Man de la Mancha!

 After horseback riding alllll day we ate at our normal breakfast spot to try their dinner. We got some fried fish as a starter and had a paella mixture for dinner.

 I tried allll sorts of seafood I've never had before!  Fried squid, muscles, prawns, (shrimp I still won't eat)...I was surprised at how it wasn't that bad.  It's still definitely not my first choice of food to eat, but I CAN eat it!

 We were pretty hungry....(Tyler eating a prawn...the wrong way)

 We finished dinner off with creamy, thick, rich, hot chocolate and churros. They were AMAAAAZING!

 We woke up the next morning to drive to the giant windmills!!! On our drive there the scenery was sooo beautiful! There were olive trees EVERYWHERE.  As far as you could see for miles and miles.  It was a sight to take in.

I was so excited to see where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza made their story.  Once a loooong time ago I was in a short play in 7th grade and played the part of Sancho Panza.  Little did I know he was short and fat and his donkey was reaaaaaally short! haha. 

 Trying to stay healthy by eating carrots on our drive

 Here is the first glimpse of the windmills. They are the white things poking up from the hill.  I could sort of see why Don Quixote thought giants were coming to attach his castle.  It was crazy to see just how close they were to his castle...I always pictures them way off in the distance. And a ton of them!  There were just a handful.

 When we got there to take a tour of the castle there was a class field trip going on and it was so fun to watch the kids.  They were playing all sorts of mideval games. Here they are playing tug of war

 Here the main tour guide is giving them a sword fight lesson.  He was sooo animated and sooo great with children.  I was laughing my head off and I didn't even know what he was saying.  Tyler did do a great job translating for me.

 The view from the top was incredible! I loved seeing all the plots of farmland spread across all viewpoints and going as far as you could see.

 There are the Giant Windmills off in the distance behind us!

 Tyler and his rockstar jump! I love how it turned out.

Replaying my past and slaying the Giant! It was a lot of fun. I will always have a special place in my heard for Don Quixote.

Horseback Riding in the Sierra Nevadas

 We woke up early Thursday morning and drove about an hour and a half up the mountains to find some stables...in a really small town...There were A LOT of switchbacks as you can see from our GPS.  The road we drove up would barely fit two cars driving side by side.  We saw a few buses coming down and we were heading up and I had to hold my breath that we didn't get pushed over the edge! These drivers are crazy! Crazy Good!

We had to stop and ask for directions a couple of times and then finally reached our destination! Horse Heaven! The horses/barns/stalls we are in one area so as they were saddling up the horses the others that were being left behind were just roaming around us. Pretty cool!  

 I wish we would have taken a picture with our entire group.  We also rode with 3 girls from England.  A mother (Allison), her daughter (Chloe), and stepdaughter (Lucy). They were a fun bunch and we had all sorts of fun conversations about life in England vs. life in Texas. 

 We took a short break in a open field to take in the view.  The horses got to stop and munch for a bit.  My horse's name was Taello. 

 Some of the trail was on gravel road but most of it was on the side of the mountain, walking through rocky and grassy trails.

 It was a BEAUTIFUL sight!  We stopped to eat lunch about 3 hours into the ride.  Our guide packed us some salad with tuna, boiled eggs, bread, olives, canned white asparagus.  And of course some good ol' spanish wine! The people of Spain drink some form of alcohol at every meal and snack time throughout the day. Even breakfast! It's crazy!

 My horse was a full bred Andalusian.  We rode English style which I had never done before.  I wish I had my boots since my feet did tend to slip but it was still a lot of fun! Our entire ride was 6 HOURS LONG!!!

 Poor Tyler! The good thing is you could get off and walk your horse at any time so Tyler took advantage of that a couple times.  

As we neared home the horses got really antsy since they smelled home and started getting a bit mischievous! But we all survived.  Here we are with our guide Dallas(originally from England).  She told us 6 hours in a stroll in the park for these horses.  She usually takes people on a week to two week long trips on horseback!  We were lucky she had a free day to squeeze us in. 

