GO International: Richard Chai @ TARGET

Target has some GREAT clothes right now. I only wish I had a decent Target nearby. Take advantage Provo peeps!

We HEART booking.com Spain Day 8

We woke up early of course to catch our early train to Cordoba. We were excited because we knew our hotel was going to be pretty nice. Once in Cordoba we got a taxi to take us to our hotel (we gave up on trying to find hotels on our own AND we were never able to use the internet to print off more maps). We were so excited when the taxi pulled up RIGHT NEXT to the Mezquita and our hotel was on the other side of the street. We were even MORE EXCITED when we got to our room and it was a SUITE!!! When we got to the room and saw the regular nightly rate we couldn't believe it. The room regularly went for 380 euros and we got it for 40 euors! What a steal!

Wall of Mezquita on the right. Hotel on the left

The suite. It doesn't look that nice in this picture but I promise you it was VERY NICE even for American standards.

Once we checked in we decided to grab an early lunch. We headed to a nice cafe where (I believe) we both had potato omelet sandwiches. A bit weird but good none the less. Next we headed to the Mezquita.

Danny inside the Mezquita

Cordoba's big attraction is the Mezquita which is a Islamic Mosque (AD 784) turned Christian Church. It maintains much of its mosque architecture. The catholic church's guide was really interesting. It contained all sorts of statements such as ,"The Mezquita is only in its current condition because of the Catholic church so don't feel sympathy for the Moors who were conquered and lost their church." It was all kinda strange and a bit funny.

The Mihrab aka Islamic high altar

The Christian high altar

The bell tower

The wall

Next we crossed the street to tour the Alcazar where to my horror we discovered it was closing (closed at 2:30 and it was 2:25 so they weren't going to let us in). I was very upset. This fortress castle had been given to the church by the Catholic Monarchs as a headquarter for the Spanish Inquisition...coolio. I was very sad. We now had nothing else to do in Cordoba.

The Alcazar

Me and the dirty Guadalquivir river

We decided to walk around and try to find this modern day Arabic bath place which we did finally find but it was really expensive. I still wish we would have done it. It looked pretty cool. So we just walked around forever. We got Danny some more eye drops. We walked through the Jewish quarter. I can't even remember where we had dinner. I know we have some ice cream at some point. Finally we began to walk back to our hotel and about 30 feet from the door of our hotel a man tried to steal a girl's camera. It was all very exciting. A kind tourist ran the thief down and got the camera. It was the second time we had witnessed a mugging in Spain.

We went to bed a little nervous because our train the next day was one that required advanced reservations and we didn't have reservations. We were hoping to just show up and buy tickets. I felt a little stupid about Cordoba because although our hotel was totally awesome and a great deal, we spent a lot of money to make the stop for basically one site. Oh well. It was still fun.

Disappointed

Something many of you may not know about me....

Most Mormon girls ages 12-17 spend all year in anticipation for girls camp, I spent all year in anticipation for our Stake Valentine's Young Women activity....cake decorating. I love cake decorating although I have not done any in about 10 years. My freshman year at BYU I took a student development class which was supposed to help you find your major...at the end of the class when the teacher ask what I wanted to do I said "Isn't there a Martha Stewart major or something?". The teacher said "yeah...at Rick's". So I ended up doing finance.

I was really excited to move to Palo Alto because our apartment is 5 minutes away from Foothill college and classes there are super cheap (like $13). I was really hoping to take a cake decorating class so you can imagine how excited I was when the Foothill College Fall Class Schedule came in the mail. But to my dismay there were no cake decorating classes or sewing or interior design or floral arranging or anything I might have interest in. I am so bummed! Guess I'll have to get a job at Sprinkles and learn how to decorate gourmet cupcakes!

Could we do any more in one day? Spain Day 7

I woke up stressed and anxious. We had a lot to do.

First up we needed to do laundry BAD. Unfortunately the laundry place didn’t open til 10 so we decided to go to the Basilica de la Macarena first since it opened early. But before we did that we needed to go to the grocery store to get drinks and eye drops for Danny. Unfortunately they didn’t have any eye drops but I got some delicious Sunny Delight!! We went back to the hotel, dropped the sunny de in the frig and hopped on a bus to the Basilica to see the famous weeping virgin.

