Lianne and Myriam in Europe: Spain

Dear Friends and family,

I know its been a while since my last update but it is pretty hard to find the time to sit down in front of a computer and write a long message. I am writing to you on this, my last day in Spain. We arrived here on April 2nd (way before the problems in Casablanca). Our first stop was Madrid. What a change from Morocco! For the first couple of days Myriam and I kept telling each other how great it was to be able to walk around without being hasseled by every guy over the age of 13. Our fist day, we walked around the city admiring the fabulous architechture and figuring out the lay of the city. It is so impressive to see that every building is beautiful and that there are fantastic statues in every parc, makes you kinda sad that back home we don't put much effort into esthetics. Our buildings are very functional but not so pretty...

We ended up spending 7 days in Madrid. The weather was pretty crappy, it rained almost every day and was cold all the time. I wished that I had brought warmer clothes every day. One day wore every item of clothing in my bag. But we were troupers. We ate our sandwiches shivering on park benches and sat in cafes drinking our tiny coffees VERY SLOWLY to keep warm.

I am going to take a moment to explain to you how Myriam and I are managing to live on approximately 20€ - 30€ a day all included. We signed up to this amazing website called couchsurfing (www.couchsurfing.com). With this site, you can find people in all cities around the world who are willing to let you come sleep on thier couch for a couple of days for free. So far we have stayed with 4 different hosts and had a great time. What is really great about couchsurfing, other than the fact that it's free, is that you get to meet locals who can show you things about the city that your lonely planet couldn't. Our first host Jose Enrique (nick named kiqué) took us to some really great places. He showed us the crazy night life in Madrid. Spain's schedule is insane. Most of you probably know about the siesta, from 2pm till 5pm nothing is open except for bars and restaurants. This schedule makes more sense in the summer when it is too hot to go outside. But now in the spring its kinda annoying. Anyways, the day schedule being what it is, the night life is insane as I mensioned earlier. Spaniards don't leave their house before 11pm or midnight to go out. The only person that ever does that back home is Sara. At midnight you can show up to a bar to start the evening. then around 2 am its time to change venues to a more happeneing place. The discotheques only start being cool after 3am but if you go before 3 there is no cover charge. Then you can dance till 6 or 7 am. After hours clubs run from 7am till noon. Myriam and I couldn't keep our eyes open after 4am and Kiqué took us home to sleep! In Madrid, we also had the chance to go and see a football game (I am now a snob and will always say football instead of soccer) We went to see a Real Madrid game, it was pretty exciting, we had a great time. And Real Madrid won in their home stadium!

Don Quioxte statue in Madrid

Madrid was a great city. We met cool people, drank Sangria, ate cheap Tapas and saw amazing museums, statues and buildings. Still, I was happy to leave for warmer more southern destinations. We left for Grenada and arrived to a sunny delightful city. Grenada has a much smaller feel to it than Madrid (ok maybe a stupid thing to say since it is much smaller). We only stayed for 3 days but it felt like we had visited the entire city. Our first days we walked around and saw the few sites there are to see. We climbed up to San Nicolas' look out where you have a fantastic view of the Alhambra, Grenada's pride and joy. It is a gigantic palace/cathedral built with an arabic style to a certain extent. A bunch of people in Grenada told us that they were trying to get the Alhambra into the seven wonders of the world. "It was a steep hike but well worth the view" as the lonely planet put it.

view from Saint Nicolas Look Out

Next day it rained again so we walked a bit and then went to see a movie at the local mall. The thing about Spain is that everything is in Spanish. So we decided to go see Meet the Robinsons, the new Disney movie. It was the kind of movie that you could probably watch on mute and still understand. The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn and made our way to the Alhambra. We had met another traveller who had shoed up at 8am and waited in line for 4 hours to get a ticket. We only waited 1.5 hours and watched an episode of Prison Break on my ipod while waiting so it really didn't seem that bad. The Alhambra is beautiful. you can see all of Grenada from the towers and the inside is breath taking. We didn't get to see the famous fountain in the center though because it is being restored. At least every single postcard in Grenada had a picture of it...

Pictures from the Alhambra

Then we were off to Sevilla where it has been hot and sunny for 5 days. We are finally wearing our shorts, sandals and tank tops. Right now, I am sitting on my host Renate's balcony (Renate is a German student on Erasmus in Sevilla) typing this email in the morning sun. Sevilla is another beautiful city. You can pretty much walk from one end to the other in less than an hour so we saved a bunch on transit. We visited the Cathedral which we were told was the 3rd biggest cathedral in the world. This is Spain's big holiday season beacause of Easter. people get lots of time off and travel. It is also corrida season, there are shows every day and the best torreadors come and compete. We bought tickets and sat in the sun for 3 hours to see 6 bulls die. It was an interesting experience, not sure if it will become a hobby of mine but it is interesting none the less. Yesterday, we went to Ben and Jerry's free cone day, just like home! I think that Sevilla will be one of my favorite cities, I recommend it to anyone travelling in Spain.