It's no secret that one of the biggest advantages to living in Europe is the ease of travel. Though I have absolutely loved traveling to other countries, some of my favorite memories from the past few months have been within Spain itself. With a country of such beautiful history and cities, it just makes sense! This is a catch-up post with some of my smaller trips, so enjoy!
Sevilla, España
The first trip I made within Spain was with my friend Maria to Sevilla, just an hour's train ride from Jerez, where I live. Having travelled through Sevilla a few times in transit to other places, it was so exciting to finally give it its due diligence. We started by visiting the Plaza de España, which is the most famous in Sevilla. This is where they filmed Star Wars, and each province in Spain has its own tiled wall and benches--so naturally as Jerezanos in training, we had to find the Cádiz one (funnily enough this is NOT the same Cadiz as the one in Kentucky). Despite the rain, it was gorgeous and in my humble opinion, the umbrella pic is a LOOK.
To fully take advantage of our time, we became full #tourists and got tickets to a double decker bus that visited all the sites with guided audio. That night, we were able to meet people from UK and Germany in our hostel and went out with them--one said the most famous American he knows is Cameron Dallas, so we had some work to do...
Nonetheless, the next morning we fought our resacas to make it to the Royal Alcázar for a morning tour. The gardens and beautiful architecture really shined through as the sun rose and we capped off our trip well before taking the train back home.
Madrid, España
My next trip was solo as I flew from Jerez to Madrid to stay with a friend of a friend, Leo, who was studying abroad there. But first, I went to my first ever musical entirely in Spanish, El Rey León or The Lion King direct from Broadway. Bigger cities like Madrid tend to have more well-known theatre pieces than cities like Jerez. The show, which I had never even seen in English, was amazing and the sets/costumes were all the more impressive.
After that, I met up with my friend and we went to an EDM Club in Madrid where they taped over our phone cameras and it was just insane. However, as many of you know, I had to slip over to meet my friend Kassidy (a fellow WKU alumna helllloooo) for Taylor Swift night at a club called Cuenca Club. I was LIVING, as RED TV had just been released. Hard to top day 1...
The next day, I did some solo traveling/walking around/being a tourist and got to see the Royal Palace (and its amazing lookout below), Plaza del Sol and Plaza Mayor--these were some of the first things I saw when I came in 2016 so it felt very full-circle. The Plaza del Sol even had a Tio Pepe sign (below) which hails from Jerez, so it never felt too far from home!
Toledo, España
My last full day in Madrid was actually spent somewhere else, just a train ride from Madrid--Toledo! One of my favorite cities since I first visited, Toledo is a bit different than the one I know in Ohio. Sprawling across a large hill surrounded by a river, the big stunner was the San Martín bridge, which I not only walked across...I ziplined across (third pic shows you just how high it was)! I spent the day wandering the streets and collecting more post cards for my collection (more to come on that...).
All was great except the part where my left Airpod fell into the Toledo river... One step forward and one step back, but boy oh boy was it worth it (my right Airpod is still kicking, in case you were wondering...).
Cádiz, España
And last, but not least, I made a one-day trip with my friend, Sammi, to visit our other friends that are Auxes (our language assistant jobs), Ann-Mosley and Amy, in Cádiz, a coastal town 40 minutes from Jerez to the south--aka BEACHES! While we waited for our friends to get back into town, Sammi and I did it all. We saw the sunset, walked across a long bridge out to the middle of the sea (on a bridge called the Mareógrafo) and tried many, many times to get churros (we eventually settled on chips from the mercado, but we tried ok).
Once we met up with our friends, we cooked a big dinner and went out to a nearby club, where we got to meet other Auxes from all over--Italy to France and everywhere in between. The next morning, we were able to find a real American breakfast, much needed for the hangover, and walk around the city before heading back. I love how easy it is to get from one city to another in the south of Spain (and basically everywhere in Spain).
With all of this traveling, I was able to collect even more post cards for my collection and hang them on my wall. I can't wait to see where this adventure takes me next!
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