La vida en Sevilla

Well, our time in Tarifa was awesome. The Beaches there were great. It left you feeling, very how shall I say,... "Natural". Haha... (inside joke, sorry).  One thing I would like to say about my time staying at the Hotel Hurricane in Tarifa was that they had an amazing breakfast every morning. It was great that last morning to just sit by the pool with an ocean view and have Café con Leche with a friend.  However... the Adventure moves forward. ... Onward to Sevilla.

Linesur... Our Ticket to Paradise

We took a bus to and from Tarifa from Sevilla. It was quite a ride. I believe it was on the way there that these three ladies got in an argument over seats. It was pretty intense. I've learned that I do not want to ever be in between to fighting Spanish Women. That being said, the country side in Spain is beautiful. There are a lot of things you will see there but the two things you will see the most of are BIG Bulls and Windmills. Here are some pics.

These are Bilboard size Bull cut outs. The Bull is very important in Spanish Culture.

Any ways, We got back into Sevilla and I had the worst blisters ever on my feet because I'd been doing nothing but walking for the last 9 days. So we get back to My Friend Dave's host home and try to find my Hotel.. Hoteles-Silken . Its a pretty swanky place. I wanted to end my trip well so I stayed here. At this point, I want to stop and just say thank you to my friend Dave. It was great to go and visit him and I know that it probably wasn't the most easy thing for him to have to translate everything for me in this whole process. I greatly appreciate him and his friendship. 

Without further adieu... Here are the pictures I took while I was in Sevilla. The ones from the Cathedral will be in another post because I just can't fit them all here. First up: The Plaza de España It's a truly beautiful place that has served various functions over the last +/-100 years or so.  

You may have seen this building in Starwars....

Random Building on the way to the Plaza.

 It was a great place to just walk and relax... and for some Spanish couples... get yo Mack on...

These next pictures are from just random places... Some I'll try to explain...

This is one angle on the Cathedral... You'll see more of that in the next post though.

This is a place called the Alcazar. 

 The Alcázar of Seville

The Barber Of Seville

 

The Barber of Seville 

The Cathedral in the distance... So Pretty.

 One thing that you can not help but notice is the amazing smell of Oranges! It was smelled so good. Another thing was the awesome trees. ... but I mean, I love trees anyway.

Thinking Man.

I really wanted to just take a tree home with me but getting that through customs... ehh.

Don Juan

 These next ones are from the Bull Fighting Arena. Such an Epic Place. 

The Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza

Scaled model. Pretty cool.

The Original Boy Band.

I don't even know... 

"So what are you doing this weekend?"

Pimp Suit.

The Horse Stables

I'm going to end here but believe me... it's not the end. The next post will contain our Adventure to and up the Cathedral of Sevilla. Such and amazing place.

Thanks for Reading. :)

Oh Morocco...

So, what had happened was is... Me and my friend Dave were like, we are this close to Africa, why would we not go.  So we did.  We got a ferry deal over to Tangier, Morocco. It was something like 65 euros with lunch, the ferry ride, and a tour included. Duh, no brainer right... right. So off we go.

The Light House as you're leaving the Harbor in Tarifa.

Thats the coast line of Tarifa, Spain in the back ground.

Once we got off the Ferry in Tangier... it was so sketch. We had these little red stickers on that were supposed to identify us as a part of the tour group. So we were directed to follow this little man in the green suit and he led us to our Good friend, Omar: The Best Tour Guide Ever.  He told us to hop in a very nice Benz Tour bus and we would begin our tour around the city... we flew around the city with Omar and our van driver "Mustafah" yelling random facts about the city through a mic... We didn't care... it was just cool being there.

We stopped here on "California Ave" which is were "rich Americans live" according to Omar. The old City of Tangier is in the back ground.

Omar...

These next pictures are just some shots of random places, homes, and People of Tangier...

Where a President or Some Official  lived... I can't remember.

After our little van tour we walked through the old part of the city.  Very small streets and a truly "old world" feel to the place.

This is a symbol of Luck & Goodwill to those who come to your home.

We saw a lot of them.

This was a part of the Sultan's Castle/Home back in the day. It's now a part of the Tangier Hotel.

Left overs from a Islamic Temple.

One of the old gates to the city.

The cutest little girls ever. The ladies there don't like their picture taken. They would slam their windows if they saw you coming with a camera.

Seemed like a pretty intense conversation...

Apparently, Power Scooters are the way to get around in Tangier... so cool. 

Omar then took us to the Markets... truly an experience I'll never forget.  I've never been to a Third World country so this is the closest I've been to what an open air market is.

It was just so crazy to see the natural state of everything as opposed to everything being so neatly packaged here in the US. There was like no regulations on how things were presented and kept. haha... what you see is what you get.

On the way to the Markets, we were treated to a Camel ride... we pulled off on the side of the road and Omar was like "get off...ride the camels."... Who are we to say no right? LOL... SO we get off pay the old man our 2 Euros and hop on.... He walks us in a circle and tells us it time to get off.. haha... So much fun.

That poor Camel...

Here you go... two camels for you...

haha... Dave rode a Camel.

We did some more touring around the city and then we saw the snake charmers... David got way too acquainted with them.... they kept the snakes in a gym bag btw.

Thats the coast of Spain in the back ground it's only about 14 Km away.

We also got to eat at a traditional Moroccan restaurant. It was amazing food and they had these guys that would play music when new people came in. Really interesting.

 It was after our delightful lunch that things went down hill for us... Our good friend and tour guide, Omar, told us he was talking us to "another market" where we could buy some "souvenirs".... it's a long story to tell but basically we were herded up the stairs in this Carpet warehouse/store building and given a presentation on the different types of carpets they wanted to sell us. Little did we know the rest of our tour would be a kind of Sell-A-Thon thing in which we were made to feel like we were the only monetary hope for Morocco and Africa.

Dave buying a carpet... haha.

After this point in the trip we all felt a little jaded with our Moroccan Experience. Omar had taken us to this carpet shop, to a Spices store, and to a silver/precious stones shop and was mad because we didn't buy anything so he told us the tour was over (we had gone 6 or the 8 hours promised). So we were carted back to the ferry and sent back to Spain. LOL

You have to smoke you're pipe in Africa.. it's a must. Even if the wind is carrying you away.

But all was not lost, once we got back to Tarifa, the Lord blessed us with yet another Amazing sun set... probably the most beautiful I've ever seen in my life. So I'll end here with that. Next up... Sevilla!

So Beautiful....

Long day... haha.