Madrid

       The train ride from Malaga to Madrid was 3 Hours long.  It was the first high speed Train that Simon and I had ever been on!  When we arrived in Madrid we got off and went to the Metro.  From our metro stop we walked to our Airbnb.  The apartment only had one bed so that meant I had to sleep on the couch.  As soon as we were settled we went to the metro and got on the train towards the Bullring.  Outside there were lots of people drinking and smoking.  There were also people trying to sell us tickets. We told them NO and went to the booth to by our tickets there.  We got seats pretty far up in the bullring in the shade and sun section (the sections are done by shade and sun).  The bullfight was not very good.  Every single bullfighter at least got touched at least once by the bull.  When we were leaving there was a building that we looked into it was the Butcher.  Inside they were cutting up the bulls to be eaten.  The next day we woke up early to go to the Royal palace of Spain   It was awesome there were lots of Incredible rooms with crazy paintings.  Afterwords we went to the armory which I thought was much better than the tower of London (Sorry London).  Afterwords we scootered to the Prado, the big art Museum.  The museum happened to be exhibiting 10 Picasso's from Basel, and a precious relic from a church in Bogotá.  The thing from Bogotá is called La Lechuga it has 1845 emeralds and many more Precious stones as well.  After that we went home and got jackets.  That night we went out and got ox tail to eat.  The waiter said that the tail used to be from the bullfight.  Which we thought was cool since we had just been the day before.  Than we went home.  The next day we got up and packed.  Than we went to a very big park for two hours.  For lunch we headed over to the train station were we ate.  Than we went to our train and got on.  Next Stop Barcelona!!!

End of Bullfight

Royal Palace of Spain

Famous statue of Don Quijote

Nerja - Costa del Sol

View from balcony of our Airbnb

       
       From Granada we drove to the costal tow of Nerja near Malaga.  We got an awesome Airbnb right next to the beach, like literally on the beach!  It was also still pretty hot so we went to the beach to go swimming, the water was the perfect temperature.  There was also great sunbathing.  That night we ate dinner at our apartment.  After we ate dinner we got our scooters and scootered up to the main point and got ice cream while watching the sun set (at 9:15 PM).  The next day we slept in late, when we finally got up we went down to the beach and sunbathed and swam.  At about 3:00PM we came up and ate lunch.  Than we sunbathed on our balcony while trying to figure out how to get hot water in the shower.  A few hours later we walked up toward the main Plaza to get dinner. We found a nice seafood restaurant that was near the water.  We had all gotten sunburnt badly that day so none of us were very comfortable.  Than we went home after getting ice cream.  The next day we woke up pretty early, me and Simon went down on the beach to play while Kara and Eric packed up.  Than we got in our our car and drove thirty minutes to the Malaga High Speed Train Station.  Kara dropped Eric, Simon and I off there.  We went and got on a RENFE AVE train to Madrid.

Alhambra

       We arrived in Granada just before dinner time. We walked up the hill to our apartment.  We had gotten an awesome Airbnb that had a view of the Alhambra from its deck.  We ate dinner and walked up the hill across from the Alhambra to get good view of it.  There was a great park up there with lots of people enjoying the warm night and looking at the view of Spain.  Then we went home earlier than we ever had in seville to get some sleep so we could get up early and go to the Alhambra.  What ended up happening was that Kara got up early and went to get tickets and the rest of us slept in.  The Alhambra was incredible, it had lots of gardens and old castle like buildings. We entered in the 12:30 PM group and stayed all the way to 8:00 PM.

       Alhambra at night with lights from park.

       Far Southern tower Looking back on Alhambra.  Inside the wall there are ruin of some small servants quarters.  This tower is the one that appears in most Pictures of the Alhambra from a distance.

       Well Preserved pillar inside Nasrid Palace with arabic calligraphy in background.  The Nasrid palaces are the most well preserved and famous part of the Alhambra.

       Silhouette foto in room of Nasrid palace with no external light.

