One day I will move back here

Sevilla is one of those beautiful cities. Just looking at it, it plain looks nice. There are palm trees and plazas with fountains around every corner, rivers and bridges, and sculptures. Its also hot, but its a dry heat so I loved it. On the first full day in Sevilla, we walked around town a bit, and wandered through Alcatraz... ok not really, but I dont have the name of the place in front of me, and it sounds very similar to the prison. If town itself is beautiful, you might say that this place was heavenly. You can see I liked it a lot there. Part of Alcatraz was the building, which was similar to some of the castles in France (except more spanish) with ornate decorations and trims, tiles and mosaics, carvings, things that make buildings look nice. I preferred, though, the outside gardens. Oh my I could wander those things for days and be happy. Parts were more foresty, parts were more grassy (with trees), there were fountains and ponds and small sculptures here and there, and paths going every which way so you could get lost if you arent careful, and PEACOCKS! Babby peacocks too. And they tried to attack us. At least we were convinced they were going after us. Have you seen their beaks, they are sharp. Not something I want in my leg. Eventually we were thirsty and hot enough to drag myself out of there (oh another nice thing about Sevilla are the student discounts... this place normally costs 7 euro, for students it is free. Thats the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh). I dont remember much else we did that day, but Im sure we walked around a little more and ate some food. Probably used the bathroom a few times. Maybe some other stuff.
The next day we met up with Rachels friend Bea, as Amy mentioned, at the semi-circular building in town... again I dont remember its name. I am not good with specifics such as that. Sevilla is beautiful. So was this building. With Bea we walked through the Maria Louisa gardens (ah ha! I remember a name! but only because Amy likes to call them the Marisa Louisa or Maria Lucia gardens), through town a bit, and then grabbed some food at a bar. A resturante is where you pay a lot for food. A bar is what you call a place you get cheap food. I like cheap food. And then! we headed down toward Cadiz, about an hour away, to stay at her familys flat near the beach.
The night we arrived in Cadiz, we stopped by the beach for a little while, just long enough to see a horse race along the coast. It had cooled down a bit by that point, only around 23 C, so much cooler than we have been used to that Amy in fact turned PURPLE. Her entire arms were bluish. This is not uncommon for Amy. Her body tends to do this when she is cold. But, 70 F is not THAT cold, is it? Apparently when you are used to 100 it is. The air was very humid too, and after about 10 minutes outside my arms were sticky and wet. I was just grateful that it wasnt hot out. That wouldve been un-fun.
I dont know if yo u all know this... Im assuming most of you do, because most everyone who reads this knows Amy and I, but Amy has taken French and is pretty darn good at it. She has also taken approximately 6 months of spanish, approximately 6 years ago. Her speaking spanish is the most hilarious time I have had on this entire trip. She is not bad at it... actually she can speak better than a lot of people who have studied it for much longer than she has. I dont know how to describe it other than we spent hours sitting around on the balcony, the four of us laughing until our sides hurt, and then laughing some more.
The next day we spent at the beach. I have an amazing tiger pattern on my back. No it wasnt intentional, but if I HAD thought of it, I probably wouldve done it on purpose. We all got a little sunburned, you could say, other than the spanish one. She tried to convince us that she is white by showing us the inside of her arm, but we didnt fall for it. That was about the color of the "tan" on my outer arm. The beaches in southern spain, by the way, are just as gorgeous as you would imagine. And the sand is very soft. And the water warm. Oh I think I got stung by something in the water because my arm... got... stung. My underarm area. Dont fret too much though, it stopped hurting after about a half hour or so. After hours at the beach, we drove back home. I mean Sevilla. Oops. I want to move to France and Sevilla. We will see about the whole visa thing.... so far our investigations show that its not that easy to move here.
Today we have transfered from Sevilla to Madrid, our last and final and NO MORE AFTER THIS ONE city. Eek! This was our LAST train day. I miss you all out there, but it has been nice to be here without worry other than what to see in the city or when we will catch our train.
I would tell you what we have seen of Madrid so far, seeing as we got to the city around 2pm (and it is now 11pm) but all we have done is sleep and eat. What can I say, we were tired. Tomorrow though, we will start seeing the city. I hope. That would be really bad if we were here for two days and didnt see anything. Naw that wont happen... we still have to see Flamenco!
Hokay, Im going to go back to the room now. Despite not wanting to leave, we do in fact miss you out there. Three more days until we are back in Edmonds, eating Taco Bell and sleeping in our own beds. (Except those of you who are reading this for Rachel... three more days until she heads up to England...)

Adios!
Laura