The home stretch

Hi all,

This is it. The home stretch! We have one day left in Madrid, and we´re heading home!

Day 35

Our first day in Granada, we visited the world famous Alhambra (silent "h")!

The walk up there was a long way uphill, and several times along the way we were stopped by middle aged ladies trying to scam us into getting our palms read and selling us supposedly holy herbs. So note, if you travel to the south of Spain (because they are in Sevilla too), beware!

The inside of the Alhambra was gorgeous! It was a really interesting mix of styles of architecture, but mostly traces of Moorish influence. Being inside was also quite nice because it was a scorching hot day. Every time we saw a shaded place to sit, we sat and enjoyed the view. Like this one.

That night, we met up with Shan, who we met at our hostel in Sevilla, and Juanfra and Azahara took us to one of their favorite tapas bars, where Juanfra told us the tapas would be big. And indeed, they were big. See those plates? You would think its a meal on its own, but these came free with our drinks. It was so delicious and filling, we fell into a food coma- hence our faces.

Day 36

We went to have churros for breakfast, and then walked around the markets!

It was so hot that day, we went back to Juanfra's to siesta for a few hours and regain energy.

Later, we went to Mirador de San Nicolas for a really nice view of the Alhambra, at sunset! It was a very popular spot, as you can tell from the photo... no space to have a photo of just ourselves...

And now, for our PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

If you can't see your belongings, you must have at least one hand on it!!

Claire got her bag stolen inside a restaurant. Her whole entire bag!! Just because you are indoors does not mean a random rose vendor (whom I suspect of stealing the bag) from coming in and taking your belongings. Luckily, her passport, phone and camera weren't part of the goody bag.

Day 37

We took the bus to Madrid (because Claire's eurail pass and tickets to Madrid were stolen also) and slept the whole five hour ride. We saw a little bit of the city and came to Jayguer's where we cooked some pasta salad and watched Japan kick Denmark's ass in soccer!

Day 38

Today, we finally went shopping!! We hadn't shopped the entire trip because we would have had to carry everything on our backs, but now we've only got the plane ride home left. We walked to Puerta del Sol, where there are lots of shops. We discovered that shopping in Spain is cheap and they have lots of stuff we like.

After a few hours, we walked to Parque del Retiro and chillaaaaxxxed (shout out to Laya).

This is me and my chupa chup, looking alike.

On the way back home, we got poured on - POURED ON. We were drenched, and then five minutes later it stopped. My life is G.

Dinner: pasta and salad (not pasta salad, though), accompanied by Spain vs. Chile game. What did everybody think of the last 10 minutes of that game? Sigh.

This is us cooking.

And we leave you at that. We will have more pictures of Madrid up soon.

Good night!