Famous fountain with lions in a courtyard of Nasrid Palace.  The lions in this fountain are very famous with nonstop streams of people taking their picture, the lions on display currently are casts of the originals.

       Ceiling in throne room of Nasrid palace, I really liked the lighting in this room.  it also had some of the most elaborate ceilings.

Picture of domed bathroom ceiling.  I think it looks very flat in the picture.

  
       Wooden carved Ceiling in Nasrid Palace.  I liked the way the light came in the side windows.

Closeup shot of Arabic calligraphy on wall of minor palace, very artistic.

       Half doorway off courtyard of minor palace at the beginning of visit (I think Kara only took it cause there is a bird there)

       One of my favorite tile pattern of the whole day!

Expo Milano 2015

Click here for part one

       Last Tuesday we woke up at 5:00 AM to go to Milan.  We went almost straight to the tram which we took to the train station.  We ran from the tram stop to the train which was a special tilting train for international routes.   It is called the "Pendolino" invented by the Italians to go around curves.  It was 6:00 in the morning so we tried to get some sleep, it was too bright.  We finally got there at 10:00 AM.  We walked straight to the entrance which was very convenient to get to.  It was huge and it still had lines.  The employees were just arriving to because it had just opened.  The first Pavilion we entered was the Brazilian one because we had heard about it being good.  It had a pretty long line getting in but we finally got in.  It was made out of a huge net over a garden with buildings on the side describing Brazilian Agriculture.  It took us one hour to do it when we came out it was 11:00  and was getting very hot.  The next pavilion we had read about was Korea.  The Korean one was all about fermentation and how it could save the world although it did not say how.  From there we went to the Kinder sport arena.  I did not think it was going to be a good idea because it was so hot, but we did it anyway after that we had some not very good Pizza for Lunch.  We continued to the UK pavilion which from what we read was the nº1 pavilion it was about bees and had a huge structure representing a bee hive.  We got a lemonade there and kept walking while we ate it.  We ended up going through Israel to get to the tree of life and the Italian pavilion. The tree of life is a large tower that was sort of like the main attraction at the fair, it does a show every hour.  It was going when we passed it so we went to the front and sat down.  But the problem was that right after it finished everyone went and waited in line for the Italian pavilion, and since we were in the front of the crowd we got in the back of the line.  The Italian pavilion was not very impressive to us although it was huge, we thought the line was to long.  We continued past many pavilions that looked like they would be fun such as Japan.  We got to the U.S. which was very cool and was the only pavilion that had their president talking at the entrance!  They also had Michele Obama talking about how the population is growing very fast and we need to do more sustainable farming to get everyone good food.  The pavilion had a huge living wall with Lettuce that could blow in the wind.  Then we went to the American food trucks and got killer burgers although there were not very many people there.  Than we started our walk back to the train station.  On the way back we got awesome Ice cream in the chocolate section then we got on the train home.  The Expo was super fun and there were many pavilions that we did not get to go, such as Switzerland which you needed free tickets to go to which they did not have by the time we got there.  But it was one of the funnest days in the sabatical so far (and one of the hottest).

     

Brazilian Pavilion With Net

UK Pavilion, Beehive Center

Tree of Life

American Pavilion Outside Front

American Pavilion Living Wind Wall

Seville

      

