Our trip to Spain

(this post was written a few days ago, but due to the lack of internet connection is being posted only now)

Madrid

We got to Madrid on a Tuesday in the evening. We flew with Easy Jet, therefore our flight was obviously late in one hour. In the airport in Berling Rob worked on his thesis presentation, while I just slept.

Charles and Ana were great: they came to pick us up from the airport. There's nothing nicer than someone picking you up from the airport! Meeting them again was so nice. I really misses them. We went straight to have dinner, knowing that if we go home we'll never want to go out again. They took us ti the center, where there's a lot of Tapas bars. Of course we ate Tapas - and it was really good food. We realized that the food in Spain is going to be really expensive, and so it was.

When we got to their apartment they continued the good hospitality with giving us their own bed while they slept on the sofa.

The next day Rob and I just walked around Madrid (ALL DAY LONG!!!) and saw quite a lot of things. Madrid is a really nice city, but I must say, in the end it is just another beautiful capital city in Europe.

Madrid

We got to the palace,

and realized that the guards are changing.

It was a really nice little ceremony with horses.

I love these Facades.

It makes the city so special.

Toledo

On the second day in Spain we took Ana and Charles's car (have I mentioned that they were really good hosts?) and drove to Toledo. The drive took about an hour and we were there. Luckily we had a GPS in the car, which made things much easier, even though it wasn't so hard to get there.

Toledo is a really nice old city, that used to be the capital of Spain hundreds of years ago. We went to the old city which is still surrounded with walls. It was a really beautiful place, and you could really feel the history in it. Toledo also has a long and cast history of Jewish people that lived there, sinice they held high positions, of course, until they were exiled from Spain. Because of that there are two synagogues in Toledo, though one was transformed into a church at some point. The big one was actually kept almost as it was, except for the fact that it's empty nowm the walls are covered with the decorations from then- which was a few hundred years ago. It was really ineteresting for me to go see such an old synagogue, especially coz there's really old churches and cathedrals everywhere, but synagogues dodn't always survive.We came back to Madrid in the evening, and brought some food to eat at home- which was really ncie coz Ana got lots of good food too and together it made into a really nice dinner.

On our third day we went to the Art Museum Prado in Madrid, which if considered to be one of the best ones in the World.. It contains of mainly paintings from really famous artists, such as Velazques, Rubens, El Greco, Goya etc. I must admit that both Rob and I decided that we're not fans of paintings from that time.

We went home in the afternoon since we all took a flight to Barcelona in the early evening.

The gate to the old city in Toledo

In Toledo there was a really nice mixture

between Judaism and Christianity.

You can see it until today.

The view over the roofs of Toledo

One of the cathedrals

Barcelona

When we landed in Barcelona, Ana's father came to pick us up from the airport. He took us to their house, and Ana's parents did everything to make us feel comfertable in their home. They live just outside of Barcelona, on the other side of the mountains, which really reminded me of the Carmel Mountains in Israel. We spent the weekend there, enjoying Ana's mother's great Spanish cooking. We took the train to Barcelon on Saturday and walked in the city and saw a lot of it. In the evening we went out. It wasw a special weekend in Barcelonam called La Merce, and there were a lot of concerts, street performances, and so on. The main event was on Saturday night: a fire parade.

The Catalan Government building in Barcelona

We walked into this church,

which was really really beautiful,

and suddenly we saw that there's a wedding going on!

We stayed till it was over, of course.

Fire fire fire!!!

A fire blowing dragon

It was a lot of fun, and only small damages were reported by Charles, who spoted some holes in his shirt...

The next day, Sunday, Ana spent with her dad at the Bull Fights (it was his favorite bull-fighter and Ana's first time there) so we spent the afternoon with Charles in Barcelona. It was a really nice day, and we walked along the beach, had a typical Spanish Paella for lunch, and enjoyed the sun.

The port of Barcelona

Beautiful beach of the Mediterranean

Paella, the Spanish specialty.

Jamon (ham).

The main dish in every Tapas Bar.

Early on the next day Charles and Ana left to Madrid, back home to work. Her mom took us in the morning to Barcelona (which was really nice of her) and there we stayed in a small hotel (which was right in the center, but ther street next to us was occupied by hookers the whole day!!! vert inetersting experience I tell you!) We stayed there till the end of our trip. We planned on going somewhere nice and warm in the last two days, to just lie on the beach, and get a tan and relax, but the weather..... OOOOOF!!! The stupid weahter decided that we don't deserve a real relaxation, and it was raining the whole time! Sp we walked a lot in Barcelona, and saw quite a lot of it. Wednesday was a holiday there, of the saint of Barcelona Santa Eulalia. They had a parade and in general the streets were full of ppl. On one of the dats we webt ti see the Picasso Museum, which was really nice, really really nice. The food was good, but again- really expensive. In general I think we really liked Spain, though we would have loved to have a few nice sunny days in the end...

In the last two days we went to see a lot of buildings

that were designed by Gaudi.

I like his designs, it makes the whole area much happier.

Park Güell

also designed by Gaudi.

Last picture:

the view from our airplane,

as we took of on our way back...

We went back to Dresden on a Thursday, and then started the marathon of me seeing everyone I wanna say goodbye to, and Rob preparing his presentation, that took place on Monday.

About that and more on my next post.