Seville

I went to Seville because it is reknowned for its Flamenco music. Unfortunately, no one told me that it was mostly a touristy high cost event these days, especially in the winter when the tourists are fewer and far between. So for the majority of my time in Seville, I tried to find the real Flamenco, and I didnt succeed until essentially my last night there. I kept adding days at my hostel so I could find the music, and finally I did. And boy was it worth it! The city itself, is incredibly beautiful, but after the smallness of Granada and Malaga, it was a bit hard to find my way. It took me about 4 days to sorta figure the city out, and by the fifth, I was in love with it.


Going down a tight kissing lane

Friends from South Africa


The Cathedral at night (3rd biggest in the world)


The Barrio at night (old Jewish quarter)


Main plaza


Flamenco at the free touristy spot


View from above


Christopher Columbus resting place inside the cathedral


A giant carved golden alterpiece in the cathedral


Plaza de Espana (they filmed Star Wars here!!)

Malaga

I spent a couple of night in Malaga, although not much compared to Granada, its got a nice beach scene about 30 minutes walk from the main town. The city is actually much bigger than I expected, and its the main tourist destination these days for the Brits. Its also where Pablo Picasso grew up so there is a great Picasso museum that I got to go to for free, since I was there on the weekend of his birthday. Yay!


Me at the beach


The Beach


Castle on a hill


Pretty!


The cathedral

Granada is Gorgeous

Granada is easily my favorite Spanish city. It´s full of Morroccan beauty, chill people, and delicious tapas. Plus the hostel I stayed in was off the hook and I met a ton of cool people. Here are a few photos!


At a cool lookout to the Al Ahambra (a giant Moorish palace)


An awesome garden (every house has one of these!!)


Old Muslim bath house


The street by my hostel


The Al Ahambra from afar


Being photogenic at the Al Ahambra gardens


Gorgeous Al Ahambra gardens


Churros! Nothing like Mexican Churros, giant fried dough sticks that you dip in thick thick chocolate. They eat this for breakfast!


Travel buddies, L to R: Kieran (Canada), Areio (US), Jack (Germany)


Squatter shacks up in the caves of the albeisin

A taste of the Al Ahambra:













Views from above:

Pictures from Madrid

Madrid, now a good week ago, was a fairly normal big city. I stayed in a pretty crappy hostel, no locks on the doors, no key to get in, but luckily I made it out of there without any problems. I was able to meet up with my Knockanstockan friends from Madrid for one night, and met up with a couple of people I met in Barcelona. Overall, there wasn´t all that much to see there, but the nightlife was pretty awesome. Here are some pics!


A cool square that reminded me a lot of Venice


La Guernica (a giant Piccasso)


My friends from Barcelona in front of El Prado art museum


A cool statue in the Plaza Sol


Tapas bar El Tigre, packed to the brim

Granada

I took a 5 hour bus from Madrid this morning, and have made it to Granada, my first stop on my southern Spain tour. Granada has a ton of history, especially from around the 16th or 17th century from when it was the last stronghold against King Fernando and Queen Isabella (the one's responsible for the inquisition). I believe that is all correct, but because the city was able to hold out so long, it still has a ton of it's original north african influence. The streets by my hostel are all filled with morrocan merchants and the al ahambra (a beautiful morrocan palace) is here. I'm visiting that tomorrow, and tonight is tapas time!

I'm staying here for 3 nights, and even though it's a small city, there still seems to be a lot of fun places to check out. At the very least, the hostel is frickin awesome. It's a hippie heaven, so at least I'll have a couple of days of chill out time to recover from Madrid and Barcelona.

Madrid

I made it to Madrid! After an incredibly lame night of going to bed at midnight in Barcelona (I finally gave in and couldn´t stay out til 4am anymore), I still managed to sleep an hour past my alarm and barely make it to the bus station on time. Luckily, the cab drivers in Barcelona do good work, so I made it just in time and caught my 8 hour bus to Madrid. It was pretty rough, but now I´m here and I already met a few interesting people from my hostel, so we went out for some real tapas and sangria! Then I learned that apparently they are all from seriously Christian schools around the US and one of the boys has never even kissed a girl before and he is 23 years old. At one point I was telling a story about this drunk Aussie that came back to the hostel in Barcelona swearing his head off last night at 4am, and since I was just restating his words I didn´t think about what I was saying, and I managed to quiet the entire table in a milisecond. It was pretty awesome.

Tomorrow, I´m planning on hitting up the big art museum on free day and checking out the weekly flea market, before meeting up with some friends from my Knockanstockan days! Can´t wait!

Sleepless in Barcelona

Since arriving in Barcelona, I think I´ve averaged 4 hours of sleep a night. These people seriously never sleep. My day has consisted of walking around the city during the day, in between a constant stream of naps, definitively waking up for good around 8pm, going downstairs to the hostel for their free dinner, drinking with friends at the hostel until around 1:45am, and then going out in an arranged outing to whatever club is hosting the hostel for free for the evening. Staying out til anywhere between 4 and 7am, and finally getting back to sleep and starting it all over again the next morning.

From what I´ve actually seen of the city it´s pretty awesome, other than the ridiculous amount of pickpockets. It reminds me a lot more of France than Spain though, and I´ve read it´s not really considered all that Spanish a city. The food sold in the grocery stores is very similar to the food in France, and I totally had more reasons why it was like France, but I´ve lost it now, clearly from lack of sleep. I walked around today to all the Gaudi buildings (an absolutely crazy Dr. Suess like architect from the late 19th -early 20th century). His masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia was pretty gorgeous, although almost 100 years from it´s start of construction, it´s still being built. I think it´s still go another 10 years to go. Unfortunately all his sites were way too expensive to go in, so I just spent the day walking and eating delicious food.

I´ve had enough of clubbing from the past two nights, so tonight I think I´m going to check out a film festival going on in the city, and hit up a jazz bar I read about it my trusty guide book. Gotta call it an early evening (meaning before 2am) cause I have a bus to catch tomorrow at 10:30am! How that´s ever gonna happen is a mystery to me right now, but we´ll see if I make it tomorrow! I should be getting into Madrid by 6pm, and I´ll be going to a birthday party for one of the people I worked with at the Irish music fest! Should be another couple of crazy nights!