Spain & Morocco! Oh my!

We have been planning this trip for a long time...really, ever since we found out we were moving here and I found the crazy travel girls blog, I had decided that we were going to go to Morocco and ride camels just like they did.  Unfortunately Jacob's been working a new job for the past few weeks and his busiest and most stressful times just happened to fall over the same weekend as our trip.  So that made things a little tricky, but we still managed to have some fun.

We arrived in Malaga, Spain early Friday morning and headed straight for Seville.  We were thinking of making a quick detour to Granada, but it was pouring down rain and we were worried we wouldn't make it to Seville in time for Jacob's meeting that afternoon, so we'll have to try and get there some other time.  We stayed at a charming hotel right in the middle of town that was close to everything, especially the famous Sevilla Cathedral.  Once the rain stopped we headed out in search of food and the sites.  And the first thing we found was the Cathedral...this is said to be the 3rd largest Cathedral in the world.

It was stunning on the inside.

The tomb of Christopher Columbus.

 

Here's another picture of the cathedral on the next day...when it was nice out.

 Check out this street performer...Jacob and I could not figure out how she did it!

The next morning we decided to finally take a horse drawn carriage ride...Autumn always loves the horsies so we decided this would be the perfect place to ride around the city in style.  Here is our lovely white horse...and some of the sites we saw along the way...

And my absolute favorite part of Seville had to be the Plaza de Espana...it was so big and beautiful and all the tile work everywhere was just beautiful!  I could have spent all day there taking pictures if Jacob would have let me :o)

And I just had to snap this picture...it was a Saturday afternoon and we saw all sorts of people dressed up like the ladies below...with big hats, fancy outfits, etc.  I don't know if they were all headed to weddings or what was going on, but it was fun to see them all dolled up!

We headed out on the road again to our next destination...Tarifa, Spain to catch a ferry to Morocco in the morning.  Tarifa is a small town without much to do or see, but it proved to be the perfect spot to stay since the ferry port was a five minute walk from our hotel.

So if any of you out there are planning a trip to Morocco from Spain I highly recommend you don't do it in November (or February from what I understand) if you get sea sick.  I've never been sea sick before in my life, but even I was feeling quit green on our one hour trip across the Strait of Gibraltar.  Somehow the three of us made it without losing our breakfast though and we were in Morocco!!  Our guide met us at the gate and we were quickly off to see Tangier.  Now Tangier is definitely not like a tourist destination.  Rick Steve's calls it the Tijuana of Morocco, but if you've only got one day it will do.  And the main point of the trip...was our 5 minute camel ride. Ha...I know that's a heck of a journey for five minutes, but honestly I'm glad it didn't last much longer...camels are kinda awkward and hard to ride...especially if you are holding on to a two year old for dear life as Jacob was!

 Jacob's face here pretty much describes how said he felt the entire time!

This picture is so blurry...I forgot to put my camera on manual for the guy...

but I don't know how they all turned out blurry...oh well.

 One of the baby camels.

 Hercules Cave

 The cats were out of control!

A market where the locals shop....I didn't take any pictures of the nasty rabbits, chickens, etc.  

Ugh...I about threw up!

And that was about it.  We were back on the boat to make the quick ride back to Spain.  I'm definitely glad we made the trip, but if we ever go back to Morocco...we will definitely be heading to one of the more touristy areas.

The next morning we were up early and off to see the Rock of Gibraltar.  It took a bit to get in since you have to go through UK border patrol, but it was fun to be able to go up on top of the rock.

And one of the first things you notice when you get to the top of the cable car lift is there are Apes everywhere!  They warn you not to get close with food or bags or they will take them!

 The view from the top was really pretty!

And lastly I had to show these pictures of the runway that runs right across the road in town. They said about 6 planes a day land/take off from here going to the UK.  And we got to experience two of them landing right when we were heading out.  The last picture you can just see the plane driving across while the road was shut down.

And that is about it.  It was a pretty good trip over all...one I'm definitely glad we did.  If you wish to see all the pictures from the trip click here.

And we'll be back next week with more Wild About Wednesday activities.

We're back...and eating Chocolate!

After our 4 week trip to the States it was nice to be back in our lovely apartment and our own beds again.  We had a great trip, but missed our life and our friends in Brussels too...even if it meant coming back to cold, rainy weather...boo :o(  And we're finally starting to get back to our usual routine and our "Wild About Wednesdays"...although now we're switching it up some and doing some different days too so some of our friends in school can join us.

Last week we had an invite to a friends house for Halloween that we just couldn't pass up....Autumn just had to wear the adorable peacock costume my cousin made...so we opted to skip our Wednesday activity and just hang with friends.  It was a blast...especially because she had all sorts of tasty treats...and my favorite potato soup...yum!  Autumn was having too much fun playing for me to get a good picture of her costume, but here are a couple so you can get the idea.

But this week we got back in to the swing of things and decided to pay a visit to the Museum of Cocoa & Chocolate!  A chocolate museum...what could be better?  It is located just off the Grand Place in downtown Brussels so it made for a pretty easy day too.

I'm not going to lie...the museum itself is a little underwhelming...I mean how much stuff can you have relating to chocolate.  There was some interesting information about cocoa and how it made it's way to Europe...and they had some fun things like this huge boat filled with cocoa beans...

Of course the "Do Not Touch" Sign on the cocoa beans and these chocolate clothes and hats meant nothing to Autumn and Brooklyn...yikes!

Probably the most interesting part of the tour was watching the chocolatier making pralines...looks like a good job to me.  Although she swore she never sticks her fingers in to test it :o)  Ya right...ha!

Autumn and Brooklyn's favorite part was probably the fan in the corner...haha!  Oh well, as long as they weren't getting in to trouble we were happy.

But there were two things that made this whole trip worth it...the place smelled of delicious chocolate the second you walked in the door...so we got to smell the yummy deliciousness the whole visit...and they give you free chocolate!  Yum!!

How could you not enjoy a place like that!! We'll be back again next week with more adventures...but first we're headed out on the road again.  So check back soon for the highlights of a trip to Spain & Morocco!!