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Rachel's Eurotrip
Hola!
I just uploaded a ton of pictures so please, go look at them! Along the right side click on photo albums and then one will open and along the right side will be the list of the different ones I made. Most have a caption and a few have a description (you have to click on the picture to see the description).
One album is The Alcazar, it was so beautiful, pictures cant show it all...and there were so many people in our group I couldnt get many shots people people were standing in the way, boo! I forgot some of what our tour guide said, but he was amazing. The castle was not all built at the same time, different kings added different parts and it interesting because different parts of the castle have a different style. One part we went in had a lot of arabic influence, with arabic writing on the walls, praising alla which is from muslim faith (i think) but then had christain symbolism throughout it. There is a word for it, cant remember it, but it means a architecture/design that is both muslim and christian, hard to explain, didnt completely understand it when he was explaining it either. But then in a different part of the castle there was a more gothic design, which was clearly a different artist's work, very cool also. This castle is still used for the king and queen of spain, they have 10 castles throughout spain. We obviously couldnt go in their living quarters but we saw the windows that are from their rooms! hehe. When royalty is there they close down the tours also because they have had assasination attempts in the past and now they have higher security etc.
We also went to the cathedral, but the pictures from that came out really bad, not sure why, it was wierd lighting, so I didnt make an album. But it was cool, we were so tired after the alcazar so I think im going to go back and climb to the top, supposedly it has a great view, and im sure it does, its about 22 stories of stairs...no elevator! Christopher Columbus's remains are there in this cool tomb, and so is his second son, think he name was Fernando.
Interesting story about Columbus's tomb: Im not sure if im gonna get the whole story right so Ill just say the gist of it, but he was from Sevilla so they brought his remains there after being somewhere else (i think) then they gave them to the domincan republic because at the time spain owned it, then there was a war and they lost and they wanted his bones back, and got them but then the DR told them that they took the wrong ones, and claims THEY have the real columbus, and before the 1990's (this happened in maybe the 50s) there was no REAL way to confirm who really had it, but spain did have all the papers, but in the 90s they did DNA testing of him, his brother, and and son, and found conclusively that sevilla has the REAL columbus, but the DR still claims they have it but refuse to do a DNA test...thought that was an interesting tidbit...
We also went to a flamenco show. It was cool but a bit boring, and the guys singing was annoying, its like that spanishy yelping type singing, like they didnt even have good voices, the girls were pretty though and the dresses were so cool. I took a video of it too, but i cant upload videos here, but it came out really cool.
Ok this entry is long enough, hope you enjoy reading it...please leave me messages on the message board if you want!
adios!
rachel
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