It took us awhile to find mostly because it was hidden behind this wall (picture above) but we finally got inside and saw the statue. It was interesting…they dress her up and apparently parade her around the city during Seville’s Holy Week. We did not pay the $$ to see the museum of parade floats. We jumped back on the bus and headed to our hotel. In a mad rush we got our laundry and had to walk about 20 mins to the laundry place. I felt like a bit of an idiot carrying all these bags of laundry with me through the streets and main plaza but there was no other choice. Lucky for us the place is a drop off laundromat although expensive it was a bit cheaper than the do-it-yourself place. The lady told us she would have our laundry ready at 6:30. Perfect!

Next we ran to the Cathedral to get in line. The day before there had been a huge line to get in but our early arrival made so we only had to stand in line about 10 mins. I was really angry when we got our tickets because it was super expensive. I felt the Catholic Church was really taking us for our money. It was about $15/person to get in!!! We saw the cathedral in all its massiveness, did Rick Steves’ self-guided tour…got lost of course…, and saw Columbus’ tomb. Of course we weren’t supposed to take pictures inside but I felt for $30 I was going to get some pictures.

Danny in front of Columbus’ tomb

The altar made from new world gold…literally

The massive interior

The Cathedral is built over the ruins of a mosque however the Moorish minaret still remains as the Cathedral’s bell tower (now called the Giralda Tower). The tower has a ramp you can climb to the top so of course we climbed it. It is tall!! In the times of the mosque a horseman would ride to the top of the tower and call Muslims to prayer.

View from the top of the Giralda Tower

Me at the top! I made it!

Danny in front of the Cathedral

The Giralda Tower

The Giralda Tower from a distance

After the cathedral we decided to walk to the river and Golden Tower. The Golden Tower was the starting point and ending point for all shipping to the New World. Today it is a maritime museum. We chose not to do the museum as we had a lot to do.

Me in front of the Golden Tower

Next we decided we needed to get lunch. Luckily there was a McDonald's near by so we ate there. They were running a special and we got 2 coke glasses…however…we left them there (by the end of our trip we could have had a whole collection of glassware!). We decided to walk around the Maria Lusia Park and Plaza Espana. The park was great. Really tropical and lots of shade and the Plaza Espana was pretty although we would have liked to see it in all its glory (Spain has lots of cool water features but they never have any water in them to Danny’s dismay and frustration).

Danny loves the shade!

For all my corporate event planner friends out there…this is one bad-a corporate event setup….it was a dinner with all these “stores” setup where people could go get their meals. Wish I could have gotten a better pic. It was going to be lit at night by torches!

Yes...me in the fountain

Soaking wet from getting in the fountain

A lot of places in Spain have these cute buggy’s you can ride in….I kind of wanted to go but it’s so expensive…45 euros!

By now Danny’s eyes were seriously killing him. He couldn’t see and he needed to take his contacts out and get some serious eye drops from the pharmacy. So we headed back to the hotel to take his contacts out and try to find a pharmacy. Unfortunately all the pharmacies were closed due to siesta so we hung out drinking our sunny de for a bit. Finally the pharmacy opened and we got some eye drops. Danny went back to the hotel to put the drops and his contacts back in while I did some serious shopping,

At first I was annoyed by our hotel. It was quite nice but what I thought was too far from the sites. Then I discovered that it is right next to the shopping paseo (pedestrian street) leading to the sites…which meant every time we went anywhere I got to do some window shopping. So I used this Liz time to check out the stores I had been eyeing. Unfortunately Danny told me he would meet me in Zara’s in 20 mins so it left me too worried about missing him to try clothes on. I ended up walking around the store forever holding a bunch of clothes and listening to very inappropriate R-Kelly music. Finally he came and I ended up getting nothing from Zara’s. I did get a pair of cute sandals at a store down the street. Yeah!

We had to run to get our laundry because it was past 6:30 and we were afraid the place would close soon. We made it in time however I misplaced our slip of paper for our pickup so Danny was worried they wouldn’t know which stuff was ours. Lucky for us we had laundry they probably had never seen before (and were confused by) so they remembered us the second we walked in the door. We paid them the big bucks and laughed about what they must have thought of us on our walk back to the hotel.

