Trip to Spain Day 3

When you get breakfast free with your stay at a hotel you never know what you are going to get.  Well, at the hotel by the side of the road breakfast consisted of toast and orange juice.  I heard complaints about that breakfast for the entire trip.  Oh well, it was food and what they didn’t serve us, we ate back in our room – fruit and yogurt.

Our journey for this day was Seville.  It was just under a 2 hour drive from where we were.  Jake downloaded the maps to his new Kindle Fire and we were able to use that to find the place pretty easy.  This is where I need to say that we had a very strict budget for the trip which meant most of the time we stayed in hostels.  This particular hostel called itself a B&B, but it was still a hostel.  It was right in the heart of the old city, so the streets were narrow and shops everywhere . . . I LOVED IT!  Everything was in walking distance and at night the streets were filled with Christmas lights and little Christmas markets.  I love Christmas in Europe!

Ok, I thought I had turned this, sorry.  Outside our B&B.

The street we were on.

The reception area of our B&B

Jake and kids' room

Mine and babies' room

Beautiful artwork in the lobby

I love mirrors - in the lobby

The main thing we went to see was an old mosque turned Cathedral.  After the conquest of the Spaniards over the Moors, the Catholic church rededicated the mosque as a church.  They then changed some of the architecture and added a gothic wing onto the existing structure.  In fact, it is quite evident on the outside of the building where the old mosque stopped and the “new” church started.  The size of the place is breathtaking, as is the ornate nature of the stone sculptures.  As I looked around at the intricate carvings in the stone it hit me hard that this is a lost art.  And no modern machine can produce the same result as the old hand sculpted stones.  Absolutely breathtaking.

The more modern "gothic" side of the cathedral

The mosque portion.  Can you see the old dome?

No one today could produce this

Absolutely amazing skill (PS, the real statue is being restored, so we got the gaze upon this replica)

The most memorable part of our visit to the cathedral was climbing the bell tower.  It was 17 stories up, but luckily the stairs were replaced by a ramp long ago.  It was 34 turns around to the top (as each turn was marked by a number).  Along the way there were windows to see from (or probably places to take a rest because it was a long, steep climb) and little rooms filled with history.  Once at the top you could see all of Seville.  It was such a beautiful view.  And the number and size of the bells was really neat to see.  I’m really glad they don’t ring the bells while the tower is open.  That would be deafening!

The bell tower from the outside

Seville from the bell tower

The roof of the cathedral as seen from the bell tower

More of the cathedral's roof

One of the domes turned turret

From one of the windows along the ramp up the bell tower

Same window, different view

Some of the bells.  The bells were hung like this on all 4 sides of the tower

After seeing the church we ran into 2 different street performers on the way back to the car.  One was a man painted green, decorated with flowers and standing in a flower pot.  The other was a man who had puppets of a man and woman dancing strapped to his back.  His legs were the man’s legs and his arms were the woman’s legs.  When he bent over he made them dance.  It was very fun to watch.

Jackie and the flower guy

Rachel, Jackie and Sammy with the flower guy

The one-man dancing couple

Here you can see the couple

Here is the man with the couple on his back

One last stop before the car was in front of a beautiful, old building that I don’t know the name of.  It looks like it was once a palace but is now probably government offices, based on the UN and Spanish flags out front.  But the architecture was really neat, so we stopped and got our pictures taken there.

The fam in front of ???

I wish I knew the name of this building.  It was beautiful (sorry its on its side, can't figure out how to turn it)

We decided to eat dinner at a sandwich place in the mall we parked the van under while staying in the center of town.  It was a horrible decision.  The meats on the sandwiches were cold, including the hot dogs we ordered the little ones, and it was expensive.  We should have gone to McDonalds (which was next door).  One of the difficulties we ran into while in Spain was the time the restaurants opened.  8:30 is bed time for our kids, so fast food was really our only option for dinner.  

Jake wanted to take the kids to see a movie after dinner and left me and the 2 little ones in the hotel while he went out.  The movie ended up being a dud, but he was able to take the kids down the street a little ways and get some delicious ice cream, which no one thought to bring back to me.  Jake and I tried to go out later after the kids were asleep, but by then everything was closed.  Oh well, live and learn.

Here are some random pictures from our time in Seville.

Some artwork in the cathedral's art gallery

More artwork

Ok, you can't see it, but there are carvings in Latin from these original stones which were in the cathedral at some point in history.

