Trip to Southern Spain!

Last weekend we had our trip to Andalucia, which is in the south of Spain [therefore, many hours in the bus-which was fine for sleeping, reading, chatting, musicing - until I realized a few days ago that I almost definitely got sick because of other students that were sick on the bus with me for the many hours :( ]. Our first stop was Sevilla. We got to our hotel, which is basically a 4/5 star hotel in the middle of the city. Pretty nice considering it is all included in our program tuition...I'm gonna take you through the weekend with highlights through pictures.
Outside of the cathedral, there were TONS of horse & buggies to go for a ride.

We had a guided tour of the cathedral, which is HUGE!

Back in the day, it was a mosque...but that was before the Christians took over and wanted to build a gigantic cathedral to show their power.
There is a room full of fancy shmancy treasures, like crowns, chalices, jewelry and more.

ALSO, they have one of the five tombs of Cristóbal Colon (Christopher Columbus). His body is actually in the case that the four male statues are holding!

As in many other places throughout Spain & the world, there were protests actually IN the cathedral for cuts made in public education.

After our tour, we climbed to the top of a tower that was originally for the Muslims to proceed to the top 5 times a day to pray. After the building was put into the hands of the Catholic Church, they converted it into a bell tower. It had over 30 ramps that were fairly steep, especially after the first half, but the view was well worth it!

A few of us went to the Alcázar which was right near by. It is impossible to describe the beauty of this old Moorish palace but I'll try through just a few visual representations...

We went over to the Plaza de España where each province of Spain has a tiled representation of a historic event or site. Of course, we found Salamanca!

In a nearby park, we discovered a festival where there are tons of kiosks for different countries across the world selling food and goods of all sorts that are typical of the country. We walked around, exploring the different options available - including this lovely seafood for sale.

Later as we were walking back to the hotel, we discovered this HUGE road running race with tons of people on half of the big city streets next to a beautiful river. I so badly wanted to jump right in, but of course I wasn't exactly dressed appropriately. I may or may not have heard a rumor about a run "race" that'll be in Salamanca sometime this fall - definitely gonna look into that with some friends here who are interested! Also, my friend invited me to join her at the running club at the university...it may be pretty intense, but I'm gonna give it a try soon.

Saturday we went to Granada, where we visited the huge, beautiful, famous Moorish fortress of La Alhambra. We had a 2 hour guided tour, each of us with a headset to hear what our tour guide was saying. Even with two hours, we didn't get to see the whole fortress. Apparently it is quite difficult to get tickets and our program booked ours back in May for us. There were endless rooms of colorful detailed beauty that was difficult to capture the incredible views and architecture...

That evening, we had our own private Flamenco show in a small little restaurant. I absolutely loved it - it was so impressive...essentially super fast & fierce tap dancing with lots of flavor and right in front of us!

On our looong trip home (8+ hours in the bus), we stopped at Consuegra, where there are the windmills that inspired the story of Don Quijote. Who knew I'd ever go here, which is in the middle of nowhere?

Overall, a wonderful trip of beauty and explorations...but I was sure glad to be back in Salamanca, my "hometown" by the end of the long weekend!