Cityscape on Camera: Madrid, Spain

After nearly a week in Andalusia with the entire family, Mom took my little brother back to Switzerland with her while Jonathan, Abby and I continued on to Madrid. (Don't worry, Michael was leaving for a study abroad trip at a cheetah rehabilitation center in South Africa. So it's not like his trip was being cut short.) We caught a train from Ronda straight through to Madrid and checked into our hostel. We were able to find a very affordable hostel within walking distance of two major plazas in Madrid (Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor), the major shopping street (Gran Via) and the main city park (Parque del Retiro). I highly recommend Room007 Ventura Hostel if you're ever in the area. We even had a great roommate from Brazil, so Jonathan got to practice his Portuguese and we had a friend to explore the city with.

With our Brazilian roommate at El Tigre bar. Now THOSE are tapas!

Cityscape on Camera: Granada & Ronda, Spain

Next stop(s) on my European Extravaganza recap: Granada and Ronda, two beautiful towns in the Andalusian region of southern Spain. Seville, which I recapped two weeks ago, is the capital of this region.

Granada is most famous for being the home of the Alhambra (which is where all but a few of the photos below were taken). We also shared a memorable night with Jose, a local gentleman who insisted on showing us the local bar scene. Before you jump to any conclusions, let's just say Jose told me he was sixty ... and then laughed. Because he was definitely older than that. Also, he spoke zero English, so my siblings and I got really good at our conversational Spanish that evening. (Or at least we felt like we were really good from all the vodka-tonics he kept feeding us.) Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that night (just videos haha), but I had to share that story. Meeting locals is definitely the best way to party!

Cityscape on Camera: Seville, Spain

I planned to share photos from my time in Seville, Granada and Ronda today, but there were just way too many photos. So today your get a special dose of Seville, and the other two Andalusian cities will be showcased on September 24. Next week is another topic-based week (see bottom of this post for the prompt).

Photo via @mcstroup on Instagram

Travel Tuesday: Week 4

Welcome to another edition of Travel Tuesday! This week's question(s): What destination is at the top of your travel bucket list? Why? What do you want to do there? Do you think it will ever happen, and if so, when/how? As usual, please link up with your travel-related posts below, even if they're a different topic than the prompt I provided.

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I am so incredibly blessed to have already visited my number-one must-see destination when I studied abroad last year: Rwanda. During that same trip, I also went on a safari in Kenya, but there is still one African destination I would give almost anything to visit ...