"Yep, the Griswolds (I mean Elliotts) are Back."

"For over two thousand years, Europe has survived many great disasters. Now for the real test. The Elliotts are coming from America!"

Yep, you guessed it! Shirley and George ventured across the big pond to the foreign lands of exact-change-loving, tight-pants-wearing , nasty-pigeon-feading crazy Europeans! It was quite a weekend, filled with some hilarious Griswold-esque moments, and a lot of quality family time!

The weekend began Thursday when, after a longer-than-planned bus trip to Málaga, I arrived at the airport about 2 hours after my parents should have landed. However, they were still not answering their phones, and they were nowhere to be found. Of course, I immediately thought they were dead, and the Air France people just looked at me like I was an idiot when I asked them where my parents were. Finally, I sneakily walked past the security guards into the baggage claim area, and there they were! Sadly, my parent's first view of Spain was checked bag-less at a dark, rainy, lonely train platform. But eventually we made it to the train station, onto our not-quite-as-romantic-as-the-promotional-video overnight train, and into our impossibly small sleeping car (along with our little brother Extrabed Elliott). Talk about some family bonding time. We spent some time in the "bar car", Daddy's fave, and hit the sack. Obvi I called the top bunk.

We woke up not-so-bright and early when we arrived in Valencia at about 5 am! Again, all my parents have seen of Spain so far is dark and rainy. We wandered around the main square of Valencia a little bit before finally finding somewhere to stop for a bit of breakfast and caffeine. After consulting Rick (Steves - our new best friend.), we discovered that there was in fact one place in all of Valencia open before 10am, so we headed for the Central Market. Valencia's market is one of the largest in all of Europe, and it was so cool seeing all of the chefs coming in early to get their produce and meat for the day. After exploring every aisle (Daddy made sure we went in order, from top to bottom, so we didn't miss one), we bought a delicious baguette, fresh cheese and olive oil, Valenciano oranges, and some dried fruit and nuts for breakfast and snacks. The meal was quite delicious, until this one pigeon that was hanging around us decided to call all his pigeon friends from within a quarter-mile radius to come attack our food. After that, the delicious food seemed to lose it's appeal. That morning was all kind of a blur... we saw some old famous things and walked around a bunch. We went to the art museum and Cathedral. We saw the withered arm of St. Vincent (cool? creepy? you decide.) and the Holy Grail (or at least what is recognized by the Vatican as the Holy Grail. It looked a little too Gothic to me...). We had paella at the port at the same restaurant as some famous person and got lost on the way back. We were tired and our feet hurt. So we went back to the train station and waited for our train to Barcelona.

Barcelona was, yet again, dark and rainy, but after finding our hotel located right in the middle of everything on Las Ramblas, it was a much happier dark and rainy. We immediately went to sit out at a café and do some people watching. To give you a little idea, Las Ramblas in kind of like a less-sketchy Bourbon Street... it was Halloween, and people are extra weird on Halloween. It was possibly the best people watching you could ever imagine. I could have sat there for days and not gotten bored. We finally crawled into bed around 1 or 1:30, after what could have been the longest day of my life (or at least of my parents' lives...)!!

After getting some much-needed rest, we spent Saturday doing the tourist thing. We went to Plaza Catalunya, Gaudi's la Sagrada Familia (still unfinished - "My Client is in no hurry", he said.), did a little shopping to tide us over until the luggage came (Daddy sat outside), walked up and down Las Ramblas, went to the port, etc. etc. That night we went to a nice dinner and did some more people watching. Sunday morning, we explored some cool, less touristy parts of town on the way to the Cathedral and the Picasso Museum (maybe my favorite museum so far?), headed back to the hotel and started the long trek to the airport and back to Granada.

We arrived in Granada about 9:00 pm Sunday night and grabbed some dinner before Mama and Daddy headed back to the hotel and I headed home to fnally get some clean clothes and a good shower! They toured the Alhambra Monday morning while I was in class, which they loved. Sadly, Daddy's camera met it's match with some 10,ooo-year-old stones. We met up after my classes, and I introduced them to the wonders of Doner Kebab (Moroccan fast food). We wandered around Granada and saw the sights, then headed back to my apartment for coffee and delicious cake with my madre, Sole. She was really giddie and was talking really fast, which made it difficult to translate, but it was fun nonetheless. I really lucked out and have a great host mother. Then we toured the Albaycin a bit, watched the sunset from Mirador de San Nicolas, then headed back down to meet a bunch of my friends (some of whom also had family in town) for tapas.

The next morning after breakfast, I put them in a cab, told the driver where to take them, and they were on their way! It was really fun having them here and letting them see what my life has been like for the past 3 months. And for the most part, they behaved.

Things are pretty much back to normal here. Besides that fact that Granada has turned into an icebox. I am already wearing long underwear, mittens, and a pea coat every day to class. What am I going to do in December?? This week I will be trying to figure out how to do research in a Spanish library, and then Saturday morning Sally comes to visit!!! I am so so so excited to see her... it should be a great few days!! Hope all of you are doing well!

PS-Meme, clearly the note to "Mr. Customs Officer" worked, because the cookies made it through, and have been thoroughly enjoyed!!!