Barcelona Parte Cinco

The next and last stop of our trip included the beautiful city of Barcelona, which is definitely one of the major cities in Spain. We were lucky enough to get a free place to stay from my old friend from the CCY-YMCA Justin Davidson! AKA the man when it comes to speaking Spanish!

We walked around throughout the majority of the city, checking out some must see parts of the city. First off, the beach was killer but still a little too cold to jump in. Once again, it was cold for the typical season of Spain during this time of the year. We walked through its main park, the famous gypsie haven of Las Ramblas and checked out two great Tapas locations. Some of the best tapas that I have ever had, but a little too expensive. I certainly spent the money that I saved from not having to pay for a crib.

We did check out a lot of architecture from the famous Gaudi. His architecture reminded me of Candy Land, and I loved it. He designed many places in the city like Park Huell, two apartment and last but not least Sangreeda de Familia. Yes, the Catholic Church let this guy design one of their Cathedrals. I have a new found respect for Catholicism for letting him design a church because it was one of the most interesting I have ever seen! The Park also was very cool and it originally was built to be a residential area for Barcelona. The project fall through after they ran out of money and Gaudi got hit by a trolley.

I unfortunately only had two days in the city, and I think I could have spent almost a week there without getting bored. It has everything with great parks, great football team, great beaches and great architecture. Check it out if you can, and believe me the Tapas are worth their price. If you want a cheap meal, Doner Kebab always treats the body well or Maoz if you want Falaffel!

ANDORRA Parte Cuatro

The country of Andorra was certainly different from every other American enjoying their Spring Break in Europe. I was not able to meet one American there, only Brits and more Brits especially in the skiing cities. The country only has 66,000 people with it being stuck in the valleys and mountains of the Pyrenees. The majority of the people we met do not live in the country and are only working there for the season.

It was great though with our first night in the small town of Arinsal that was just north east of the capital Andorra La Velle. The hotel was a great price and with it came a great breakfast, gigantic rooms, good television and a gigantic bath tub! We spent our time there by walking up some mountain trails and just walking up a random road through the mountain. It was a little scary and the best had to be when we saw lightning randomly. We then saw it again, and it decided that it might be a good idea to book it down the mountain. It was quite funny!

The next day we headed over to the western side of the country into the skiing town of Pas de La Casa. The trip took a whopping 45 minutes for a bus across the country. The city is a want to be Aspen but just a little smaller. Here are the great highlights of our visit in this town. First off, our 25 Euro room that we randomly found from some guy we met on the bus to Andorra. Second off, snowshoeing through the mountains of Andorra/France and I realized how out of shape I am! Third off, the crazy night including an awesome conversation we had with this a Brit about traveling and life. We have to save the best for last with this one … We all did our own crazy walk from Andorra into France during a snow storm.

Andorra definitely treated us well, and we had to leave it on a good note with some cultural food from Andorra. So we went to the Spanish chain food TELEPIZZA! Seriously though you should visit this beautiful intimate city with skiing in the winter or hiking/backpacking in the summer!

San Sebastian Party Tres

Well our time in San Sebastian was surely a grand time. If you are not aware of the cities location, it is along of the Bay of Biscay in the Basque Country. It has one of the best and most beautiful beaches when it comes to cities in Europe. I would have jumped in but it was a little too cold for my liking. I still can say that this city has some other great things going on it.

It has two great mountains to climb to catch a great view of the ocean and this small coastal city. One of them had a great tower on the top that was at one time used to by the British for protection of the sea in the later 1700s. We of course had to walk all the way up to it, so it took some extra time to make it up there. The views from the windy road along the cliffs were awesome, and of course there were no other people doing it. So therefore it has to be even cooler. The area though ended up being an amusement center that runs during the peak tourist season, it was quite funny. The next mountain had a gigantic Jesus Christ on top of it. It was easy to see during all times of the day, so we rocked that baby. We spent a lot of our two days there just walking along the beach or the roads along its coast.

The city is also famous for smaller tapas that are called pintxos, we hit those up a couple times. The seafood was much better than what we get in good old Madrid, so I definitely enjoyed that key factor. The weather was quite rainy so we checked out the cities Aquarium and we took our siesta watching the gigantic fish tank.

The city had one of my more favorite hostels of all the cities that I have visited. Very comfortable beds, outgoing guests, the guys family was visiting him and free eggs at any time of the day. I basically felt like I was sleeping over this guys apartment, that is what a hostel should be baby! When I open up my bed and breakfast, I will be gunning for what this guy offered.

