En España

Wow! What a whirlwind! We have been in Spain now for the past couple of weeks, and have been thoroughly enjoying every minute of it! As Sean mentioned in the past couple of posts, we spent some time in Granada (where we visited the Alhambra). We stayed with a friend of mine (a friend of my brother, Jake's, actually) named Mateo. Unfortunately, we happened to be in Granada during an uncharacteristically rainy time, which somewhat limited a lot of our time there, but we still really enjoyed the city (as well as the increasingly valuable 'down time'). Towards the end of our stay there, the rain subsided and we managed to get out for a few days. On the first, Mateo's dad, Roberto, came to Granada with two friends of his who were visiting from Argentina- Claudia and Carlos. The 5 of us spent the better part of the afternoon exploring and admiring the Alhambra. We all then enjoyed some tapas and an evening out at a youth-filled and American pop-music-playing bar that Mateo took us to. The next day, Roberto and Mateo guided our little group of tourists to the top of a hill (which neither of us can seem to remember the name of) where you can look out over Granada, as well as catch a stunning view of the Alhambra. The roads were super narrow, pedestrian-only, and absolutely BEAUTIFUL! A perfectly picturesque little European neighborhood.

After taking in the view, and walking down from the hilltop, we said our 'good-bye's and 'thank you's to our wonderful Granada hosts and rode with Roberto and his friends to his house in Marbella- our next destination.

We spent a lovely evening with Roberto, his daughter, Geraldine, and our new Argentinian friends, Carlos and Claudia. The next morning, Roberto drove them into Málaga to catch a train, and dropped us off so we could explore the city for a day. We saw as many of the “must see” places as we could in one day, spent a little while relaxing on the beach, indulged in a few more Spanish tapas, and then caught a bus back to Marbella. The next two days we spent walking from Roberto's house down to- and lying on- the beach :) I introduced Sean to the idea of "sea glass" and we combed the beach for treasure...

Once we'd had our fill of “sol y playa”, we caught a bus to Sevilla. Now, having had a very good friend who studied abroad there, I had heard a fair amount about this city, and was thoroughly looking forward to checking it out. We spent our first night in perhaps the best Hostel I've stayed in to-date. If you're ever in Sevilla, you absolutely must try and stay there! It's called “The Garden Backpacker” and it can be found at http://www.thegardenbackpacker.com/. Their beds are clean and comfy, their staff (and guests!) friendly, and their backyard bar serves free Sangria nightly. Needless to say, we had an awesome first night there. The next morning, after eating our free breakfast, we caught one of their free walking tours and started checking out the city a bit more. Once the tour ended, we spent the majority of the afternoon wandering through (i.e. getting completely lost in) the streets of Sevilla, and mostly bumping into people we'd met at the hostel the night before. It's not tiny, but central Sevilla is well within the 'managebly-walkable' range, and really not so big at all once you get to know it. In the evening, we met up with a couchsurfing host whom we had arranged to stay with for (a very generous) 5 nights (I wont bother you with another plug for couchsurfing at the moment- but seriously, check it out!).

The next 5 days we spent in Sevilla are kind of a blur already- sites, parks, tapas, museums, cervezas, tapas, our wonderful hosts and their friends, flamenco dancing, tapas... you get the idea...

We LOVED Sevilla and felt extremely sad to be leaving. Although we enjoyed all of the cities we visited in Spain this trip, Sevilla is the one we both feel the most comfortable in, and most likely where we would chose to live... should the opportunity to live in Spain in whatever city we wanted to, ever happen to present itself ;)

Again, we had a difficult time saying 'goodbye' to our wonderful hosts and new friends. This time it was Luis, Manuel, and Pablo, who we thanked, hugged, and repeatedly encouraged to “come and visit so we could return the favor”. We left their flat and made our way back to- you guessed it- The Garden Backpacker, for our final night, and one last ho-rah, in Sevilla! (Okay, that's a lie... we have yet again made the mistake of scheduling our flight at a ridiculously early hour, and will need to get up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus to the airport. Certainly the least glamorous part of traveling... but alas, early flights on budget airlines are a big part of how we're managing to afford our 10 month adventure *Sigh*) Next Stop: FRANCE!

~Jenna