Spain, Day Nine--Jerez de la Frontera and flying home

For years, Glo had a poster on her bedroom wall from the Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre, or The Royal School of Equestrian Arts, a place that we visited a couple of times in Jerez de la Frontera while living in Germany. Even though it was a good two hour drive from Ronda to Jerez, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to visit the Andalucían horses again.

But first things first. When we left our apartment and drove to meet the kids at the house, we walked in to a very sick Clarkie. Super high fever. Thankfully, Glo had packed Tylenol and within 30 minutes, he was feeling much better, but it's always scary to get sick in a foreign country.

Before we entered the arena, it was a marvel to see all of the storks on the rooftops. I mean, we've seen them in Poland and Morocco, but I didn't think I would see them in Spain as well. Kind of a fun bird to add to my life list ;-)

The horses were amazing as always. They really hide their strength beneath the beauty of the show, but when I really think about what they are being asked to do, it's almost mind-blowing. We aren't allowed to take any photos during the show, so here are some stock images:

Turns out, Spain knows how to do a GREAT gift shop. Not only did we find some of the best souvenirs at the bull ring in Ronda, and at the Capilla in Granada, but we all took home a boatload of fun things from this school as well. And we aren't even horse people!

We had a five-hour drive back to Madrid so we needed to get going, but not before we had one last authentic meal in Spain (not looking at you Burger King in the cheap hotel later tonight). I searched the restaurant on Maps but didn't pay attention to the address, and we ended up lost and driving around a bit. But when we finally found our restaurant in a mall, holy smokes. It's where every rich Spaniard takes their family for lunch on Saturday afternoon. Not an English-speaking waiter in sight! But the food was delicious as always. Seriously, how are all Spaniards not fat??

The next morning, we headed to church again, took the sacrament and left for our flight home. It was about three hours into the flight that I started to not feel well at all, and soon after Hannah fell ill too. Looks like we had gotten whatever Clarkie had given us. Of course, it took us several weeks to get over it--just Hannie and me--but I like to think that Spain just didn't want us to forget her <3

And one post-script: our car. Actually we had two identical cars. They were the true heroes of the trip getting everybody where they needed to be.

Comments

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