jenna and Chris xo

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