Katelyn's Visit

As a lot of you know, my best friend's name is Katelyn. We have been friends since we were 12! Long time! So when she said she was going to come visit I was super excited! I tried to convince her to stay for 3-4 weeks but she only stayed for 2 so she could make it back in time for her brother's birthday. One of the weeks she was here was Semana Santa (like spring break) so I planned a big trip for us so she could take advantage of her time in Europe, but I'll get to that.

Katelyn had finished her student teaching in December so she is fully trained as a teacher. I have been telling her about my school here since I started so I was really excited to take her to school one day and show her my life here. We went on Monday since that is my only full day. Everyone was really excited to meet her and she was even able to help out in Antonio's English class while I worked on translating something for Javi. She taught the kids freeze tag during PE and they loved it. Luckily for her she doesn't speak Spanish so she was spared from our not very PG rated conversation during lunch. :p Over all I think she had a good time though, and the kids really enjoyed meeting her.

I still had to work Tuesday and Wednesday (I took Thursday and Friday off) so Katelyn just hung out here and worked on looking up things for us to do on our trip. Thursday morning we left really early for Granada. It was the day of the Huelga General (General Strike) so it took us FOREVER to get to our hostel, we were lucky that we were even able to get to Granada. When we got settled we went up to the Mirador de San Nicolas to look at the view. We spent the rest of the day wandering around trying to avoid the huge groups of people protesting. :p The next day we woke up at 6 to get to La Alhambra by 7. I'm not going to lie, I was not super excited about going again (It was my 4^th time). But I was excited to show Katelyn one of my favorite places in Spain. She loved it just as much as I did. After we were done there we got some falafel and it in the plaza before wandering around again. 

At the fountain below La Alhambra

La Alhambra from el Mirador de San Nicolas

Closed for the strike

Finally saw a gardener at La Alhambra! What a hard job that must be!

The next day we woke up really early again to get to the train station. The guy at our hostel told us the wrong bus to get on so we were really close to missing our train, but luckily I speak Spanish and the bus driver was really helpful so he told us where we needed to go.I didn't plan very well for this trip so we only had one day in Sevilla. Sevilla is the city most famous for the Semana Santa processions so when we got there a lot of the streets were closed/limited access since they were still setting up. We made it to our hostel, dropped our stuff off and headed out. I really wanted to show her the cathedral but it was closed so we went to the Real Alcazar instead. It was really obvious that we were sleep deprived because we were not taking the experience seriously at all. We took a lot of stupid pictures with flowers, a picture of me being a lion statue, a picture of Katelyn being a bird and pictures of us jumping out of a tree. Even though I have been there 4 times we couldn't find the exit. It was hilarious. When we finally made it out we went to get ice cream and wander around down by the river. After relaxing for a bit we headed over the river to the Triana neighborhood to walk around and get dinner. We went tapa hopping and then on the way back we found a truck selling churros con chocolate. Those were on the list of things she had to try while she was in Spain and she loved them. And really who wouldn't? It's fried dough dipped in chocolate!

