The Barber of Seville

Monday, April 19

We woke up a little late on Monday morning and had to get moving so that we could meet Nat and Blaire. We ended up being a little late and they had already gone in without us. We found them a few minutes after we got there. The Royal Alcazar is a palace/fortress that many different kings have inhabited over the centuries. The palace part was a lot like the Alhambra in Granada but smaller. It has a lot of the same influences with the Alcazar had a lot of hidden courtyards and extensive gardens.

Folks, we’ve visited lots of castles with gardens on this trip but these gardens beat them all, at least in Katie’s opinion. There were three different sections. One had walls that created different room-like areas with fountains and pools and such. Another section had brick paths going all around with benches and fountains and flowers and trees. There were also English gardens that were more open with dirt paths and a few trees and a couple of fountains but it was mostly open.

The coolest part of the English gardens was that it had peacocks! They were so beautiful! Katie had the brilliant idea to see if they liked crackers. Well, they did! They pecked the crackers right out of her hands, but they didn’t stop there! When the crackers were gone, they continued to follow us around the gardens wanting more!

We've made a little video to document the experience. We call it the "Peacock Witch Project."

**Disclaimer - please excuse Rachael being a real whuss and thus her profanity...

After that fun experience, we decided we might need to move on so that they peacocks would leave us alone so we made our way to the exit to meet Natalie and Blair for lunch. We found a tapas restaurant with good prices so we dined on sandwiches, a dish of garlic mayonnaise mashed potatoes and another dish with tomatoes and onions with salt and some other oily-vinegary deliciousness.

After lunch, Blair and Natalie had to go back to the hostel and get their things together so they could catch their afternoon train to Madrid. We followed them back to the hostel because we wanted to nap so that we wouldn’t be too tired by midnight for the Alumbrao, which is the kickoff for the Feria de Abril. Well, when folks nap, Katie has a habit of sneaking off and doing her own thing. An hour or so later, Katie came back to the hostel with a whole new ‘do! Apparently, getting her hair cut in Paris wasn’t crazy enough so she got it whacked off in Spain too! It’s the shortest she’s ever had her hair, so she’s not quite sure how she feels about it yet, but you can all see for yourselves when she gets home in two days! After napping, we took the time to try and get caught up on all the blogging we’ve been slacking on. We’ve finally gotten you guys pretty much up to speed!

At 11pm, we started making our way to the place where the Alumbrao was taking place. It was about a half hour walk that turned into almost an hour walk because of all of the people! The Alumbrao is the kickoff of the Feria de Abril where they light up this huge gate thing that they construct just for the feria every year. There were so many people and so much hype that the Alumbrao seemed a little anticlimactic but it was still pretty cool. According to one thing that we read about the Feria de Abril, this festival is the second biggest celebration of the year, only being beaten by the Oktoberfest in Germany. We believe it! There were people everywhere!

We learned that the feria is actually pretty exclusive. Different families and organizations rent out casetas which are like personal party huts. They’re decorated with chandeliers and paintings on the walls and they have personal wait staff and entertainment in each little caseta. You can only get into the caseta if you’re invited.

There is also an area with rides, fair food, and games to play. It’s such a fun atmostphere! We walked all around the feria, had some churros and chocolate and then decided to make the trek back to the hostel so we could rest up for our journey to Madrid the next day!

XOXO K&R