Sunday ... Sunny and 10 degrees @ 9 am!

Last night we had a late night and I was too tired to type any more. I slept through the night for the first time! The Flamenco dancing last night was really cool. It is an art form in itself and is a mixture gypsy and andalusian culture and is also strongly influenced by the Arabic culture. It reflects the persecution of Andalusian Moors and the gypsies during the reign of the catholic kings. We went to a gorgeous theater, El Palacio Andaluz, for the evening to see it. It was like a Spanish river dance.

Another day of adventure lies ahead! Today we tour Sevilla. I am wondering why it is sometimes called Seville and sometimes Sevilla. I will have to ask Alberto. There is a major river that runs from the Atlantic through Seville, thereby making it a very important town in ancient times because it was an embarcation point to the Americas. One of the historic sights we saw is called the Golden tower. It was built as a defence tower in the 12th century and is one of the last examples of Moorish architecture. Some say it owes it's name to the golden tiles which covered the structure, while others say it was used to store the cargoes of silver & gold that were shipped from the Americas.

The royal palace in Seville, Real Alcazar is often referred to in the plural because it is a series of smaller palaces as the seat of power changed. Palaces were built by the Muslims for the Christians so you could see Moorish architecture mixed with Gothic, renaissance and baroque elements. I have learned a lot about architecture on this trip! And the gardens! Wow! They are so beautiful with fountain upon fountain all interconnected with a gravity fed system. Only the earliest of the flowers were out and you could already smell them. I would imagine in a few weeks it will be incredible. This tour was a little more difficult because we only had one tour guide and our group was too big for that. After the tour, we were in this area of the palace that housed some restaurants and gift shops and it was a maze of small walkways. One of the girls wandered off and got turned around and when the group went to leave, we realized we were missing one teen. She did the right thing and managed to find someone who spoke English to help her find a phone and she called Alberto's cell phone #. He was not with us, but he was able to direct her to our meeting place and he called Antonio, our palace guide to explain she had been located. It was a valuable lesson for everyone to keep tabs on the people you are with and for the kids to keep the paper with the hotel address and the guide's cell phone #.

After the palace, we had some free time in the city center until the cathedral was open for tours. Instead of shopping, I once again settled at an outdoor cafe with the teachers for lunch. I had a fantastic Mediterranean salad. And the best bread ever. It looked like some sort of nut loaf but am not sure. Mmmmmmmm!

This afternoon, we have the cathedral, then we are off to Malaga on the coast of the Mediterranean sea for the next 3 nights. Then home! Thumbs are tired so I will type more later!
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network