So here it is, the third and final week trip in Spain. Heading out I was pretty darn excited. We would be going to Barcelona and everything I had heard about Barcelona amounted to beaches and relaxation. So ya. Stoked. We went shopping the day before and I bought a bunch of candy for the road but sadly, I ate most of it before I left the store and the rest as gone pretty quickly. I did use some of it to reenact VA road trip 1998.
Who remembers that? Did somebody say Swedish fish? And yes, it had been some time since I had shaved. What do you guys think? I know that little Timothy was a little shocked by it. 
We drove off to Zaragoza and thus we started the beginning of the end. I was also a little sad to think that this was a huge marker for the near end of the study abroad. But I wasn’t about to let that get in the way of my fun so off we went. Zaragoza was amazing. One of the things that it is most famous for is the large basilica that was pretty cool.
We had some fun out in the courtyard and took some cool pictures.
This guy was pretty creepy.
But the basilica was pretty amazing.
A lot of it was under construction though because the world’s fair is coming to Zaragoza in June so they were renovating everything in the city for it. It is kind of lame how bad our timing is sometimes. Here are some basilica pics.
They had a huge Goya painting as the ceiling in one of the domes but it was under construction.
I think Catholics are so funny. This church was built by some lady, Pilar, who had done some miracles or something and personally laid one of the pillars for the church. Overtime, people paid more money to the church and they expanded but kept the original pillar that she laid. They decided that it was necessary to kiss the pillar in order to get what you wanted and needed. They have such strong faith. Its crazy. Sometimes it is faith founded in something way off but the devout Catholics are pretty darn devout. But obviously, I had to kiss the pillar as well.
Outside the church there were a ton of pigeons all over the place and so we ran through and chased them but there was one that Andrew was going to sneak up on till he realized it was dead.
There was one church that had a leaning tower.
That was very interesting. We moved onward and saw the even Zaragoza pays homage to George Washington. We went to a park and sat for a while on the swings and such that was a lot of fun. Sometimes the most fun things to do are little kid things. That makes sense since they are the ones who have the most fun. From there we went to a famous Moorish castle but it was closed for the siesta so we went to a nearby stadium to check it out and relax. Everyone got there and went to sleep but I wanted some cool pics.
Here is the stadium.
This Lion was awesome.
Here is a better pigeon picture.
When the siesta ended we headed back to the castle and got ready for our guided tour. The Tour was way cool and our tour guide’s name was Poloma. She was cute. But anyways, it started out in with a few cool rooms. Paloma told us about how this was a very interesting Moorish castle used since the times of the reconquest for many different purposes. In the mosque section of the castle there was an interesting carving of a bird.
Now, she told us that in Muslim culture they are unable to make carvings of plants or animals because it is against their religion. So, this makes sense why the mosques that we have seen up to this point have been so elaborate. They couldn’t do paintings of people or animals so they made intricate geometric designs. So that was a fun fact and an answer to the question that Katie had about the mosques before. During wartime this was a very crucial point for defense. One of the kings dug up an underground well outside the castle and then covered it up with a series of caves that connected the castle to the water from underground.
Enemies putting the castle under siege could be directly over the water and have no idea. So that was pretty cool. The castle was also used during the Spanish Inquisition and a few of the rooms were converted to holding cells. The prisoners from the different religions each left their marks in the cell.
Some even carved a checker board in the ground.
Funny story: so the tour was full of stairs and a bunch of cool stuff to see. There was nothing interesting to hear that you couldn’t hear sitting somewhere. Also, there was nothing that we could touch. But for some reason, they had this model of a castle with all the parts labeled and they were labeled in Braille.
It was really out of place and random. Like Braille on a drive up ATM. Picture 3000 was of our tour guide Paloma in a room that Sarah and Erin decided was going to be the dinner halls for their wedding receptions. 
This was a pretty neat door.
Here are some pics from the room that Fernando and Isabel decorated with their symbols and such.
The shield is their crest. The arrows are a symbol of strength in numbers. And Tanta Monta is a famous phrase that means “it’s the same either way”. We went into the chamber of congress type place for the state of Aragon.
This was the kingdom that Fernando was king of when he married Isabel. Back in the day, when Spain was still a large number of kingdoms, the most powerful were Castilla and Aragon. That is why it was such a big deal that Fernando and Isabel got together and began the formation of a united Spain. Aragon was the kingdom that was smaller of the two but arguably more powerful. At the time, they owned Sicily. Pretty cool, eh? After the tour, we wandered around for a few seconds and got some pics that we didn’t have time for on the tour. Here is one of the prayer room of the mosque.
