the rain in spain stays mainly in the plains

Well my dad and mom were ever so generous and they took me on the trip of my life. Our first real stop on our 2 1/2 week adventure was spain. We spent all of our time in the southern-most part of spain called Andalucia. We visited a new province every day. My favorite high lights from spain were

1. visiting matthew who is studying abroad right now...we went to church with him and stayed the day with him and the Garcia's (the family he is living with). They are an amazing family and the spirit just emanated from their home. Christina was a great cook and it ended up being our best meal in spain. It was really fun to see matt in action with his spanish because he translated the whole time we were at the Garcia's.

2. Going to the Rock of Gibraltar (and no, it is not just a rock)! It is it's own sovereign nation and is run by the British. Around this rock is a huge city. Mom and I went to the top of the rock and saw inside the natural caves there. From the top of the rock we could see Africa and it is the point where the Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans meet. Atop the rock was also a family of monkeys. One actually jumped in our car and stole my mom's food before escaping back out to finish it off. I thought it was pretty funny to see the shock on my mom's face.

3. As I said, we could see Africa from Spain and from the Rock they are only about 15 miles apart. I know it doesnt' appear that way on the map. So one day we took a ferry ride over to Morocco, Africa and that was an experience. I never in my life thought I would ever see Africa. To my surprise, that part of africa is populated heavily with Muslim people so I actually felt like I was in India. We rode camels and ate at a fine african restaurant where I danced an african dance with the entertainer in the restaurant. It was amazing.

I really enjoyed all of Spain and I was actually quite surprised when it was very different from Mexico. Yeah, don't know what I was thinking. I was expecting salsa and mariachi bands, but there was not a bean in sight. It was fun to try to use my tarnished spanish and keep on the move as we saw new places every day.