'Bakit ka pa nakita, bakit pa nakilala'

         So food poisoning sucks hugely, especially when in a foreign country trying to see the sights. We think we got it from some strawberries that we took on the bus and then carried in the heat to our hostel in Zaragoza. I got hit the worst cause I def ate the most, but Rafa did feel the effects as well. I tried walking around in the morning but boy was I sick, so I went back while Rafa went to explore the old city. We originally thought it was the incredibly large amount of peanut butter that we ate for dinner, but pssht I’ve eaten that much before so the strawberries make more sense. Good thing I like bread, cause that’s what I’ve been eating haha.

         Getting to the hostel was an adventure in itself—we had vague directions, but there were multiple exits from the bus stations so originally we were going the wrong way. Thankfully we turned ourselves around, but not before walking like 15 min in the wrong direction. And it took us another hour to get to the hostel cause we took an extra left which technically did get us there, just in a more roundabout way. I don’t think my back has every hurt that much…it’ll be a miracle if I don’t get scoliosis! We might get an extra carry-on bag (since Rafa has to check her bags now) so we don’t all die.

         Zaragoza is so nice, though! The area that we’re in is not touristy at all, so we stand out a bit, but it’s nice to get cheap food and such (not that we ate much…). There are a crapton of parks around here, most with lots of shade which is great in this insane heat. It gets hottest right around 5-6pm, strange but true. On Friday we explored a little more now that we both were feeling better. Again, late rising, but dude that’s obvs the best part of not having a huge amount to do. We went to the Aljaferia, this huuuuuuuge Moorish palace that was converted into a palace for the Fernando II of Aragon, one of the Reyes Católicos, married to Isabella of Castilla. It has a huge open courtyard with lots of plants and this awesome waterfall-river-thing flowing down the middle. We hung out there for a while, checking out all the rooms. At one point it was a military fort that no one cared about, so it fell into disrepair and was gross and things got destroyed. They’re in the midst of a restoration that started in the 20s, recarving the stone and such to match the original decoration. Even though it’s white stone in reality it used to be painted in bright colors and gold all over. They had a reconstruction of a part in the museum attached and it looked SO COOL. It’s such a shame everyone ignored it for so long cause it could have been almost as awesome as La Alhambra.

         One thing Spain has a lot of are churches/cathedrals. Like, A LOT A LOT. We went to the most famous, La Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Pilar, in the Old Town, after a freaking amazing lunch in the Aljaferia park. I finally satisfied my sorbet craving, when Rafa and I polished off a liter on our own ahahaha. Sadly Ireland does not have sorbet!! AHHHHHHHHHHH. BUT ANYWAY we walked around and it was amazing—the carving was so detailed and the very center had this stone carved canopy thing that stretched all the way to the top. There was supposed to be a tower that we could climb up but it was closed until May bah. We kinda tried to walk around more but got tired and sat in various plazas and drank water and talked. Outside Nuestra Señora there was this awesome drinking water fountain so obvs we had a water fight. Best decision ever, in my opinion. Rafa had a good observation—for a country with droughts all the time, they have a huge number of fountains! Like everywhere you go there’s some sort of water spewing from the ground haha.

         At some point we decided it was too hot and went to get dinner from the supermercado, aka more bread and cheese. Over the 3 days we seriously spent like 10 euro on food, a wonderful thing since that means we can spend more in other, more expensive cities ahhhhhhhh. Our new thing is watching Project Runway, so we saw like 5 episodes on my comp. We also watched a bunch of Spanish TV, including Spanish versions of US shows. Fun fact: ‘Without a Trace’ is ‘Sin Rostro’ in Spanish, which means Without a Face AHAHAHA. Lolz. ‘Charmed’ is ‘Embrujadas,’ which is just super fun to say.

         So overall, Zaragoza was a win, despite the illness and heat, because there were cool things and we got to rest before Barcelona. Good times, dude. Especially cause we said ‘Eff this’ and took a taxi to the bus station on Saturday morning haha.

Slán go fóill!

P.S. I kinda cheated on this title, but it does make sense if you Google it, I promise :)