Photo Updates!

Ok so in my last post, I got distracted by the history of Guernica, and forgot the punchline of my post! Well. Not the punchline per say, but I forgot to tie in my title with the story. So before I forget, one of the first things my parents asked me when they were here was where the citrus comes from in Spain. No idea. Well. We found out! On our way to and from Sevilla on the Ave (the name of the bullet train...pronounced AH-vay) around the city to the north of it, we passed by tons of fields of orange trees with bright orange fruit on them! Pretty cool! I was expecting Sevilla to be surrounded by olive groves like Grenada is considering that the two cities are more or less on the same parallel, but evidently that isn't the case.

And now some pictures from the past few weeks!

My parents with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in Madrid

At a market

An Alexander Calder sculpture in the courtyard of the Reina Sophia

At the Botanical Gardens in Madrid

There are pansies everywhere here! 

These are yellow pansies

Paella (pie-AY-ya) a rice based food characteristic of Spain

In Sevilla - the tower of the cathedral

The Christopher Columbus Archive in Sevilla

Part of the cathedral

The top of the tower in the cathedral

The entrance to the old palace in Sevilla next door to the archive and the cathedral

Part of the palace

A ceiling in the palace that is more or less all gold

Everything is super elaborately carved (sculpted...it's made out of stucco)

Another awesome ceiling

In the gardens of the palace

The former baths of the palace, originally built for the mistress of King Pedro I in the late 1500s

An upper level walkway that overlooks the gardens on both sides

There were peacocks in the gardens!

The cathedral again

A life size bronze statue of Pope John Paul II (Juan Pablo II in Spain) in the cathedral

The cathedral floor

The high altar

The tomb of Christopher Columbus

Columbus's tomb from behind

Fancy things belonging to the Catholic Church

I think it's safe to say that the Catholic Church is wealthy.....click on this picture to make it bigger and look close at all the diamonds, pearls, and other precious gemstones embedded into this crown

All diamonds...

A view of the courtyard of the cathedral while climbing the tower

From the top of the tower

We also got a tour of the oldest bullring in all of Europe. It was built in the  1750s. Prior to this, bullfights were just held in the main plaza in cities. 

The stadium of Real Madrid

From the inside

If you look close, you can see the yellow ball in the far left corner of the net, the goalie in the opposite side of the goal, the guy in the white jersey in the middle who just kicked the ball is Cristiano Ronaldo, the highest paid footballer in the world who is only 26 years old and then everyone else is behind him. Ronaldo had just kicked a penalty shot and everyone had to line up on the curved line facing the net until he touched the ball, much like on foul shots in basketball where players must outside the paint in the free throw lane until the ball leaves the hand of the shooter.

Playing the game