O-Ma-Ha

Peyton may have retired to write letters to famous athletes but that doesn't mean Rachel and I aren't throwing out audibles on our trip. When I planned the trip, I purposefully left open a week without booking hotels or transportation. This week was to take place after Sevilla (which we visit after Madrid) and was loosely planned as a road trip around the Spanish coast to Cordoba, Malaga, Valencia, Mallorca, and finally up to Barcelona to finish off Spain. 

We ran into an issue when we arrived in Madrid and checked the forecast for Sevilla.

While the sun will certainly be nice, temperatures over 100 degrees don't bode well for being a tourist and experiencing a new city. Also, we went to dinner with some friends in Madrid last night who told us that in Seville (and most of Andalusia for that matter) the locals speak a strange form of Spanish that is very difficult to understand. Those 2 facts led us to quickly change plans and make alternate arrangements. 

 

We're now planning to take a train on Sunday directly to Valencia and skip southern Spain. While I'm extremely upset about missing out on some of these destinations (most notably the Alhambra in Granada - the site of Dorne in Game of Thrones!!), I'll get by with some fresh squeezed orange juice and much more reasonable temperatures. 

 

This will also allow Rachel and I to assimilate into one place and feel like "locals." We're planning to take Spanish classes there and join discussion groups that will allow us to practice the language. Now I just need to figure out where we're staying for the last 9 days (I burned the last of my SPG points to get our first 5 nights at the Westin!)

Hopefully I'll be able to visit Ilaria Martell and the rest of the SandSnakes in due time. The setting of Dorne is certainly better than the plot line.

Jeff