Even though the weather was grey, I still loved this beautiful Basque country. The prices were lower due to the fact that it was not tourist season, but I recommend spending the extra money!

Semana Santa - 1st Stop Burgos

In order to be different from all the other Spring Breakers in Alcala, my buddy Dan and I decided to visit northern spain. Where the weather was sure to be a bit more cold with a bit more rain, but the Basque Country is why we had to go.

We kicked off the adventure in the northern city of Burgos in Castille y Leon. The city was a bit smaller but had a great Calle Mayor (Main Street) with a small stream running through it. We were the only ones in our pension, and I did not come in contact with any other english speaking people. We had some great highlights though from this one day in the city.

First off they were having a great celebration for the famous Christian warrior El Cid. This involved fireworks, religious celebration and along with that decoration of his burial site in the Cathedral. The Cathedral is famously known for its Gothic appeal, and I received a great self guided tour of the structure built on a hill.

The bartenders were also awesome too! We were able to spark up spanish conversation with these two female bartenders, but we did say we were from Canada. By far the most friendly bartenders though of the whole trip, with a bar that offered great Eastern European bottle necks. Along with that, we walked our way into a local bar with live music from a local band. It was the only live music of the whole trip ... the night in burgos might have been our best nightlife for the trip.

We also had a great time strolling along the small stream throughout the city. During our walk, we were confronted by a Moroccan lady who spoke little spanish. She offered marriage to me, but I had to decline the offer. It was a confidence booster for me. We also found an awesome play ground on top of a hill, that entertained us for a good hour.

Stay tuned to the next blog for our Semana Santa week ....

Touring Around Southern Spain

My parents were able to make it to Spain for two weeks to visit me and tour around spain with a rented car. We had a blast their second weekend by touring around the southern autonomy of Andalucia. Here is a little background of the autonomy: it has beaches, mountains, farms and many booming cities like sevilla and granada. Along with that it has popular beach cities like malaga, cadiz and the straight of gibraltar even too.

We started off though in Granada, and they absolutely loved the Alhambra and the whole vibe of the city. They were happy to see me though with my spanish speaking skills, because they were having a difficult time.

So we drove souther towards the meditterean saturday morning and stopped in the beach town of Salobrena. We just took a nice stroll along the beach and then made our way west towards a smaller beach La Herrededura. We were able to get some great info from the tourist guide. So we headed up to this light tower on top of cliff, where we found a great trail along the cliff. Breathtaking views of the coast and also saw a little beach away from all the action. We drove through some dangerous curvy roads to go their for lunch. We came to find out it was a nudist beach, so it was funny to eat lunch with my parents while seeing beach nudists.

Once we drove through Nerja, we decided to go north a bit in the back roads of andalucia to find antequerra. They had a great national park there with some hiking trails. El Torcal was a beautiful little area in the middle of nowhere. We got to receive most of our exercise through this 1.5 hour walking through areas of beautiful rock formation and visits from mountain goats. The real interesting part came with trying to find our hotel that night in the small city of ardales.

It took us a good 3 hours through the dark in windy roads that were not on the map to finally find our hotel in a small andalucian village. It was a good brumbaugh family road trip that was reminded me of the Griswald family during their movies. We woke up though to the rooster roosting and sheep herding the next morning. My favorite part though had to be how there were "Man Bar's" opened on Sunday mornings with man drinking etc. So much for Sunday being a holiday day!

After buyin a Roasted Chicken, we took off for Ronda. This city is famous for its small canyon that rips through the middle part of the town. Along with this canyon, much of the city was along a cliff offering some great views. We walked around and then decided to move on to see some Roman ruins. The place was closed but we climbed over the fence because it looked as if there was no one in site. It is always interesting seeing 2000 year old figures, it puts you back into your place of realizing how small you are.

We left there for Cadiz, which is famous beach it as I mentioned before. The road trip there was simple and involved little map reading difficulties. There was a motorcycle rally going on in our highway that involved more than 1000 of them driving past us. The city is a port city for the Atlantic, where Columbus started off his sails for the land of the Americas. We walked throughout the city, including a light tower/castle that jutted into the ocean. It was awesomely beautiful, and the seafood was great!

Surprisingly somehow my parents survived their two weeks in Spain. The language barrier killed them at times along with knowing what to order at restaurantes. They did do a great job in visiting the famous and lesser knowns parts of spain by renting a car. So if my parents can survive spain, than dont be afraid of coming out here from the States!