After our long ride we walked around the small town a bit and ended up at a really awesome souvenir shop and bought most of our souvenirs there. They had handmade fruit flavored chocolate that was amazing!  I got to practice my spanish with the owner's wife while Tyler chatted with the owner and I was surprised at how much I could get by with!

We were soooo hungry after riding! And tired! and sore! We ate at our usual breakfast spot for dinner.  Had some fried fish for a starter.

We tried a paella mixture for dinner with fried squid, prawns, muscles, fish,  and chicken! I tried it all.  Seafood isn't my favorite but I did try everything!  

Here is Tyler with his prawn. 

For dessert we had THICK CREAMY hot chocolate with churros. That reaaaaally hit the spot!

PART 2: Alhambra Gardens

After the tour of the inside we headed outside to the Gardens.  We were both tired from mountain biking in the heat all day so we busted out some Spanish candy we got at the store that Tyler remembered loving as a kid. That perked us right up! From then on we started taking goofy pictures and laughing our heads off!

 Jumping Pics

 See Tyler in the background through the fountain

 Now my turn!

 Not sure what this was...

Tyler found a Horse in the rocks so he decided to pose like Man From Snowy River as he's riding his horse down steep mountain.

 

 I was really hoping to pick an orange from a tree sometime we were here in Spain but at least I got a close-up picture with one! We had some DELICIOUS oranges and fresh squeezed orange juice while we were here.

 This was a cool place. And remember all these fountains were working due to manipulating water pressure!

Our stroll out of the gardens.

 We were INCREDIBLY hungry and ran into a guy advertising for this restaurant.  They had an awesome promotion going on so he walked us over and of course Tyler has a conversation with him that somehow turned into a short gospel discussion.

We had some delicious Paella and Guspache for starters.  I can't remember what our main dish was.  A few places we went to the first course they brought out was so much tastier than the main course! The deal also came with a free appetizer of fried fish and some Sangria...oops! We didn't realize Sangria is their "Spanish Wine".

 While we were eating there was a religious procession that came down the street.  There were people underneath carrying this huge float looking thing.  It had to be so hot under there!

A short while later this came down the street as well.  There are a lot of Catholic Cathedrals around here that were gorgeous!

PART 1: Alhambra

After mountain biking we went to a major tourist attraction called the Ahlambra. For a more historical accurate description on the Ahlambra feel free to click this link:

 http://www.alhambradegranada.org/en/info/historicalintroduction.asp

 The short version is it's an ancient palace/fortress that is HUGE!!! You could spend an entire day in this palace and not see everything.  Unfortunately we only had a few hours. A lot of restoration has gone on to help preserve this history.  Our tickets were to see a special closed off portion of the Ahlambra and they only let a certain number of people go through every half hour.

 Every part of this building has an incredible amount of detail and design.  I can't imagine how many hours were spent chipping away at all that stone.

This was one courtyard we saw with a really cool fountain.  The engineers of this age were brilliant!  They used waterflow and aquaducts to cool the palace.  You can see a straight carved out line coming from the fountain on the ground.  This was filled with water and it flowed very slowly throughout the palace.  Wherever there was water, the rooms were significantly cooler. 

This is a picture of one small portion of a wall close up.  This is how intricate the designs were ALL OVER!!! Every. Single. Wall. and Ceiling!

Again all this is carefully carved out stone...We didn't take the time to actually learn how they built this place. So they may have cut out the stone and then glued it to the walls somehow...but either way, it took a lot of work. And it was beautiful!

 

 Example of an archway between two rooms and you can see the ceilings on either side.

This was the King's room.  Tyler is standing where the Royal Bed used to be.

Pretending to be a goofy monk

Tyler has a picture next to these cannons when he was little so we HAD to take a picture here. :)

 

These looked like lion door knockers, but they were HUGE and all over the outside of this wall of the palace.  I thought they were pretty cool.