At the hotel we debated over what to do for dinner and if we were going to a flamenco show. I really wanted to go to a Flamenco show but they mostly started at 8 or 9 and it was already past 7 and we didn’t have tickets or know where to go. Finally I convinced Danny to go down to one of the theaters to see about tickets. We got there barely in time for the show and it was already sold out. However, they did have tickets left for the 10 show (show is 2 hours) but that would put us walking back to the hotel at midnight and we had already had a long day. I wasn’t sure about this and the show was really expensive but I felt we had to see a flamenco show while in Spain and Seville is the capital of Flamenco. Danny really didn’t want to see the show but he finally gave in. So we decided to go get dinner and Danny had to go back to the hotel to do more eye drops. We grabbed a quick sandwich and shared it for dinner and made it back to the theater in time to get front row seats. The show was amazing and Danny (and I) had a really good time.

Danny having a good time at the Flamenco show

The castanets

The fan

Everyone dancing! (The guy looks like a vampire in this picture! Scary!)

After the show we speed walked home and had no problem falling asleep. What a busy day! We got everything done we needed to except using the internet to print maps. Oh well…not like we are good at following the map anyways. Tomorrow Cordoba!

I WANT! I WANT! I WANT!

I WANT THIS...but in black!!!


To go where our metal shelf unit is in the living room and replace our old desk. I need a job pronto!

What we've been up to

Obviously we went to Spain and after made it to California. It was a mad rush and I wanted to die. Our flight from Seattle to Pasco was delayed a ton so we didn't get into Pasco until late and we had to pack up all our stuff we had lying around the house and wake up early to start the 15+ hour drive to Palo Alto. On top of all this our bags from our lay over in Paris didn't make our flight and no one knew where they were. Great! We drove the long hours to Cali and I almost killed us 3 times but we made it. The next morning we got up at 5 am to pack and were at SFO by 7 because I was flying to St. Louis for a cousin's wedding and Danny was flying to Vegas to get his car and drive it back. All in all everything which our trips went fine. St. Louis was fun and Danny always enjoys Vegas. After our 1.5 month of traveling I was glad to be back to our apartment and get settled. Well things didn't get off to the greatest start. We arrived in Cali in the middle of a heat wave and our apartment doesn't have AC so that made unpacking a really slow horrible process. I also got really sick. By the time I was all better it was time for Danny to go to training in Chicago and I went to Kennewick again for 2 weeks. And that gets us to today basically.

Things we have done in Cali:

• Found Walmart and Target
• Stanford Shopping Center
  
• The Great Mall
• BBQ at Half Moon Bay house
• BBQ and swimming at new ward friends' house
• Saw Batman
• Went to the international cinema in our building
• Liz has tried to get a job but has come up with NOTHING!
  

Here are some pictures from Cali.

Tide pooling in Half Moon Bay. I got soaking wet when a big wave came. It was so fun and embarrassing since everyone at the BBQ was watching! HA!

Danny and his new glasses.

Chillin on the porch



The cute side of the kitchen


The ugly side. Where are the cabinet doors!


Messy and ugly living room


The new summer bedding. Love it!

So hopefully there will be after pictures of our apartment because right now it needs some serious help. On our list of projects...hanging curtain rods, finding bookcases for the entertainment stand, moving more junk out to our storage unit, and throwing out a ton of stuff. Please let me know if you have any good ideas to make our place cute!!!

Well, the day started off good Spain Day 6

After a wonderful chilly night of sleep we got ready and made it to the breakfast that was included with our room. Toast, croissants, and chocolate brownies (how does that fit in?) made for a delicious start to our day. After breakfast we walked to the bus station to wait for our bus to Seville.

Danny bringing sexy back

After a bit of confusion as to how to figure out which bus was ours we were able to get seats together. Yippee!!! The bus ride was long but the scenery was beautiful! Sunflowers everywhere!

Sunflowers!

When we arrived in Seville we took a taxi to the Hotel Derby which ended up being really nice and had AC and even a mini frig! We were really excited that the hotels just seemed to get nicer and nicer as our trip progressed. Things were looking good. We got a map from our hotel and directions to the cathedral and alcazar. Of course we got lost but after 15 mins walking in the wrong direction we figured out where we were and eventually made it to the main square. However by the time we got there (noon) it was soooo hot and I ended up getting heat stroke. We visited the Alcazar which is still the Seville residence of the royal family today. It was interesting because part of the Alcazar was totally Moorish and the other parts where (what I thought) French country.

