SPAIN

We went to 2 different cities in Spain -- La Coruna & Bilbao.

 

The morning we were in La Coruna was a bit of a disaster. Everyday we had set times for our tours depending on the tour we chose. For this day we chose a biking tour and we were supposed to be ready to go at 9 am. We set our alarm but it either didn't go off because of a time change or we slept right through it. Jet lag hit us HARD that day. Somehow we slept in until 11 am Spain time and totally missed our tour. Bren ran frantically to the front desk to explain and thankfully thankfully THANKFULLY they got us in on the afternoon bike tour.

 

The only bummer with that is we didn't have much time to explore after the bike tour because our boat would be leaving soon, and because we were on a bike the whole time we couldn't get tons of pictures. But it was a darling, quaint coastal city. You could see the ocean everywhere you looked and all the locals were on bikes. It had a very carefree, "hang loose" vibe. Maybe that's because there were surfers haha.

 

 

LOVED all the white!

 

 

They had us wear hair nets under our helmets HAHA. I was too scared to ask why.

 

 

 

We really wanted to find some gelato or a soccer jersey store after our bike ride with the time we had left. They actually called our names from the ship because we were late getting back. We were a little infamous for it the rest of the trip, whoops. We really needed to get it together this day.

 

Goodbye La Coruna!

The next morning we woke up in Bilbao! Little did we know it would be our favorite city of the whole trip.

The first stop we made once we got into the city (which was about a half hour bus ride from where our boat was docked) was the Guggenheim Museum. The city is separated into an old and new quarter, and the museum was in the new quarter obviously, as it's not that old. I learned about this museum my senior year in art history class so this was pretty cool to see in person. The outside itself is a piece of art.

 

Senior Pics LOL. I  just do what Bren-the-photographer tells me to do.  

 

Next we headed to the Old Quarter, the place that really stole my heart. But first: TAPAS!

We had to try them. I'm just so glad we could go back to a boat and order a club sandwich and margherita pizza to our room at any hour of the night. If we were stuck with only tapas our experience in Spain may not have been a positive one, hahaha.

First up was a slice of bread with tuna, avocado, some kind of apricot jam, and topped with an anchovy.

Next was more bread with a very very rare piece of chewy steak and a cooked pepper...

After that was a shrimp and octopus skewer with the sucker things still attached...

And then dessert was MORE bread with another kind of jam, a piece of cheese, and I think tomato on top? Drizzled in balsamic vinegar. Brennan weirdly liked this one...

And that my friends, is some authentic Spanish cuisine. Washed down with lots and lots of Coke for Bren and Coke Light for me. This restaurant did have ice though which was an answer from above!

And now for the Old Quarter, the heart of the city and the part of the city that stole my heart forever.

Probably my favorite picture from the whole trip

Spanish Oreos, you better believe it!

Churros & Chocolate-- fresh and yum!

Their city flag draped through the streets. Kind of blew our minds that this wasn't from a movie.

Ow ow!

Reasons we loved Spain:

-Brennan could speak the language! A couple darling ladies from our tour group really wanted to bring their sons back soccer jerseys, so they brought Bren to a soccer store (which was miraculously open during Siesta) so he could translate for them! And I must say, it was pretty dang sexy.

-The weather was yet again 75 and sunny. It could not have been more perfect.

-It was CLEAN. So clean and pristine. You could tell the Spanish take a lot of pride in their country and take care of what they have. I loved that.

-With even less tourists than Portugal, we felt like little Spanish residents for the day, walking down every little cobblestone street.

-The COLOR! Every building was a different beautiful shade. It really made my jaw drop and may have even brought a tear to my eye.

-The clotheslines and flowers on the balconies. I love the simple life that Europeans live. I don't know if I could live it but I sure appreciate it.

Spain, you take the cake. The whole dang cake.

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To be continued...

xoxo