Final trips of Spain and the return home - Bittersweet

Saturday, July 2, 2011 Noon

We are on the train from Seville to Madrid. Both cities I highly recommend visiting. They’re touristy (which is preferred) and vibrant. We spent 2 days in Seville going on multiple tours of the gargantuan churches, the vibrant art filled museums and to multiple Spanish restaurants. Our hotel was pretty awesome, other than having to turn in our goofy keys every time we left the building. For the first time of the trip; Myself, Chris and Azmir (the 3 men) all shared a room! It was cool. The girls liked to come hang in our room.

Estación de Madrid Atocha (Wiki Link)

Later on the 2^nd night we got to meet up with the guys from Discover Seville (the organization that took us to Morocco). These guys basically RUN the entire city of Seville so they took us to the coolest pregame bars and clubs. Manu is one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met. He is the Director of Discover Seville and one of the most humble, down to earth guys I’ve ever met. It’s possible that I’ll go visit him and Ricardo (friend from Morocco trip, who cliff jumped with me!!) in New York the last week of July. He’s got a dope ass apartment in the middle of Manhattan soo this could lead to some more bad ass blog posts.

View from Hotel Liabeny's (Expedia Link) Rooftop Terrace

Another awesome guy we met was Beni, he was about a 25 year old guy from Portugal, with a inherited British accent. Where he grew up the routine was (from an earrrly age) to wake up, go to the beach, wind surf (all those cool activities we never get to do in Panama City Beach), go to work at the beach bar, then get wasted after work until a 5am bed time. Then they’d go back to the beach in the morning. What a life!

The last supper!!

We all took taxi’s to the train station in Seville then boarded the bullet train to Madrid. In Madrid we again taxi’d to Hotel Liabany (the same hotel at which we stayed our first 4 days in Madrid) and got all posted up.Fun stuff in Madrid: Hit up the La Reina Sofia Museum then to El Museo del Prado, where some of the most famous work of arts in the entire world are kept. Soo bad ass. 

On the last night we had our final dinner. It was really awesome. Other than Caitlin talking, I mean screaming durring dinner, it was quite pleasant. Dr. Rodrigo announced the 6 superlatives. We decided to make each one pertain to Spanish (because Caitlin was preemptively offended by the award that she may have gotten).

The Superlative winners!

Noreen got whose Spanish has improved the most.
Sarah (the cute, half Mexican) got who could most easily pass as a Spaniard (looks/culture/language-wise).
Dorothy (genius) got who spoke most consistently in Spanish throughout the trip.
Azmir (Just got an internship in Spain this fall) got most likely to return to Spain to work and live one day.
Autumn (After Kelcie selflessly gave it up, because she is clearly going to marry a European) most likely to marry a Spaniard
Christina (Don’t really know why) got the person who most immersed themselves in the Spanish culture (food, shopping..bars, Spanish people..etc)

After the dinner we went outside and drank some genuine Spanish Cava and sipped some café con leche while saying our finals words and toasting after everyone’s speech. Sarah cried [[[;

The whole group and nothing but the group.

But seriously, we all got a little teary. Since my flight was at a different time, and my roommate Chris decided to pull a hissy fit on the last night and move all his bags to God knows where I did not wake up at 6:30 am to catch the free shuttle to the airport with the group. (I would have had to wait over 6 hours for my 12:30pm flight.)

I took the Amazing Madrid Metro and when I couldn’t afford my ticket because I only had a card card (Finally spent all my Euros) the NICEST agent used his employee card and bought me a €3 ticket to the airport. What a blessing from God and a great man. I will forever appreciate him helping me.

At this point I am sitting in the Phillydelphia Air Port in the VIP lounge sippin some free brews and waiting on my 8:35pm flight. 6 hour layover would BLOW if I wasn't in this lounge. Rebecca is picking me up from the airport and I can’t WAIT to see her and everybody. Love y'all.

Royal Alcázar of Seville (Wiki Link) - Still used by the Royal Family today

Atop the Catedral de Santa María de la Seville. 3rd largest church in the world.
It was built to display Seville's wealth in 1507. Cathedral's Wiki Page

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