I will say that I haven´t blogged on NoLessDays.org in a very long time. Of course though I have a very good reason for that. I have been on two tours that in all added up to about two weeks. First, I went with the orchestra to play a concert in Madrid, after that we came back here to CAS (Cárcel de Alta Seguridad), then ESDES left the next day for a nine day tour to various cities in Andalucía and also to a city in Africa. Yes, you heard correctly, I have been to Africa! As incredible as it may sound.I hardly believe it myself.

Starting off in chronological order. The tourito to Toledo and Madrid. Well, all three days we only actually played one concert; it was an importan one though. It was for and adventist assmbly in Madrid. I son´t tell you the name of it casue it wouldn´t make any sense to you anyway, but it was basically the equivalent of a big general conference get -together or something of the like. Anyway, other than that, not a lot happened. I really enjoyed hanging out with people who spoke Spanish. The whole time we were there we stayed in the same hotel a couple minutes outside of Toledo in the country.  There were a coupe windmills on a nearby hill which reminded me of Don Quijote.

Moving right along. The ESDES tour of Andalucía and Africa, more specifically Morocco. We started our tour with Granada. First day we went to see the Cartuja. It´s some kind of building. It was really cool I´m sure, but I don´t really remember it, cause I´ve seen so many other building like it. Anyway that night we went to this restaurant in a cave. Houses in caves are actually quite common in parts of Andalucía. Anyway, we didn´t actually eat there we just went there to watch a flmenco dance. I will say it was kind of cool, but I´m not much into watching people dancing. I am learning Sevillanas though which is a dance and it is a lot of fun. Shoot , it´s hard though. You have to try to be graceful or you just look like an idiot. I look like an idiot though anyway a lot of the time. Moving along. Next day we visited the Capilla Real where Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand are buried with their kids too. Then we went next door to the Cathedral of Granada to look at the tomb of Christopher Columbus. We even got to see a big shrine of Christopher on his knees asking Isabel to give him money to go to India. That afternoon we went to the Alhambra. Sure you all know what that is. It is the most famous historical monument of Spain. At least outside of Spain it is. That´s because in the 1800s some time, an American author came to Spain and actually lived in the Alhambra for three months and wrote a book called, ¨Tales of the Alhambra.¨ His name was Washintom Irving. Might of heard of him before. Woke up the next morning with the realization that I would seen be in a British colony where a mixture of English and Spanish is spoken, Gibraltar. By the way, when I say mixture, I really mean mixture. When we got there, it was just really wierd hearing people talking both languages all mixed up in each other. I´m getting ahead of myself though, on the way we stopped at the town of Marbella(anyone want to guess what it means). It´s a little tourist town and a lot of rich foreigners live there too. Just think yachts and beach and you get the picture. Well, since we were there for two hours a bunch of us went to the market to buy food since it was cheaper to get food at the market then always eat it. This happened to be the only market Spain that I have found raclette cheese. I swear I was still disillusioned from just having woken up cause I was so excited that I bought almost a whole kilo of it. Well, I immediately started eating it with bread. It tasted good, but I had forgotten about how bad it smelled. It really smelled bad. No body wanted to talk to me. They all wanted me to throw it out. Of course I didn´t; that cheese cost precious money. To make a long story short, I ate a good bit of it, but ended up forgetting it in the minibar en Sevilla. How sad.

Back to Gibraltar. I was going to go up the rock of Gibraltar to see the monkeys, but it was rainy and overcast and nowone else wanted to go, so I am just going to wait to go up with Ma and Pa when they get here in a couple weeks. That night we stayed in a hotel on the other side of the bay and played sardines. Everyone ended up annoyed in the end when they looked for me for almost two hours and never found me. I was hiding on the roof. I eventually got caught because I snuck down to go to the bathroom. It was really cold up there too.

Next day was the ferry trip to Marruecos. We were there all day and came back in the evening. One of the first things that we did when we got there was to go ride a couple reluctant camels. I realized that camels are really weird creatures. They are kind of like a mix between a cat, a horse, and a monkey. Anyway we went to a carpet store. It was really cool, but expensive, so I didn´t get anything. It was actually all a big ploy to make money. Our guide Rasheed wouldn´t let us stop anywhere other than where he was taking us cause he knew it was way cheaper and we were dumb tourists, so we should go to the expensive place where he gets a cut of the profits. At least that is my theory. Went a spice shop too and I bought some eucalyptus seeds for my roommates snoring. They said it would help. It sure did. He snores louder than ever!

Next three day we were in Sevilla. We were there over Sabbath, so we went to church there. Small church, but it was good. We stayed in Hotel Bécquer where I left my cheese. It was a pretty high hotel and we were on the next to top floor. That was good though cause their was a freezing pool on the roof. I swam in it every single day I was there. It was really cold though. In Sevilla we also saw a lot of interesting old buildings such as cathedrals and monasteries and old Arabic towers. Also el Torre del Oro which means the tower of gold. It was called that because the boats from America would come up the Quadalquivir and drop of all of there gold at this tower. makes sense with the name. Jaja : ).

Monday morning we went to Córdoba. We stayed in a really awesome hotel out in the country. They had three fútbol fields, so we played well into the night the only night we were there. Next day we went to the Mezquita (Mosque) de Córdoba.  It seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, but  it was one of the coolest mosques I´ve seen yet, in both senses.  As soon as you walk in you can feel the cool air hit you. It was pretty awesome. The last day of our tour  we went to the Alcázar of Córdoba. You might have heard me mention the Alcázar before, but this is a different one. It is arabic for fortress, so there are lots of them. The gardens there were really awesome. I probably took more pictures there than anywhere else on the whole rest of the trip. Then we returned to Sagunto. Oh sad day.

Now I am looking forward to taking my DELE test trying to study amidst everything, cause I think it would be really cool if I passed the test. I hope I haven´t bored you to death with this latest edition. Had to make up for missing so many you know.

Adeu