So, there is a lot to update you guys on, especially since my blog has been non-existent (sorry about that!) During Semana Santa we (Jonathan and I) were able to go to Santander, Barcelona, Paris and Madrid. We had some great sibling bonding time and have never walked more or ridden the Metro more in our life! We only had one day in Paris and because of that we decided to get the day pass for the Metro. So we literally would take the Metro to one big touristy place, go up, take a few pictures, then get right back on the metro for the next big thing. It was fun and we got to see basically everything but at the same time it was kind of rushed and we didn´t get to truly enjoy it like I wanted to.
The first few days we were in Santander, which is at the very north of Spain. It was a lot of fun! I actually hadn't heard of it until Jonathan booked the flight there first and then to Paris because it was a lot cheaper than just going straight to Paris from Sevilla. So we spent a few lovely days there exploring, hanging out on the beach, walking to a pretty light house, buying groceries for our meals... it was a very chill, relaxed way to start our week, which I think was perfect.. because after we left Santander things got pretty crazy walking from one touristic sight to another.
We were all set to leave from Santander on Tuesday to fly up to Paris, but it turned out our flight got cancelled due to a strike in France. Thank you Ryanair... :( So, we ended up flying to Barcelona that night, got in about 7 and walked around for a while before heading to our hostel.. which was a lot further away than we were expecting, by the way (story of our lives here during that trip... haha) We were able to see the Sagrada Familia by Gaudi, and a few other of Gaudi's creations while walking around that night. If you don't know about him, you should look up pictures... his buildings are a little strange but overall pretty cool! So we found our hostel, and headed out the next morning at about 3:20 to catch the bus to the airport. Yes you heard me... 3:20 AM!? It was quite ridiculous that we ended up only staying at the hotel for about 3 hours, and of those 3 only slept about 1.. we might as well have slept at the airport of bus station for the night to save that money, but oh well! What can you do? So anyways, we got into Paris around 9:30 AM and spent the whole day like I said before, taking the Metro from touristy sight to touristy sight.
Madrid was super fun too! The actual city of Madrid wasn´t too exciting. Compared to Sevilla and other places we´ve been it is kind of disappointing. We met up with four people from our school on Friday and went to see The Prado and the Reina Sofia, both awesome art museums. The Prado had a ton of the artists and painting we have been studying in our art class (Murillo, Zurbarán, Velazquéz.. etc) So we basically went through and said, oh.. we studied that one.. and oh, look! There´s that one she told us about. It was pretty awesome, and we were able to appreciate the art a lot more. Speaking of art.. we also went to the Louvre in Paris which was amazing!!
The main thing that made Madrid awesome were the people. We stayed with the Eddys. They were so hospitable and so much fun! We had some great food, including pancakes (which we had seriously been missing) for breakfast one day and strawberry shortcake with ice cream for dessert. You can imagine my joy at seeing that being placed in front of me :) Jonathan and I both agreed that they reminded us a lot of our family.. they love games, and joke with each other a lot. One way they are different is that they were actually born in Spain and their mom is Spanish.. so they speak only Spanish at home, with a few exceptions. I just remember that being different because even when we were in Costa Rica we mainly spoke English at home. But anyway... they have three girls so I especially had a lot of fun hanging out with them. The last night (Saturday) we watched the Hunger Games with them. They knew we had read the books and they downloaded it to watch. It was funny to watch with them because they hadn´t read the books so we had to explain it all to them and they were pretty shocked at most parts.
Easter Sunday we were able to go to church with them. Their church is really small and 'simpática' as they described it, and we heard a lot of familiar songs from our time in Costa Rica.. one being Celebrad a Cristo Celebrad! El vive.. El vive! .. remember it?
Anyways, we also saw the Mussers one Saturday and were able to hang out with them for the day. We got a tour of the school that Mr. Musser is a principal at and played Canasta with them(fun new card game with them... you know us Rehners and our cards... :)
After all of this... (sorry about the novel) we returned to Sevilla on the 6 hr bus ride and got back Sunday night at 12:15.. and got up the next day to start the school week. We had an overall great time and got to see a lot of cool sights. I miss everybody so much and hope that everything is going great on your end. I can't wait to share all of these experiences to you guys in person when I get back. Until then my very inconsistent blog will have to do.
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