Semana Santa started off real early for us. Allison met me outside of my apartment at 3:30 am in Seville, in which we proceeded towards the bus stop, then to the airport. Our destination was Santander, Spain. Santander is located on the northern coastline, near France. This part of Spain is completely different than southern Spain. It is green almost year round, and rains all the time. The coastline is gorgeous as well. A mix between huge cliffs and beautiful beaches, it was a perfect place to start our trip...especially with all of the complications that were to follow.
The first few days consisted of walking the coastline, in miraculously good weather. The rest of Spain, and Europe for that matter was covered in cold rainy weather, but not us. The city of Santander itself was one of my favorite places. Every building was decorated with balconies and terraces; definitely a good place to retire.
Come Monday night of Semana Santa, when I was about to watch UK dominate (CATS CATS CATS), I noticed I had a text saying our flight for Tuesday from Santander to Paris was cancelled due to air traffic control strikes in France (it's always the French). Not what we wanted to hear. Of course when I told Allison, she didn’t believe me because it was April 1st. After the UK game, it was to late to do anything so we waited till the next morning. We both got up early the next day to figure out what were our options. The only option was to fly to Barcelona that day, stay the night and then fly early Wednesday morning to Paris, cutting our stay in Paris from 3 days to 1 and a half. That being our only option, I guess we just HAD to go to Barcelona. What a terrible lay over huh?
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| The bay of Santander |
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| What the coastline in northern Spain looks like. |
We made it to Barcelona in the late afternoon, bolted to the Sagrada Familia (the cathedral design by Gaudi) and took a few pictures of the outside before it got dark. We explored Barcelona for a few hours at night, trying to soak in as much as we could from our free flight to Barcelona, and then found our Hostel for the night. Early the next morning, we made it to Paris finally.
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| La Sagrada Familia. It was to tall to get it all in the picture |
Due to our time being cut in half, we didn’t really have any time to breath in Paris or to even enjoy it really. We bought a metro day pass, and metroed (is that a verb) all over the city. Thank goodness for the metro, because we practically saw every main building we wanted to see (the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumphe, Notre Dame, the Sacre Couer, Napoleons Palace, etc); we even were able to enter the Louvre and see masterpieces such as the Monalisa (which is disappointing in size), The Venus de Milo, Lady Liberty, and many more that I’d recognized but can’t think of the name of them right now. Feel free to look at my Facebook pictures though, because they are there.
The next day, our flight left at 4 pm to Madrid. We made it to Madrid and met up with some family friends the Eddy’s. Bill Eddy’s is an Asbury Alumni (thanks dad), and his family has been missionaries to Spain for over 15 years. It was such a blessing finally to no longer have to stay in hostels, and most importantly, it was so nice to finally have a full meal, not just cheap bread and ham. While in Madrid we were also able to see the Musser family. We got the opportunity to hang out with their family for a day and really had a great time.
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| The Eiffel Tower |
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| Notre Dame |
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| This bridge looked familiar in Paris. |
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| The Louvre Museum. Classic pic |
The city of Madrid, is kind of made for certain people. Madrid is not necessarily a vacation spot I’d say. All the Madrid has in it is art museums, which if you don’t have any interest in art, then you would be bored. Luckily, we have been studying Spaniard art all semester, so we loved going in to the Prado museum which had hundreds of painting by artists such as Velazquez, Murrilo, Zurbaran, Goya, Caravaggion and many more. We also got to see Picasso “The Guernica”, which was cool to see.
After finally arriving to the end of the week, we caught the first bus available to come back to Sevilla, and have been here ever since. What I learned from Semana Santa (Holy Week), was that there are so many things that are outside of my control (flights, and travel) but that God is there. I feel like God was telling me, ‘Don’t worry about it, trust Me’. And I’m glad I did, because it was such a fun week, and once again He provided for me.
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| The Royal Palace in Madrid. The only thing worth seeing in Madrid besides the museums |
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