History: Seville is the city of Carmen and Don Juan, the gateway to the New World in the 16^th century, Spain’s largest and richest city in the 17^th century, home to famous painters, and a big stop on the Romantic “Grand Tour” of Europe in the 19^th century. In 1992 Seville hosted a World’s Fair leaving the city with an impressive infrastructure. It is also home to the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world which houses Columbus’ tomb.

Me between the Cathedral and the Alcazar

At the Alcazar trying to act out the audio guide. This is me trying to look proud

Liz and the painting of Christopher Columbus sailing to the new world. This painting depicts the ships they sailed on and is how we know today what the ships looked like.

The Moorish part of the Alcazar

The French Country part of the Alcazar. These tapestries and tiles were made for a princess’ wedding reception

I'm not happy because I'm getting heat stroke. I actually stood under that waterfall (you can see the end of it behind me) to try to get wet.

Spain day 6 we discovered that it’s not worth it to buy big bottles of water because before you can drink it all the water gets too hot. Sad. I told Danny I needed a nap so we went back to the hotel were I feel asleep at 4:30 and didn’t wake up until the morning. Danny was upset (and so was I) that I had wasted the day. We had lots we needed to get done….like laundry and using the internet to print out maps of where our hotels were in our next cities. Monday was going to be a very busy day. We still had to see 2 cathedrals, a Flamenco show, the golden tower, the park, and get everything else done. Oops!

Theme music has been added for your enjoyment. HAHA

Danny the Romantic Matador Spain Day 5

We woke up super super early to take a taxi to the train station for our 7 am train to Rhonda. Danny of course took awhile getting ready and we almost didn’t make our train. But we did. Good thing we had packs and not rolling suitcases because we had to run! Since our train left so early we missed out on our free breakfast at the hotel and had to settle for the pastries we had bought in Barcelona. I was a little hesitant about choosing to take the earliest train to Rhonda and wanted to stay around Granada a little longer. Granada was super cool and Rhonda was just a little town in the middle of no where that was supposedly nice. What were we going to do all day in Rhonda? But there were only 3 trains to Rhonda 7 am, 1 pm, and 6 pm and it was a 2 hour trip so if we wanted any time in Rhonda we had to take the train at 7 am. Also, Danny was most looking forward to our trip to Rhonda so of course we were going to make the best of the day.

We arrived in Rhonda and my first thought was, “Here we go again. We are going to fight or get lost or take 2 hours to find where we need to go. We have a large learning curve and little patience.” But we read Rick Steve’s directions from the train station to town very carefully multiple times and continued to read them aloud as we followed them step by step.Once again we had the dilemma as to what to do with our packs as it was 9am and we couldn’t check in until 1pm and whatever we decided we would have to walk back to get our packs and walk to the hotel with them and we all know how fond I am of walking!! Luckily the bus station was half way between the train station and our hotel and it had lockers. So we left our packs there and continued on to find the main square. We got lost (of course) but at least it was a tiny tiny town and a nice resident noticed we were lost and pointed us in the right direction. We ended coming to a nice park with a gorgeous view…it ended up being right in front of the main plaza and famous bull fighting ring.

History: Rhonda is one of the Andalusia White Hill Top Towns. It was originally a strong hold for the Moorish Kingdom (capital was Granada). Rhonda sits way up high on the edge of a hill and is divided by a large Gorge into the old (Moorish) town and new town. A large bridge connects the two sides. Rhonda is also home to the first bull ring.

Picture of Danny and view from park (at this point we are still lost)

Once we turned the corner of the park we saw the bull ring and Danny got really excited. In a flash he had purchased our entrance tickets and we were on our way to visit the Bull Ring and its museum. The museum actually ended up being pretty interesting. I learned a lot about the origins of bull fighting and the symbolism behind all the pageantry. We saw Goya sketches of bull fights, paintings of famous bull fighters, a massive collections of old guns, and learned the rules and reasons behind dueling. The best part however was the bull ring it self. The whole museum and bull ring were pretty empty as we had stumbled upon it right as it was opening so we thought we had the place to ourselves. You can imagine what fun we had when we discovered the floor to the bull ring was open. Danny ran out to the center with the only red thing we had, our paper guide to the museum, and began to matador against an invisible bull. I yelled out to him “I expect to get an Ole out of you!”

