Spain- Volume 3

We stopped at the next not-to-miss town -Sevilla. Definitely one of the most popular towns in Spain to visit. This pic was taken at the old cigarette factory. Spain was a huge exporter of cigarettes back in the day. This was the nicest factory I have ever seen. These people were rolling cigs in style!

Here's the front entrance of the cig factory.

Inside the courtyard of the factory. This man has some huge endorsements for Cigarettes all around the world. We'll call him Marlboro Man. :)

Next we stopped by the Plaza of Spain.One of the most spectacular buildings I have ever seen. It was shaped in a semi-circle with a gorgeous fountain and tile work and carvings to make one stare. This building has been used for administrative offices for the city today and in the past.

There were these huge tile tapestries all around op different cities throughout Spain. I think this one depicted the city of Cadiz.

Mr. Matador and his hot sexy flamenco dancing, booty shaking senorita. Yes, we paid two euro along with every other tourist to get this pic taken. Don't you love this hat on J? HOT!!!

One of the most famous cahtedrals in all of Spain. Very beautiful but closed for the day.

Again, the cathedral.

A tower in Sevilla. Don't know anyting more than that. The tourist map said we should see it. :) Check.

One of the oldest bull rings in Spain. It looked like it had been painted only about 100 times.

The canal that divides the city.

Another night of scouring the city for a hostal. Again it took hours. This was definitely the dumpiest one. Called "Pension La Gloria" we had to share a bathroom with an entire floor (yuk!-we were desperate!) and I am not sure but I think the bed had exactly 264 springs in it. I felt every one. The best part were again the beautiful romantic balcony doors that opened up to the city where an accordion player serenaded us (or more than likely the people at the restaurant below) until about 1 am. Billy took this from his balcony.

The nest morning enjoying the balcony.

The top the the hostal we stayed at had a patio/terrace where we captured a quick pic of the surroundings houses and buildings.

Spain- Volume 2

We spent the next part of our trip making our way slowly from Madrid to Malaga where our Marriott timeshare was. We stopped at this ancient castle "Castilla de los Condes de Orgaz" in the city of Orgaz. At least that's what the sign said. Too bad we didn't undersrtand a lick of Spanish....I have no idea what this castle was used for etc. Wikipedia just told me it was built in Medieval times. Thank you wikipedia.

Finally we ended up at our destination- the city of Cordoba. As we were reading our handy dandy travel guide the book said, "do not travel to this city during the festival in May". Hmmm...too late for that. It also mentioned that driving a car in this city is a mistake. OOPS! Right off the bat we are offending cordobans right and left. Sure enough the city was CRAZY with young people who traveled from all over to go the biggest festival/carnival I have ever seen. Its there for ten days. It started at midnight according to the front desk helper at our next hostal which again, took hours to find. After hours and thousands of dollars later we found one of the nicest hostals we stayed at Hostal Los Fuentes. We had four single beds in a room and our own bathroom! Nice.

So, what did we do while we in Cordoba? Well, attended the festival of course. Everyone (adults included) were dressed up in their flamenco get-up. These kids were DARLING. I begged for a pic. Look at the little boy on the right...his hat could not be any cuter. That cute little conquistador (as Billy called all Spaniards) girl could have provided heat for the entire country of Russia with the amount of hair she had all.over.her.body. Cute little thing.

The boys especially enjoyed the festival. They even indulged in some serioulsy overpriced rides.

The next morning...all bright -yed and bushytailed. Again, notice the doors that open up to a balcony and the sounds of drunken college students til the wee hours of 4am. Cozy.

The front of the hostal.

This was the outdoor courtyard in the middle of the building. You can't tell its open to the elements of the earth in this pic, but it was. Gorgeous. The tile work and furniture in the courtyard was beautiful. Moving on...... Look for volume three! :)

Meanwhile...

I come to you with brief intermission from our Spain escapades to bring to you a special post. One with a lot of REALLY important things. Like.... pre-k and kindergarten graduation. What kind of mom would I be if I didn't post the pictures Grandma Jewkes took? :)

And right before we left Jason had his 34th birthday party at Whirly Ball of Atlanta- compliments of Mon and Dad Jewkes. The best birthday present ever! We loved it and we think our friends did too!

Jason in full concentration. I actually did scream, "SMILE!"...but I am pretty sure that getting the ball was significantly more important to him than my photo op.

Let me introduce you...to my party people -J LO

Yes, I just quoted Jennifer Lopez. So what.

Now on to those REALLY important things that I mentioned before....graduations. May I just say I think its ridiculous? I have to steal this conversation/quote below from my friend Teryn's blog but I SOOOOO relate to Mr. Incredible in this conversation and she relates more to Helen. Read on:

Helen: "I can't believe you don't want to go to your own son's graduation!!"



Bob: "It's not a graduation, he's moving from the fourth grade to the fifth grade."



Helen: "It's a ceremony."



