Bratwurst und Bier (Bratwurst & Beer)

Both Patrick and I had birthdays in the month April. To mourn the passing of our youth, I mean to celebrate this happy occasion, we decided to visit southern Spain: Jerez de Frontera, Sevilla, Cordoba, and Granada. We picked Spain because it is where Patrick’s ancestors were originally from before moving to the new world and also because it is warmer than Germany. We flew into Jerez de Frontera, a city known for its sherries (mostly dry white wine that goes great with plates of tapas) as well as the royal school of the equestrian.. We started our day at the royal school of the equestrian and watched the horses being trained to do trots and unnatural acrobatic stunts. Afterwards, we visited the Sandeman bodega (winery) and did a tour that described how the Sherries are made follow by tasting and tapas. We had the best olives with anchovies with our Sherry. It was a nice way to start our trip. After the bodega tour, we started heading towards Sevilla, which is about an hour and a half away from Jerez. The drive was pleasant as most of the Spaniards observe the afternoon siesta and there weren’t too many people on the road. We were struck at how many olive groves we saw along the way. It seems like the entire country is dotted with olive trees. We found out during the trip that Spain is the biggest producer of olives. I would have thought that honor would go to Greece or Italy. We arrive in Sevilla late afternoon, caught the last few hours of sun light by doing light exploring then ended the night with tapas and wine. Before our trip to Sevilla, we had always heard that it is a dirty city, but our impression of the city was that it may have once been rough on the edges but the city has made tremendous improvements with civil projects and other beautifying projects. We enjoyed our time in Sevilla with lots and lots of tapas and as well as a small and intimate flamenco music and dancing.

Next stop, we drove about 2 hours away to the city of Cordoba. Cordoba is known for the Mezquita, a mosque turned Catholic church had a colorful history. It was the largest mosque in western Europe until it was turned into a church. Cordoba is also known for its leather works. We bought a leather tapestry as our joint birthday gift. Spent way too much but what the heck, how many times will we be back to Cordoba again? In the afternoon, we were back in the car again to drive to our last leg of the visit to Granada. Granda is known for the Alhambra. Alhambra started out as a fort, and then turned into a palace. It was the capital of the Moorish settlement in Spain. This palace is so famous that we had to buy a time slot ahead of time to guarantee that we would get inside. It was a magnificent palace, the architecture was intricate in the details, quite impressive. With our ticket, we also bought the audio tour guide so will learn the history and interesting tid bids of the palace. One of my favorite saying was that when the Christian reconquered the city, the Moorish king was driven out of Alhambra. On his way back to Africa, he looked back to the palace and broke down in tears. The king’s mother said ‘You cry like a woman for what you cannot defend as a man’. How’s that for tough love?

All good things must come to an end, our last morning in Granada, we checked out of the hotel at 7 am and drove to the airport. The plan was to return the rental car and take the shuttle to catch our 9:30 flight back to Frankfurt. At 8:30am, the rental car place was still closed and the airport is a good mile away from the car rental. Turns out the lady was late coming into work and finally showed at right before 9. We finally made it to the airport a little passed 9 and with the lucky chance that the flight was delayed were we able to catch our flight back home. Had we missed this flight, we would have to be ‘forced’ to stay in Spain another day.