Danny doing his bull fighting dance to the seemingly empty stands

Next thing I know we hear “Ole!! Ole!!” coming from the stands. Turns out we were not alone and some Spaniards were enjoying Danny’s demonstration. Danny had the biggest grin on his face the whole rest of the day. I got a good laugh out of it too.

After the bull ring tour we decided to walk back to get our packs, buy our bus tickets for the next day, and check into the hotel. Everything worked out great. Our hotel was nicer than our previous hotels AND IT HAD AC!!! Danny was very excited. The lady at the front desk of our hotel also told me I was pretty so I liked it better already. It also was only a 30 second walk to the main square. I was very happy with Danny’s choice of hotel!

For lunch Danny suggested we go to the grocery store and buy food for a romantic picnic (I think he knew I had reservations about what there was to do in Rhonda). We headed to the only grocery store we could find, a mini mart, and purchased some Salami, Havarti cheese, cookies, mini toasted bread, bottled water, and a 2 liter of Coke Zero. Next we set out with our bag of goodies to find a nice place to have our picnic. We crossed the new bridge and walked the Moorish quarter until we found a nice park (nice meaning there was shade) along the cliff and near the start of the trail for our hike, yes I said hike (ugh). Our picnic was especially delicious (I am now a big fan of Havarti) and we were even serenaded with some classical Spanish guitar.

Danny decided it was so romantic he had to take of pic of me eating my food

As we were finishing up our meal a devil dog came to beg for some food. This was a sign that it was time to start our hike. The down hill part was not bad but I was definitely worried about the hike back. It was all worth it though because we got to take some really cool pictures and see the ruins of the old roman wall.

Liz at the beginning of hike

Rhonda divided by the new bridge. Old Moorish town to the right and the new town to the left.

The New Bridge (Danny wanted to continue the hike down to the waterfall and go swimming, however I did no come prepared enough for that hike…next time)

Danny on top of the roman ruins with Rhonda in the background

Danny on top of the ruins of the roman wall and entrance

Best Europe shoes ever! You rock Puma Romas even though you looked hideous with my outfits and Danny made fun.

The hike back up the hill was horrible and worse was when we got to the top to rest… a bird pooped on Danny AND he sat in moss that stained the butt of his white shorts. HAHA. Poor kid.

After our rest we walked around the Moorish town, visited an old palace, the old gate, and the roman bridge; had some ice cream and cold sprite; and looked for souvenirs for family and Christmas ornaments (found none of both).

Me and a cute street

Danny and the old Moorish Gate

Danny and views from a palace garden

The gorge from the opposite side of our hike

Me with the Sultan’s Palace in the background

Finally dinner came around. Danny wanted to eat at a tapas bar but when we got there and read the menu there were no “Liz friendly food items”. So Danny let me pick where we would eat so of course I picked a place that served pizza (and other good things but pizza is always safe). Danny was pleased with my pic and it ended up being his fav place we ate in Spain…yeah for Liz picks! Our waiter was extremely nice. I ordered vegetarian pizza and I think Danny ordered chicken (they were both fixed menu items that day). He was excited to try Gazpacho (his salad or soup choice) for the first time and I must say it was delicious. I picked a salad of course (or I should say Danny picked it for me because I couldn’t read the menu). It was good as well. Our entrees were good and for dessert I chose a chocolate tart and Danny had flan. The flan was better of course (Danny always picks better than me. This time I chose. I could definitely understand chocolate). Next came the interesting part. Our waiter brought us shot glasses and filled them with this green liquor. We instantly became extremely awkward, exchanged a quick glance at each other, and then Danny explained to the waiter in Spanish that we didn’t drink alcohol. The waiter laughed at our shocked expressions and explained it was non-alcoholic apple liquor. We were hesitant but it was actually pretty good. Kind of like a liquefied apple Jolly Rancher. We’re on the look out to find the stuff in the US so if you see any…let us know. Our shot glasses are ready.

Doing apple shots

Which cost more? Water or Coke? (Ketchup bottle included in pic for scale)

After dinner we went back to the hotel because all the stores were closed. Danny had turned the AC in our room to the coldest setting so when we got back to our room it was freezing cold. Finally! We had plans to wake up early so we could buy some souvenirs in the morning but Danny decided he wanted to get to the bus station early to make sure we got seats next to each other. Neither of us was particularly looking forward to our long bus trip the next day. Up next, Seville!