EUROPE - MADRID & SEVILLE

I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I was for our Europe adventure to begin. Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Paris...what more could you ask for?! This coming from a girl who has never been out of the country...vacations for me consisted of spending the summer at Florida (love you dad ;)). Nick and I are on our own. Scary. But very exciting!

Our trip started off in Madrid for 3 days. Lets just say our first day was a bit of a hiccup. Nothing major happened. No stolen wallets or lost luggage. However, our camera did decide to stop working about 10 minutes out of the airport. Not. Fun. To make it even more interesting we bought a new camera from a woman who spoke NO ENGLISH! Definitely, not your normal way to start a vacation.

What can I say...Madrid was GREAT! A nice city for Nick and I to start off the vacation. We did A LOT of walking. And by a lot I mean the kind of walking that makes your calf muscles shake at the end of the day! But it is all worth it! We saw some amazing spots from the El Prado Museum. Both massive and beautiful with its Spanish artwork. We also saw the Royal Palace and let me just say...it sure would be nice to be royalty. The way these people lived way back when was the way to do it! Absolutely gorgeous! Everything about Madrid from the wonderful cobblestone streets, little sidewalk cafes, MOPEDS, and everything else!

We did take a day trip to Seville. Beautiful town! We had one of the best meals there. Prawns and white fish with scrambled egg. Does not sound all that great but YUM! We spent a couple of hours there just taking in the sites. We also experienced, well I experienced, the first train ride of the trip. I must say the Europeans are on to something. Great way to travel. I LOVED every minute. Might be because we were in first class where we got warm towels, drinks, food, movies, etc. But even if we did not have that I still think it would be a great way to travel. Much better than planes any day!


We loved it plain and simple! But we were also very excited to head to Barcelona...will update soon from there. But in the mean time enjoy a few pictures!!


From Nick...

Viva L'Espagna! We've only been in Spain about three days now, and already things are starting to blur together. Every day seems to be an amazing mix of interesting sites, hot weather, and lots of walking. We're up for breakfast around 8, my feet start hurting around lunch, start REALLY hurting around 4, and still we keep going because there's just too much to see and never enough time. Jenna did a great job with the itinerary, and we've more or less kept to that (we make a great team - she decides where we should go and I dutifully get her there, like her very own portable GPS. Recalculating ...) We've seen a ton already, so I won't go into detail here.

Hopefully the pictures will tell the story ...

'Til next time,
Nick and Jenna



The Royal Palace in Madrid ... Amazing, but they would not allow pictures from inside.






A church in Seville. Jenna is now asleep and I can't remember the name, so I'll leave you in suspense for a while. Great views from the bell tower (makes my feet hurt just thinking about it)





A monument in the "Parque De Buen Retiro" (Loosely translated to park of good resting) in Madrid. Park was originally built in 1632!! Hard to tell from the picture, but it's at least 100 feet high. Very impressive.

Another picture from the park...