For the Benefit of Mr Kite

Andalucia is a really great place. Although we´re at the complete
opposite end of the country by now, I think that I will always think
of Andalucia when I think of Spain. Olive trees for as far as you can
see, beatufiul weather, fantastic food, amazing history.

After Ronda, our next stop on the Andalucia road trip was Granada to
see the Alhambra. I was a bit excited when we arrived to find out that
you could download Alhambra information onto your phone at the front
gates and after a bit of waiting, I got the applet onto my phone. It
was quite disappointing. I was at least expecting a map, maybe some
pictures. All you got was about a paragraph or two about the main
things in the complex.

We walked around the gardens and the buildings that you are free to
enter all morning. It was very pretty and quite relazing despite all
of the tourists. There were a number of wild cats in the complex but
unlike wild cats in Australia, they all looked quite healthy and
happy. There was even one that had decided that hunting food was too
much for him, so he sat on tourists instead, hoping they would feed
him. I assume it worked because he was the biggest of the cats we saw
that day.

At 1:30 we entered the palace. They control visitor numbers to the
Alhambra by only selling a certain number of tickets per day and by
also only allowing a certain number of people to see the very special
palace at a time. The palace was amazing. I can see why it is so
special. Vanessa and I left the boys behind to take pictures and
wandered through the palace together. Pictures are best to describe
the palace - wiki it if you are interested.

The town of Granada wasn´t that great. We missed out on lunch as it
was 4 before we reached the town so we had ice-cream instead and then
drove home for our usual nap.

Sevilla was a disappointment. I don´t think that we saw the right bits
of it. We saw the cathedral - which was big - and we saw some streets
but that was about it. The cathedral does have Christopher Columbus´
tomb in it though which was cool. Tom managed to miss it though. No
idea how as it was pretty big.

Lunch was Sevilla´s saving grace. We went to a cool little tapas bar
where Vanessa and Tom had sandwiches and Cam and I had random stuff. I
managed to order something with tuna in it which believe it or not, I
actually ate some of.

On Friday, we picked up Ben. I´d like to say that this went smoothly,
but it didn´t. We dispatched Tom to get Ben on his own as Cam and I
were interneting. After about an hour, I got a text message from Ben
saying that he was at the other Antequera station. None of us knew
there was another station so this was a problem especially seeing as
how I had no way to get in contact with Tom. So in typcial spanish
fashion, we had tapas.

Eventually Tom arrived, sans Ben, and I told him the good news. It was
decided that I would go with Tom to the original Antequera station and
ask for directions to the other Antequera station. Which I did in
Spanish and received the answer in Spanish. Luckily, I interpretted
what the station master told me correctly and directed us straight
there (not that I´m bragging or anything....). We picked up Ben about
an hour and half after we were meant to, but at least we got there.

Ben´s trip to Spain was a very culinary one. We took him out to savour
the best that Antequera had to offer. Delicious tapas lunch, followed
by churros and chocolate, followed by an expensive dinner of meat. I
think he enjoyed his Spain time. I will miss him in England, but at
the same time envy him a bit.

On Saturday, we left for Baeza in the north of Andalucia. Drove past
lots of olive trees. Lots and lots of olive trees. The place we were
staying at is a converted olive mill so we saw more olive trees on our
drive to hotel. We chose Baeza because a nearby town, Ubeda, was
having a feria - a carnival - while we were there. So after some
relaxing we drove to Ubeda. Unfortunately, everyone else did exactly
the same thing and we couldn´t find anywhere to park. We eventually
gave up and drove back to the hotel. Tom was quite disappointed as he
had wanted to see a bullfight while we were in Spain and this was his
only chance. As luck would have it, there was bullfighting on the tv
when we got back so we got to see some.

I was suprised about how enjoyable it was to watch. We were watching
novice bullfighters in the their first fights. It was pretty gory
especially when the matador drove the sword into the bull´s chest
cavity but I can see the specticle and culture in it. On our next trip
to Spain, we will make sure we go to a real bull fight.

Our last night in Andalucia was spent having a delicious meal in the
hotel restaurant and for me, falling asleep in the bath.