       When our flight arrived from London it was 37 degrees Celsius or 99 degrees ferenheight.  We were coming from London half as warm so we had jackets and pants on.  We went straight to our AIRBNB.  We could not find it so we went to a cafe and got drinks. then our host came and took us to our apartment.  We stayed there and wondered if we could go to the pool but they were still closed because it "summer" yet.  Our apartment was in the old Jewish quarters which ad small shady alleys so it was a bit cooler.  A little while later we went out and walked to the central plaza under the cathedral that was called La Giralda.  From the plaza we walked away from our apartment.  We found a tapas place that looked like it was good but it didn't open until 9:00 and it was only 8:00 so we found  another one and went in we stayed there for about an hour and then went back to the first place.  We got home at 11:00 PM and went to bed.  The next day we got a late start and went to the Alcazar the old royal palace.  It was kind of like the Alhambra but it had more tile patterns that I liked better.  It also had a huge garden in the back.  That night we went out again and got home at 12:00 PM.  The next day was super fun we got up earlier and went to La Giralda we waited in a twenty minute line to get in.  Inside it  was huge like many European cathedrals.  It also had Christopher Columbus's tomb wich was cool.  Later we climbed uptake tower which had all ramps and high ceilings because they use to climb up it on horses.  It had a great view and some huge bells that went while we were up there.  When we went down Kara went home and we went over to the Bullring.  It is unique for several reasons.  One because it is oval shaped, two because it is privately owned, it is also very old (it took 120 years to build).  We went on a tour of it, and went in the museum which had  bullfighting suits and stuff like that.  that night we ate dinner at 11:30.  On our last day Eric got up early and rented us a car to drive to Granada.

Christopher Columbus's Tomb

la Giralda

Seville bull ring

   La Giralda

Night

High Speed Rail

          Last week we were at the train station on a Sunday at noon, very quiet day.  Usually at noon it is very quiet but on a Sunday not.  Normally at the train station there is about one or two international or high speed trains there and while we were there there were four.  An Italian one to Milan that tilts on curves, an Austrian one to Vienna, a French one to Paris and a German one to Kiel.  All of these trains went faster than two hundred km/h so therefore they were high speed rail.  The Italian train was very interesting, because the way to Milan was so curvy they built a train that could tilt itself into the curves and go 35% faster around them.  It was called the Pendolino.  The one in the picture is brand knew it came in March 2015.  The Pendolino is made by the Italians and early ones were known for being unreliable.  The French train is so fancy that the line has a name.  It is called the Lyria.  This train only stops once in Switzerland, in Basel.  We are going to ride it to the Basel airport which is in Switzerland and France.  The Germans run several trains in Switzerland.  One to Münich, another to Frankfurt, also to Berlin and to Kiel.  The picture you see below of the german train is in Münich, because we did not get its picture in Zürich.  The Austrian train goes to Vienna and is by far the fanciest train in my opinion.  We are going to get to ride on the French train and the Italian train soon.  We already have ridden on the German train.  We also really want to ride on the Austrian train.  Sadly the max speed of trains in Switzerland is only 200 km/h because they do not have good enough track.  Also the Swiss have decided that they would rather have more frequent trains than have fewer but high speed trains.

Austrian train to Vienna

Max speed 230 km/h

German train in Münich

Max speed 320 km/h

(on designated track)

Italian tilting train to Milan

Max speed 250 km/h

French train to Paris

Max speed 320 Km/h

(on designated track)

London

        Two weeks ago we started an awesome trip.  Over the course of two weeks we went to 6 major european cities.  We started by waking up at six in Zurich to go get on the train in Basel.  There we got on a bus to the Basel city Euroairport, which is half in Switzerland and half in France (the same with the Geneva airport).  From there we got on a two hour flight to London Stanstead airport.  We had happened to arrive the day after the British parliamentary election, it was also VE day so there were lots of WW2 veterans out taking pictures with tourists.  We saw Big Ben and 10 Downing St.  The next day we woke up late and went to a market for breakfast. After that we went over to Tower Bridge and beachcombed under it and then walked across.  On the other side of Tower Bridge we walked to the Tower of London to see the Crown Jewels and look at the armor, we spent the rest of the day there.  On our last full day we woke up early and went to the Greenwich Maritime Museum.  The museum happened to be hosting an interactive play that we got tickets to, it was super fun.  Then we walked up to the Greenwich Observatory and went to the museum and got our picture taken on the 0º meridian.  The last day we woke up early and got on the train to Stanstead.  From there we flew to Seville...