When in España...

Wow!!! 
This was a trip of a life time. God is so good to us, I give him all the credit. 

My dad grew up in Madrid, Spain as a missionary kid. He moved back to the States when he was 18 years old and hasn't been back for like 30 some odd years. We prayed about it and this was the perfect time to go back for a visit!! 

We were counting down the days and getting so excited, my whole family are travel maniacs!! We were waking up at like 4 in the morning trying to adjust to Spain time, since it's an 8 hour time difference. 

The day finally arrived! We went to Ihop that Sunday morning and ate then went to church, and rushed out afterwards to catch our flight to Boston. 




So we got on our flight and were off for an adventure. I think we got to Boston real late so we ordered Domino's pizza in our hotel and got our Iberia tickets for the morning and went to bed. 
We had the morning in Boston to look around a little, we had to get some fresh sea food. We found a lobster place and enjoyed that so much.








We had to head back to the airport and get checked in. I was so excited we were in the International section of the airport!!!! Waiting at our gate, butterflies in our stomachs, about to explode! 



We got on the plane and were freaking out!! It was so funny, we were doing duo lingo before the trip, really faithfully, and were thinking we were going to be a little prepared for the Spanish speaking, but we were wrong, haha!! Of course my dad didn't need to learn because he learned Spanish as a youngster, lol! All of the flight attendants spoke Spanish and a little English, so we were getting ready to be out of our comfort zones for two weeks, I love it!!! 






I was in this huge plane crossing the Atlantic at night going to a place I've never been, it was the funnest thing I've ever done! 

Madrid

We arrived in Madrid and it was I think 6 o'clock in the morning, we get off the plane and there's this mass of people all walking in the same direction so we follow. No one is looking at us or they are looking at us but not smiling at all, haha! No one is speaking English, it was crazy. We walked out of the airport and caught a bus and headed to the center of town, got off the bus and early in the morning and we were trying to find our Air BNB. It was the funnest and scariest feeling ever! We walked up to this graffitied metal gate and there was this girl sitting there and she showed us up to our apartment and we crashed, we were soooo tired. We slept for a few hours but it felt like a whole night, it was wonderful. We had to get up though because we had reservations at this restaurant called Casa Botin where my dad had his graduation dinner.










The food was good, the monchego cheese and the jamon iberico was so good. After we ate we walked up the beautiful streets and really there were cafes around every corner it was awesome. 












... and then that night we went out to eat with my dad's friend that he grew up with, and that was really cool. The food was amazing also.


We also went to the Prado which is an art museum and we studied some of the art and it was so cool to see them in real life. I don't have any pictures of the inside because you couldn't take any!!






 Day 2 in Madrid
We woke up in our Air BNB, and were going to see the Palacio that day. So we started to head that way. But we had to get some desayuno first, haha!!





This felt like a movie set, we walked around the corner and saw the beautiful palace and we heard the accordion playing and it was absolute amazing. There was also a beautiful cathedral across from the palace. It was such a bummer though because they weren't given tours that day of the palace.. but still it was amazing.























Of course we had to try the McDonald's there, lol...and this next picture was inside the McDonald's, they had fancy pastries and espresso,  they're so fancy over there..



And then for dinner went out and ate at tapas bars and had chocolate con churros!!!!

 Toledo

We had to leave our apartment really early that morning to pick up our rental car. So we packed up and had to go on the metro to get to the rental car place. They say it's safe if you don't bring any purses or backpacks but we had to bring our huge backpacks and our duffle. It was crazy, this big American family going on the metro with backpacks!! So while my dad was buying the tickets we were just looking around making sure there were no weirdos around, and we saw this guy just watching everyone and he actually took a picture of us. I was freaking out, and I told my dad that a guy in a blue shirt just took picture of our family. We were just praying the whole time and when we got on the train there was a guy in a blue shirt, it was a different guy but my dad didn't know so he was thinking this guy is going to jump us. But God protected us and it all turned out good. Now  we can look back at it and laugh!!!  
We got the rental car and we were off!!








This air bnb was so amazing. The view from the balcony was unreal. God had blessed us so much, I give him all glory. 











 2nd day in Toledo
This breakfast was so good, that cappuccino was so good, but the cafe con leches are the best....





Cordoba

I fell in love with Cordoba, it was sooooo beautiful. I didn't get pics of the night before, the pics below are from our balcony during sunset. I was obsessed with the view! I woke up before it came up and read my Bible, it was so nice...















Like Toledo, we only had one night in Cordoba.

Gibraltar





























Gibraltar was something that I will never forget. It was a hike to get up there but it was all worth it. I think next time we'll take the tram though!!! I was so happy an ape climbed on me!! And we got our passports stamped so that was awesome. 

Ronda




We just drove through Ronda but it was gorgeous. We ate at a restaurant right by the bridge, there were so many tourist there, it was soooooo crowded!!!

Granada

This progression is so funny. So we were at the Alhambra and there were so many cats it was crazy. Most of them were feral, but there was this one that I named Wallie, haha, and he just sat on my lap and fell asleep. I wasn't the only one who loved the cats, Tara really wanted to hold him so I gave him to her. But he didn't stay long haha!!!






















That gelato was so good!






We were just walking around enjoying Granada, and there everything was so good but I was craving some fruit or some vegetables because they don't serve any vegetables anywhere. So we passed this smoothie place and I was like "Daddy can we please get one!" We ordered some smoothies and they were really good. My dad was talking to him in Spanish and he was saying that only tourists go there because all the locals just drink alcohol, so that was sad. But it was just God leading us because we got to pray for him and after we were done he backed up and said "Whoa!" because he felt the Holy Spirit. Spain needs some missionaries, the people there are so open to God. They just don't have a clue!!!





















 Santander
Santander was like the San Diego of Spain. It was gorgeous. I liked it because there weren't any tourists. I was getting depressed because it was coming to the end of our trip but I still enjoyed every second of it. Oh, and the shopping there was so much fun. There were some shops that us three girls loved, Natura, Le Velo, and of course Tara was freaking out because they had a Lush. 






















Flying out of Barcelona


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