Inside the cathedral

How you redecorate an Islamic dome to a Catholic one

In one of the chapels inside the cathdral

Thought this was absolutely beautiful

Gold-leafed saints carved in stone

This is actually taken from a mirror set up to reflect the ceiling.  Isn't it beautiful?

In front of a beautiful water fountain

I love the architecture of Europe

More architecture

Murals in mosaics on the outside of a building.  Can I live here please???

Trip to Spain Day 2

The fun thing about staying in the Ryadh was how much attention they gave us.  Breakfast was great!  They brought out 2 large bowls of cereal (cocoa puffs and some graham cracker cereal), croissants, and yogurt.  Oh, I almost forgot the freshly squeezed orange juice.  Yum.  I’m sure they do that for everyone, but people stayed near us to help with pouring the cereal and milk or to hand out croissants.  Lots of fun.  After breakfast we packed up all our stuff and headed back down to the van.  Once again, because we have the yellow diplomatic plates and because Jake is a softy, we were shaken down for money.  The parking was supposed to be free, but when it was time to leave they charged us.  Crazy.

All of us were super excited for today.  We were actually going to leave Morocco and enter Spain.  We chose to take the ferry from a Spanish city which sits in Morocco, Ceuta, to Algeciras.  The border crossing was insane.  Nothing was marked and, by chance, found out that we had to have our exit visas prior to hitting the border.  Jake was directed to a diplomatic line so he was able to do everyone’s passport pretty quickly.  Once you crossed out of Morocco and hit the passport control for Spain things were much smoother.  I would be lying if I didn’t say that we were all a little glad to be out of Morocco and its craziness.  We were not able to see much of Ceuta before heading out, but we did manage to find a McDonalds with a play area for the kids.  That was a good lunch.  After McDonalds we bought our tickets and headed for the ferry.

Driving your car up onto a boat is a pretty neat thing.  It is fun to watch as you pass over the ramp and see water beneath you.  From what I could tell the ferry could hold roughly 500 people, although it was no where close to being full.  After parking the van we headed upstairs and were pleasantly surprised to find a snack bar and 2 little stores.  There was some café type seating near the snack bar and along the windows were rows of seats similar to a train or plane.  Everything was enclosed except for a small area off the back.  This is where we watched the boat take off and dock.   The trip only lasted 35 min., and surprisingly, none of us got seasick. 

All of us on the ferry

Good-bye Morocco

Rachel and David on the ferry

Hello Spain!

 

Once we were off the ferry we headed toward the hotel.  We found it pretty easily and Jake went inside to get checked in.  What he found was a traveler’s nightmare.  Each “room” could hold only 3 single beds and Jake said the rooms were so small that there was no walking room around the beds.  They had no crib for the baby, and the free breakfast would cost us 12 Euros/person.  Everything Jake had been told on the phone was a lie.  We all got back into the van and started driving, unsure now where we would stay.  We got back on the autovia (freeway) and headed north.  Rachel gave us a prayer asking Heavenly Father to guide us to a hotel.  We just kept driving.  Jake found he needed to get some gas and the next service area also showed lodging available.  We pulled into the gas station and next to it was a restaurant and hotel.  Jake went inside and they gave him an incredible deal, so we found our hotel for the evening.  They gave us 2 rooms with 4 twin beds in one and 3 twin beds in the other and then also brought in a travel crib for the baby.  I think that was the first time in our married life we have gone to a hotel and slept in twin beds.  But the hotel itself was very nice.  Small, not a lot of amenities, but we did get a free “breakfast” the next morning.

Front of our awesome find

Kids' room view 1

Kids' room view 2 - 4 twin beds total

Mom and Dad's room + babies view 1

Mom and Dad's room view 2 - yes, that is 3 twin beds. s

Our little balcony

The view from our room - chickens!  Gotta love it!

For dinner we went into the little “Pueblo” near the hotel.  It was just a small village, but it had a park in the center where the kids were able to play.  Jake went around to the different restaurants to find one that we could afford and what he found was that none of them opened until 8:30.  One restaurant, however, was able to throw together some appetizer plates for us.  We dined on meatballs (1/person), salad with tuna, bread, slices of turkey, croquet, and fries.  And to wash it all down a large bottle of water.  It was one of those dinners where things are so funny you always remember it.   And the best part of the day was that after Rachel’s prayer I felt the spirit very strong for the rest of the day, and I think everyone else did, too.  Everyone just got along so well.