Hobbit door in Real Alcazar

Us in the Plaza de España

The next day was another early morning. Both of us are paranoid travelers so we got to the airport way earlier than we needed to, but better safe than sorry! I didn't realize when I booked the flights that Paris had so many airports. I bought the cheapest tickets I could find, not realizing the Beauvais airport is literally in the middle of nowhere. It took us an hour and a half to get into the city so that ate up a lot of precious time. Also, our hostel was really far out of the center of the city so we dropped our stuff off and went to the most touristy spot first, the Eiffel Tower. It was anticlimactic. Haha. It was still really pretty though. We stayed there wandering around taking pictures for the rest of the day. We got lunch at a little restaurant a few streets away and then came back to watch the sunset and see the tower at night. We wanted to stay longer to see the lights at night but a weird Moroccan guy decided he wanted to not leave us alone, so that was our cue to leave. The next day we woke up early to get to the Lourve right when it opened to avoid the lines. We went in the side entrance so that saved us a ton of time. We tried to power through everything since we really only had one full day in Paris. This museum, like the British Museum is overwhelmingly big. It definitely needs more than one day to see all the art.. We made sure we saw all the important things (the Mona Lisa, of course) before we left. After taking the obligatory tourist picture in front of the glass pyramid we started walking towards Notre Dame. It was such a pretty walk! Paris is such a beautiful city. Once again, we were underwhelmed with this famous landmark. I really don't understand why this cathedral is so famous, it was pretty on the outside but inside is really nothing special at all. But, its still cool to say that we saw it. When we were finished there we went to Shakespeare andCompany, and English language book store that was just across the street. I bought a graphic novel about wine for my dad and Katelyn bought a really old edition of A Tale of Two Cities. After that we found a really good Italian restaurant with homemade pasta. Delicious.

Tourists

I've been learning Photoshop...... :p

After lunch we went to Le Jardin du Luxembourg. It was really pretty. It was full of people relaxing in the sun. We got some delicious crepes from a little kiosk in the park. Katelyn's (and my) favorite Disney movie is Beauty and the Beast. The whole time we were in Paris Katelyn wanted to take a picture of herself reading in front of a fountain (like in the movie) so while we were walking towards the Catacombs we found the perfect fountain. We unfortunately got to the Catacombs after they had closed so I will have to go back to Paris soon to finish seeing everything we missed. Since it was closed we walked around trying to find some Feur de Sel to give as gifts to people. After that we went back to the hostel to eat dinner and repack for our fight to Barcelona.

I had never been to Barcelona before, but everyone I know who has been there told me I would love and, and they were right! Its such an awesome city. Unfortunately it was raining pretty hard the whole time we were there so that made us not want to spend too much time outside. When we got there and all settled into our hostel we went to La Sagrada Familia (Barcelona's most famous landmark). It was going to close an hour later so we decided not to go that day. Instead we went to the train station to buy train tickets to Alicante since our original travel plan (a flight from Barcelona to Alicante) didn't leave us enough time to get to the bus station to catch our bus to Almeria. After that we wandered around and found a cool mall in an old bullfighting ring. You can go up to the top and get a nice view of the whole city. After that we went to the hostel to watch the football game and eat dinner. The next day we went to La Sagrada Familia again. I studied Gaudi in one of my classes in college so I was really excited to see the inside of the cathedral. It was just as amazing as I thought. Gaudi's style is really unique and it is VERY different than any other cathedral I have ever seen before. When we left the cathedral it was raining really hard so instead of going out to eat we went back to the hostel to save money and wait for the rain to stop. Luckily when we had finished eating the rain had stopped so we went wandering around Las Ramblas so Katelyn could finish buying presents for her family. We finished the night like all the other final nights in each city, repacking our suitcases.

One of Gaudi's buildings

La Sagrada Familia

Inside La Sagrada Familia

View from the top of the mall/old bullfighting ring

The next morning we woke up early to catch the train. It was really pretty watching the scenery change. Katelyn got lucky that the train went through Valencia so she was able to see the Arts and Science center (from far away, but it still counts!) When we got to Alicante I tried to change our bus tickets to something earlier in the day but there is only one bus per day between Alicante and Almeria, so we were stuck for 6 hours. We went to walk on the beach and then got lunch (Paella for Katelyn, because Valencia is world famous for it's Paella). We killed the rest of our time walking around the city. We got back at 12 to a house full of people (los chicos de Valencia! :) ) By the time Katelyn repacked her suitcase and talked to her family on Skype it was 2:30, and we had to get up at 5 to get to the airport in time. So, I'm sure by the end she wanted a vacation from her vacation. Haha. I was sad to see her go, but super glad she was able to come! It was a nice break from my weird life here to see someone from home. :)

Alicante