España

I have finally returned from my family trip to Spain. I thought I would blog a little bit about the experience, so here it goes:

We visited 3 cities and a town whilst in Spain.

(waiting for the car at the Madrid airport)

Madrid
We didn't get to spend too much time in Madrid, we stayed perhaps a couple of days after arriving in the country and drove straight towards Sevilla. We had some tapas the first night, and because Spain has not really heard of vegetarianism/veganism, I was forced to eat a lot of fries during this trip.

(walking the streets of Sevilla)

Sevilla
The drive from Madrid to Sevilla was about 6 hours, but when you factor in the rotundas/roundabouts and the unclear signs, and being pulled over for speeding by the Guardia Civil the 6 hours was in actually 8 hours. There were a lot of pit stops and a lot of gas station food which was pretty awesome. I ate a lot of chips and chocolates during this vacation. ha. The bathrooms/aseos were pretty impeccable. I was very surprised at the cleanliness of the bathrooms. I remember when we drove to Virginia from Toronto, the bathrooms were terrible! That was not the case here. Clean, clean, clean.

We visited the Museo de Buenos Artes (Fine Arts Museum) and the pieces were astounding. The entry price was only 1.50 euros! The security guard told us to keep a watch of our bags and keep it in front of us and that part was a bit discouraging. Although, thankfully we were not pit pocketed/mugged during this trip. The museum had many rooms, and the museum had lovely gardens and fountains. The streets around Sevilla were filled with cobble stones, and very narrow, a lot like the streets in Paris. The parking is free all over Spain, but you have crazy drivers who double park or just park their car behind other cars and wait until that person returns to their car hoping for a spot!

We walked to the Catedral de Seville and it was very archaic and gothic inspired. The one downside about Spain, well one of many, is the whole siesta business. I suppose if you were a citizen of Spain it would be a great thing, but not when you're a tourist! Due to the siestas and no stores opening on Sundays, we couldn't see A LOT of things, let alone buy things. We couldn't go inside the Cathedral as we arrived around 2pm and siestas last from 1:30-5:30pm. And if you're like me when you're on vacation you don't start the day until noon, you're day in
Spain is wasted. The major stores don't have siestas though, but you have to visit on the right days!

We spent the rest of the nights at the hotel and relaxed by the pool. Watching the Simpsons in Spanish was very weird, I wish they didn't have to dub over everything. Oh! I also tried my very first paella (although not the traditional one with seafood), it was very good however, but very salty!

(The Carmona city square)

Carmona
Before we headed to Cadíz we drove to Carmona, as it was one of the reasons why we decided to visit Spain in the first place. It is a very small town outside of Sevilla. It took us about 2 hours to drive there but it was well worth it. Most of the building spans from the 15th century and the library had lots of plants and a garden on the inside. There were winding roads and very little room for pedestrians and cars to share the road on. I stole a whole bunch of postcards from Casa de Carmona which is this very old and posh hotel. I couldn't send them as I have no idea where they sold stamps. I didn't see any post offices in any of the cities I went to! These people were shooting a video and we were extras in it, so we'll see if we make the final cut. haha.

(La Playas/beach at Cadíz)

Cadíz
Cadíz is a small city to the south-west of Spain right by the coast. It got really cold at times (cold compared to Madrid and Madrid's average temperatures were 27ºC-35ºC), as it was by the ocean. The seafood was impeccable, or so I was told. We spent most of the vacation here at a resort. It was very very posh, there were a lot of old German tourists there. The second day in Cadíz I woke up with an ear infection and it was unbearable and painful. We had to go to the clinic, thank goodness for travel insurance and we saw an ear specialist. I was prescribed with 3 different kinds of drugs which rendered me immobile. It was rather unfortunate as I couldn't swim or do much as I wanted to because I was so drowsy and sleepy. The doctor also prescribed me ibuprofen in powder form, it tasted so gross. Why didn't he just prescribe me pills!? My parents went back to the farmacia to get me ibuprofen in pill form which made things much better. The playas/beach was lovely, the buffets were mediocre and the desserts at the buffet sucked.

I watched a lot of MTV while being stuck indoors. It was MTV Germany and I think I picked up some German whilst in Spain haha. They didn't dub most of their shows which was good, so there were German subtitles and then the english shows. They kept showing ads for this band Sport Freunde Stiller, I don't know how big they are in Germany but they give the impression that they're as huge as Tokio Police Club and Tokio Police Club in my opinion sucks soOoOooo...

(The view of the drive back to Madrid)

Madrid again
We had to drive back to Madrid to go to the airport. This time it was only 7 hours of long driving. But at this hotel which was more like a hostel in my opinion there were bed bugs and I couldn't sleep. It wasn't really worth it staying there. We should have just left the country 2 days early. The Sunday was a waste as ALL THE STORES WERE FUCKING CLOSED. I wanted to do some last minute souvenir shopping but I couldn't, so that was a let down. I had to wake up at 2:40am in order to catch the 6:20am flight to Frankfurt as there are no flights with Air Canada from Madrid until Thursday. Flights from Madrid were only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. That doesn't really make any sense to me, but they didn't ask me when they decided to charter their flights this way haha. There was some major police blockage at 4am where the police were questioning drivers, this made the drive to the airport a little bit longer and we were very anxious as we didn't want to miss our flight.

Overall, the trip was alright. I probably won't return to Spain in a very long time. They're not really geared for major tourism and don't cater to my veggie needs :( On the upside the patatas fritas/fries were very good, the coffee amazing and some of the people were very nice. I am just so glad to be home in Toronto.