And another.
Some amazing gardens.
From there we went off into Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon, and had some more fun.
Look at this cool drinking fountain.
They sure love their lions here in Zaragoza. We got to one plaza and the girls decided to go shoe shopping.
…shoe shopping…(said in a zombie/Zach Braff voice) Here was a cool church.
And another roman bridge. They sure do love their bridges.
More lions with a pretty sunset.
Wow…all I have to say about this next one is wow.
I mean, it’s got a bird fling and everything. This is a good group.
Do you understand why I said that the basilica is famous now?
We went around that night and had a bunch of fun. We found a park and played missionary tag and then a new game of tag that Andrew made up called bent and straight tag. We found some Greek gyros and they were way good and then headed back to the hotel. But not before we got an amazing picture of Andrew and Sarah.
Who remembers that? Did somebody say Swedish fish? And yes, it had been some time since I had shaved. What do you guys think? I know that little Timothy was a little shocked by it. We drove off to Zaragoza and thus we started the beginning of the end. I was also a little sad to think that this was a huge marker for the near end of the study abroad. But I wasn’t about to let that get in the way of my fun so off we went. Zaragoza was amazing. One of the things that it is most famous for is the large basilica that was pretty cool.We had some fun out in the courtyard and took some cool pictures.This guy was pretty creepy.But the basilica was pretty amazing.A lot of it was under construction though because the world’s fair is coming to Zaragoza in June so they were renovating everything in the city for it. It is kind of lame how bad our timing is sometimes. Here are some basilica pics.They had a huge Goya painting as the ceiling in one of the domes but it was under construction.I think Catholics are so funny. This church was built by some lady, Pilar, who had done some miracles or something and personally laid one of the pillars for the church. Overtime, people paid more money to the church and they expanded but kept the original pillar that she laid. They decided that it was necessary to kiss the pillar in order to get what you wanted and needed. They have such strong faith. Its crazy. Sometimes it is faith founded in something way off but the devout Catholics are pretty darn devout. But obviously, I had to kiss the pillar as well.Outside the church there were a ton of pigeons all over the place and so we ran through and chased them but there was one that Andrew was going to sneak up on till he realized it was dead.There was one church that had a leaning tower.That was very interesting. We moved onward and saw the even Zaragoza pays homage to George Washington. We went to a park and sat for a while on the swings and such that was a lot of fun. Sometimes the most fun things to do are little kid things. That makes sense since they are the ones who have the most fun. From there we went to a famous Moorish castle but it was closed for the siesta so we went to a nearby stadium to check it out and relax. Everyone got there and went to sleep but I wanted some cool pics.Here is the stadium.This Lion was awesome.Here is a better pigeon picture.When the siesta ended we headed back to the castle and got ready for our guided tour. The Tour was way cool and our tour guide’s name was Poloma. She was cute. But anyways, it started out in with a few cool rooms. Paloma told us about how this was a very interesting Moorish castle used since the times of the reconquest for many different purposes. In the mosque section of the castle there was an interesting carving of a bird.Now, she told us that in Muslim culture they are unable to make carvings of plants or animals because it is against their religion. So, this makes sense why the mosques that we have seen up to this point have been so elaborate. They couldn’t do paintings of people or animals so they made intricate geometric designs. So that was a fun fact and an answer to the question that Katie had about the mosques before. During wartime this was a very crucial point for defense. One of the kings dug up an underground well outside the castle and then covered it up with a series of caves that connected the castle to the water from underground.Enemies putting the castle under siege could be directly over the water and have no idea. So that was pretty cool. The castle was also used during the Spanish Inquisition and a few of the rooms were converted to holding cells. The prisoners from the different religions each left their marks in the cell.Some even carved a checker board in the ground.Funny story: so the tour was full of stairs and a bunch of cool stuff to see. There was nothing interesting to hear that you couldn’t hear sitting somewhere. Also, there was nothing that we could touch. But for some reason, they had this model of a castle with all the parts labeled and they were labeled in Braille.It was really out of place and random. Like Braille on a drive up ATM. Picture 3000 was of our tour guide Paloma in a room that Sarah and Erin decided was going to be the dinner halls for their wedding receptions. This was a pretty neat door.Here are some pics from the room that Fernando and Isabel decorated with their symbols and such.The shield is their crest. The arrows are a symbol of strength in numbers. And Tanta Monta is a famous phrase that means “it’s the same either way”. We went into the chamber of congress type place for the state of Aragon.This was the kingdom that Fernando was king of when he married Isabel. Back in the day, when Spain was still a large number of kingdoms, the most powerful were Castilla and Aragon. That is why it was such a big deal that Fernando and Isabel got together and began the formation of a united Spain. Aragon was the kingdom that was smaller of the two but arguably more powerful. At the time, they owned Sicily. Pretty cool, eh? After the tour, we wandered around for a few seconds and got some pics that we didn’t have time for on the tour. Here is one of the prayer room of the mosque.And another.Some amazing gardens.From there we went off into Zaragoza, the capital of Aragon, and had some more fun.Look at this cool drinking fountain.They sure love their lions here in Zaragoza. We got to one plaza and the girls decided to go shoe shopping.…shoe shopping…(said in a zombie/Zach Braff voice) Here was a cool church.And another roman bridge. They sure do love their bridges.More lions with a pretty sunset.Wow…all I have to say about this next one is wow.I mean, it’s got a bird fling and everything. This is a good group.Do you understand why I said that the basilica is famous now?We went around that night and had a bunch of fun. We found a park and played missionary tag and then a new game of tag that Andrew made up called bent and straight tag. We found some Greek gyros and they were way good and then headed back to the hotel. But not before we got an amazing picture of Andrew and Sarah.