Playground in the Pueblo

Jackie

David

Rachel with Joseph in the background and Jordan in the foreground

Sammy and Jordan

Trip to Spain Day 1

Our trip started out on a beautiful, Moroccan day.  Our plan was to take a state highway up to a town in the mountains called Chefchaouen and then to stop for the night in Tetouan.  The roads in Morocco are not labeled very well and about an hour into the trip we started seeing the ocean, which meant we were on the wrong road.  Ugh.  With no internet in the car we were stuck with what street signs there were and general directions from a map we could barely read.  We managed to find a road that would bring us to the highway we were supposed to be on and headed east.  As we were about to enter the town that would put us on the right path we were pulled over to the side of the road.  Now, in all honesty, Jake was going a little fast.  But quickly it became apparent that what was really going on was a shake-down.  They wanted Jake to simply hand over  500 dirham ($60) without writing out a proper ticket or anything.  Well, we’ve been here long enough to know not to do that.  So there we sat, time ticking away, as someone headed to the police station to get the ticket book so they could write Jake a ticket.  We still had to hand over the 500 dhs, but at least we knew it would be accounted for.  And all this only added to the driving time, of which the children were quick to point out.

The drive on a Moroccan state highway is interesting.  Think of it like driving out in the country on a little country road where villages dot the landscape.  There are small towns you pass through where goats and sheep are herded alongside the road.  It is also interesting to see cows and donkeys tied up to electrical posts.  The first time I saw one I thought the cow was free, but then I saw the rope holding them just off the road.  Either way, every time we passed one I thought it would dart into the road.  I guess I’m just not used to it.  The landscape reminded me of Colorado minus the majestic mountains.  The coolest thing we saw, by far, on the drive was a mountain which looked like it had a soft, white blanket wrapping its peak and then falling down the side of the mountain like a waterfall.  You could actually see the clouds falling down the side of the mountain.  Neat.  We stopped twice on our journey for some leg extensions.  The first was to buy some dirt-cheap pottery on the side of the road.  The second time we went exploring in a dry river bed.  You could see how in the spring the water that would flow through there would be wide, swift and very dangerous.  But that day it was just a little stream perfect for throwing rocks in.

It took a lot longer to get to Chefchaouen than we had anticipated, even if we hadn’t started off on the wrong road.  We anticipated 3 hours, and it took 5.  By the time we got there we were ready to just get to a hotel and stop.  The plan was to take a nature walk through the mountains there, but a) we couldn’t find it, b) the traffic and people were ridiculous and c) we just wanted to get to Tetouan by this point so we didn’t stop.  We were awed at the beauty of a town built on the side of the mountain and all the colors of the buildings, though.  The popular color for homes and businesses here in Morocco is white.  At Chefchaouen many of the buildings were blue, purple, or a mixture of the two.  Put that with the green of the mountain behind it and it was beautiful.  Was it worth the time in the car, though, that we are still debating.

We drove a total of 6 ½ hours to get to Tetouan.  We were so done driving!  But now came the difficult task of finding the Ryadh we were to stay in (a ryadh is like a small hotel or hostel).  We tried to find it ourselves, but it quickly became clear that the directions we had printed out from Google Maps was not going to get us there.  We ended up getting a taxi and following them.  Then when we were as close as a car could go someone from the Ryadh came out to find us.  They took us somewhere we could park the car and he took the kids and I up to the hotel while Jake waited for someone to come and help him with the bags.  The man carried David for me and I carried Jordan.  It was a little farther than we thought and I tried to put Jordan down to walk, but then realized he had no shoes on (he had taken them off in the van and neither Jake nor I had noticed) so I had no choice but to carry him the entire way. 

The little courtyard outside our bedrooms on the 2nd floor.

The Ryadh itself was very nice.  Tile walls and floors, and the people went above and beyond to accommodate us.  We had 2 rooms on the 2^nd floor which were across from each other.  The 4 older kids slept in the room with 2 queen beds, one being up in a loft, and Jake and I, along with the 2 little ones took the other room which had a queen bed and 2 cribs.  Dinner wasn’t served until 7, so we played some games and waited for something to eat.  Jake ordered some food earlier for us so when 7 hit we only had to go down and eat.  It turned out that Jake didn’t order enough food for everyone, so he had to add a little chicken and fries to get everyone taken care of.  After we were all fed we headed up to bed.  We put the two little ones to bed and put a movie on for the older kids via the laptop.  The beds were a little hard, but after a very long day of driving we were all ready to hit the sack and sleep it off.  Day 2 was sure to be a great adventure.

Jake and my room along with the babies in the ryadh in Tatouan

The loft where the girls slept

In the loft where the girls slept

The kids' room.  This was the boys' bed.