Gorgeous Ronda

While spending the weekend in Sevilla, we decided to take a day trip to the town of Ronda. It was just under a two hour bus ride and has been on my list of places to visit since I arrived in Spain. All of the pictures I have seen of this little cliff town in the province of Cádiz have been gorgeous! 

 I had forgotten my camera that day but luckily I have this pretty new iphone that I received for my birthday, so I was still able to take pictures! It was a gorgeous sunny day and we walked around seeing the sights and enjoying some refreshments.

 This bridge is probably what I saw in most pictures before coming to Ronda. It was only about a five minute walk from the bus stop and the first place we headed. We had to hike down quite a bit to take this picture. The picture really doesn´t do the beauty of it justice. We stayed down there for almost an hour just enjoying the views and fresh air.

This day trip turned out to be a great success! Next week is semana santa or Holy week so I have the week off from school. I am planning to take a road trip to the north of Spain and then on the way back I am stopping through Madrid. I am sure that there will be more pictures than I know what to do with and I cannot wait to share them with you!

Little Britain... aka Gibraltar

Dad and I decided to take a road trip and visit Gibraltar. The drive was just short of five hours but the highway along the beach provided great views.

 After safely arriving we crossed the border and headed right in. After eating some fish and chips and walking around for an hour we decided to take a taxi tour to the upper rock. From the top you can see both Spain and Africa.

 Our first stop was at the pillars of Hercules!

 Second we stopped at the caves. It is definitely on my list of life to attend a concert at this venue!!

 This is the little guy that just about attacked me and pulled out my hair tie. The monkeys were a bit crazy but fun to watch.

Lastly this is the crazy Gibraltar national airport runway... as you can see the main road in Gibraltar runs right through the runway. Dad once sent me a picture of this and now we both got to see if for ourselves!! It was such a fun and great one night excursion!

Mini Hollywood!

This week has been so wonderful with Dad visiting. He is only in Spain for a short week but we really packed it with some great things. We have been enjoying some amazing food and I have tried to share with him some culture. We made a stop to a local organic olive oil mill and then went a little further down the road to mini Hollywood. This is located in the only desert in Europe, Tabernas Desert. 

 Here at mini Hollywood they have recorded many major films including some of the Indiana Jones films.

 Overall, this place reminded me of a ghost town, much like the ones that I used to visit as a child. There was a lot of cameras and crews filming during our visit which was cool to see.

 I thought it was funny to see this bank and the Mexican flag in the middle of Spain so I just had to take a picture.

 The vast open space and the clouds just made this seem like a great picture opportunity.

It was just one of the many journeys we had exploring during Dad's Euro trip!! Next I will post about our trip to Gibraltar :)

Granada

Granada is such an amazing and beautiful province. I have been wanting to visit Granada since the moment I knew I would be coming to Spain. Finally for my long birthday weekend I had the opportunity. We spent two whole days and it was wonderful.

 Of course the first thing we did was visit the Alhambra. It was quite a journey walking there and we spend over two hours exploring inside. I took so many pictures but only included a few of the best for you to enjoy. Pictures do not do it justice and you really much discover its beauty yourself.

 This is a view of part of the city from one of the tall points within the Alhambra. We walked all over the city in those two days and I already felt like I was getting to know this part of Spain quite well. I cannot believe the amount of walking I have done since I arrived in September... but this is what allows me to try absolutely all of the food I encounter :)

 Those are just a few of the wonderful sights within and from the Alhambra...

 Although we were starving... Tessa had some troubles getting through the more than two hours of walking and exploring so she took a little power siesta on a bench.

 Later that night Santi and I walked up to a view point so we could get a shot. Of course you can't see the snow capped mountains or catch the real view but my little camera did capture this at least.

 The following day we did more walking and exploring of course!! We also enjoyed some delicious gelato and free tapas with our local beer!

 Before we headed back home we did some shopping in the oldest district in Granada. I purchased some tea and Santi bought me a beautiful scarf that you can see me admiring in the photograph below. Enjoy!

Tessa visits Spain

My best friend is finally out of the army and ready to get some vacation time in so she spent just over two weeks with me in Spain. For her it was warm spring weather but now that I have acclimated I still feel quite chilled.

Since she rented a car it gave us plenty of opportunities to explore places locally. Quite close to where I live is a city called Mojácar. It is a small in population city... around 10,000 I believe but in the summer increases to 130,000!!! There are two parts, the old pueblo up on a hill and the new part which stretches out several kilometers along the beach. We drove around and explored both parts as well as enjoyed the most fabulous gelato.

Santi joined in on the fun during my birthday weekend. We headed to the Tabernas desert. This is the only desert in Europe and is where mini Hollywood is located, Indiana Jones was filmed here. We went to explore an old Olive Oil Mill. It was started in the 1930´s but was closed a few decades later and reopened to become what it is today. The old mill has been kept in wonderful shape for the museum portion. We did several tastings of their local organic olive oil and made some wonderful purchases as well. I plan to take my father to this same place when he comes to visit.

The almond trees are in bloom and gorgeous so we just had to stop the car to take a picture!

To finish of the night for my birthday Santi took me to a wonderful nice Spanish restaurant where we had the most amazing meal. I have discovered I am a big fan of fresh pulpo (octopus).

Of course to finish of the evening I ate some homemade banana coconut cream pie just like mom used to make. We also explored the province of Granada but because I have so many pictures to share I have decided to leave that for the following blog post.

Carnaval in Cadiz!

In Cádiz is the third largest celebration of Carnaval! This is where people dress up, similar to Halloween costumes, and drink. It is supposed to be kind of the last hoorah before Lent. Since Santi´s family lives in Cádiz we headed that way for the weekend. 

 These pictures were taken on the coast at El Puerto de Santa María. This city is actually in which one of Christopher Columbus´ships was named. The weather has still been a little chilly... well now that I am acclimated... I guess the low sixties isn´t actually that cold but it was nice to walk around an enjoy the beautiful sunset at the beach.

 On our second night we headed into the city. It was crazy everyone was in costume with drink in hand. The streets and alleys were so crowded you could barely even walk!! I have never seen anything like it. We grabbed a bite to eat and then met up with friends.

 The wig was not actually part of my costume, it just happened to make its way on my head previous to this picture being taken. I was UVAS or in English, grapes, as you can tell though popping my balloons seemed to be a popular activity. It was a lot of fun and we had plenty of hours to experience it. 

We caught a bus back to Sevilla at about three thirty in the morning. We finally arrived back around five thirty and I headed straight for the shower before hitting the sack. I knew I had a long day on Sunday because Tessa, my best friend would be arriving from the States!! I can´t wait to share with you our wonderful explorations together!!!

Valentine's Dayyyyy

Sadly I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of my students for St. Valentine's Day but I still wanted to share my experience with you. I decided to make cookies for my students to accompany the activities that I had planned. I made two batches of sugar cookies, one of which I died red. Dad was kind enough to send me several heart cookie cutters.

 I spent my Sunday making the dough, refrigerating the dough, rolling out all my hearts with my wine bottle rolling pin, and baking them off. It took several hours but I always enjoying cooking and baking.

After cutting out four dozen cookies it was time to refrigerate them again before baking. I decided to use this time to make some strawberry scones for myself :)

After baking, this was the end result! My students loved the cookies and had a great time enjoying all of the fun activities. They seemed to think that this holiday was only for couples but I told them how much we enjoy using this time to remind people of all kinds that we care and love them.