They were really cool. A lot of them were really funny and it was amazing to see how much time and effort had gone into building them. We had a father from the ward showing us around the city and he started taking us down some pretty crowded streets.
Each float we saw was more and more amazing.
There were a bunch and each was very different and individual.
They were really crazy!
We headed over to the Train Station and it was really a very cool building.
Funny story. We were walking by this lady and she was offering something out. And I was all, “No thanks, I’m poor.” “It’s free.” She said. So I took one and it turned out to be some cold coffee thing. Because I grabbed one two other girls also grabbed one and we were disappointed that it wasn’t something we could have.
From there we went and saw some fireworks. We really didn’t because the road was so amazingly crowded.
And it was daytime so I don’t know how well we would have seen them anyways. We all decided to walk around and we started to see the cool stuff of Valencia.
From where we were in town it was still quite a walk from the beach. We thought about taking the bus and foolishly decided against it because we wanted to save money. It ended up taking about an hour to get to the beach but when we did, it was pretty awesome looking.
However, as soon as we changed our clothes, all the clouds came out and the wind started blowing. It was very cold so we decided we’d have to make a mad dash for the water.
Yes, we are very white I know. And here it is, the first time in the ocean in as long as I can remember. OK, maybe that was an overstatement but it’s been a long time.
It was really cold.
I’m swimming!
Ok, so maybe I’m still standing. It was really far out before it was deep enough to actually swim.
There you go. Geepers though, I’m really white. After not too long we decided it was too cold and we made our triumphant exit.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that the last time I went swimming was the day after my birthday in 2005. It was in the Lehi river, jumping off of the Lehi bridge. Kind of a lame way to go, huh? But I started anew in the Mediterranean sea off of the coast of Spain so I’m ok with it. Anyways…Look! It’s a sail boat.
Freedom!!!
I ate at Burger King that night.
Its lame I know but I was really craving it. We then walked back to the city center. It was quite a walk and at the end …I was really tired. When we got to the center there was a huge parade going on but everyone wanted real food so we went in search of it. Andrew stopped for a photo with some parade performers. 
We never found anything good and ended up just eating at Pan and Company. I didn’t eat there because I wasn’t in the mood for a Spanish fast food chain. After dinner we met up with the Shumways and we followed them in search of a Cathedral but Kyte, Suzanna, and I got distracted in a street market. I got a really beautiful tie with matching handkerchief. I love it. We finally called after Andrew and the Shumways and met up with them by the Cathedral but it was closed. Here is a Maria made all of flowers. It was probably 30 feet tall.
We got a good position by the Falla that we were going to watch and were there pretty early so we just had to sit there. 
It was amazingly huge and I was pretty surprised it was going to be burned. At 1 am they started the fireworks show. It was really cool.
And then they started to burn the falla.
There were so many with cameras.
And so the fire began.
Once it started we were able to feel the heat from where we were standing and it was crazy. There were so many people. The fireworks were still going while the thing was burning.
It was really cool. Pictures don’t really catch the awesomeness of the fire because of the smoke and such.
The whole time they were spraying it down with hoses and such and it just made me so nostalgic of the good old days. I hope Michael picked out some good trees this year. And this was all that was left.
Valencia was like 5 hours away from home so we didn’t get to bed till like 7-8 am. It was a pretty AWESOME day though. FIRE! 