Bob: "It's psychotic! They keep coming up with ways to celebrate mediocrity..."



-The Incredibles.

Call me what you will- "heartless", "unsentimental"....whatever. Its just how I feel. I would've gone if I would have been here....trust that. But I didn't not feel guilty missing it and I frankly think its a ridiculous charade of sorts.

Ella saying "adios" to ORRS ELEMENTARY. Hallelujah. I felt a lilttle negligent sending here there for her kindergarten year...but, what can I say? For the rest of her elementary education we will be in Augusta.

Lincoln standing next to his super excited and charming girlfriend at his pre-k graduation.

I guess he sang a song...about frogs. He couldn't remember it to sing it to me when I got home. Now THAT I would've liked to see/hear. Again, take a look at Mrs.Happy girlfriend in the background. What's the chip on HER shoulder? Sheesh. She'll get an opportunity to perform. They all do. Maybe she just misses Lincoln's presence. Whatever the case, she is NOT happy.

Ella is so proud of her brother for following in her footsteps through pre-k. The very same pre=k she attended last year. She's way beyond that now.

Ella's kindergarten teacher's aid- Mrs. Rivera.

Ella's teacher, Mrs. Samples.

Lincoln's teachers Mrs.Wanda and Mrs.Debbie. The cutest ladies ever!

Ella's graduation celebration. In her flamenco dress mind you.

Spain- Volume 1 :)

Before you read this post and think I am an imbacel...please know that all the words that corresponded to the pics WERE next to each other. Blogger is so......I have no words. So, do your best to make sense of it and I am sorry. UGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

We got to venture out to Spain from May 18-30. We traveled with Jason's brother,Billy, and his wife, Ali. It was a last minute trip...one last hurrah before baby number four takes over my sanity and dental school takes over Jason's. So, we took about 500 picutres. How do you summarize a vacation like that? In volumes I say. Just kidding. I will only give you the highlights! So, here goes:

This Mariachi band was awesome. Isn't that a Mexican thing though? Not sure. This was our first day in Spain. This was after we flew in, got our rental car, drove around for TWO hours "trying to get our bearings" and then all four of us passed out in a parking spot outside of a park for about three hours in the middle of the day. With our mouths open, drooling. Then we got our whits about ourselves, and actaully walked around Madrid. A little aimlessly, yes.


We just loved all the streets in Spain. We took a lot of pics of that. Boring to look at? Perhaps. Fun to remember.



Plaza de Mayor....one of the most famous plazas in Spain. There were goreous X rated murals painted all over the side. I am editing that for my posterity and you.




There were a lot of "weirdos" in the plaza trying to earn money for talents such as dressing as a fat spider man. Isn't he classy?


This sign was historic for us. A monument of sorts. I naiively assumed -upon loosely planning this trip- that finding hostals would be cheap and super easy. Wow. Was I humbled. We searched for two hours on our first night there for an available hostal and then another two finding a ridiculously priced and equally as evasive parking spot. This was just a foreshadowing of our trip in Spain. We (well, most of us...more details on this to come) spent a total of five nights in a hostal. I am so glad we had that experience and we all felt that it was an authentic "european" experience but boy was I wrong about them bing available anf affordable. So, four hours, a million dollars, and lots of sighs in frustration later, we finally collapsed (no exaggeration there) around 10 pm (4am our time) in "Hostal Luna". Only our room had a bathroom and was well-equipped for two weary travelors with two single beds. So much for romance!...as if anyone had any energy. And Billy's luxury suite (sarcastic there) was a smoking suite. Too bad the boys entirely relied upon mine and Ali's Spanish that we learned about 11 years ago for ALL communication. I am pretty confident that I butchered the Spanish language for 12 days. Thus...the smoking room. Sorry Billy and Ali!




Gotta love the open doors in the room overlooking the square. Although noisy, it was so fun to experience the open balconies everywhere. Its always something I envisioned when thinking about Europe. Bad thing about those doors: one thing that we thought was very interesting about Spain...people live to enjoy life. Period. They drink, socialize and eat all night (Seriously. Until like 3am) and then they wake up at like ten and work a few hours and then the shops and all humanity goes down for a siesta for about three hours. If you are Spanish- WHAT A LIFE! If you are traveling and looking for something to do or eat when they are "siesta-ing"...tough luck. So what's that bad thing about the doors I was talking about? The crazy city of Madrid was busteling until 3am (and we heard all the hustle and bustle) and then was dead silent until 10 am. Finding dinner at 6 or 7? You gotta be kidding. No way. They eat like at 8 or 9.


After one day in Madrid we had had enough of the city life and opted to head down to Cordoba for some rural charm. Cordoba- a city we were told we could not miss. I loved the flexibility during the vacation. And that was one really good thing about hostals...you really can fly by the seat of your pants and find something...eventually.


Our hero of a car.


The boys had WAY too much fun with this bull. Highlight of their trip for sure. Stay tuned for Volume two!