Spain

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a good Valentine's Day. Ours was slightly marred by Jason developing a nice case of pinkeye. :( Not a great way to celebrate our first Valentine's Day as a married couple!

Today is the blog about our trip to Spain in September ('07). Jason had the opportunity to present his master's thesis at the SAE Aircraft and Engine Icing International Conference in Seville (and I had the opportunity to go with him!). Jason's days consisted of attending presentations and lectures at the hotel while my days consisted of sleeping in til noon, then sightseeing on my own until dinner when I would meet up with Jason and we would eat and then sightsee some more until bedtime. Seville is a very touristy but amazing place and full of buildings and structures that, as Jason pointed out, were built well before the birth of our own country! During the week we were fortunate to enjoy two flamenco dancing performances, the first a formalized program for which we bought tickets, and several nights after that, an impromptu (free) performance at a lively local bar. We also visited museums, cathedrals and castles, ate paella -the national dish - twice, listened to street musicians, and walked about a thousand miles before the week was done. Here are a few of the 400+ pics we took :). Descriptions are below the pictures. Enjoy!

P.S. What's up with all that space between the text and the images??? Still becoming familiar with this whole blogging thing...

1. Plaza de Espana (where some footage was shot for one of the later Star Wars films)	2. Typical street in old part of the city
3. Bullfighting ring	4. View of the city (bullfighting ring visible) from top of the Cathedral
5. Catherdral	6.Sweaty flamenco dancers/musicians
7. A Smart Car! One of the many awesome European cars we saw.	8. Spain's a great place to be a biker as evidenced by the generous bike lanes along many of the sidewalks
9. Paella - notice the large shrimp with everything (legs, antennae, eyes) still attached	10. Taking a tour of the city on a double decker bus
11. Street musicians drawing a large crowd. This group had an eclectic mix of instruments: upright basses (3 of them!), accordion, saxophone, guitar, clarinet, trumpet, and probably more	12. The countryside of Spain - olive trees
	13. Indoor courtyard at the Alcazar castle. We actually stood in the room where Christopher Columbus was commissioned by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to go find the New World!