My flight back home was scheduled to depart Madrid at 10am, arrive in Amsterdam for 3 hours, and then I’d arrive back home around 6pm Sunday evening. We had to pack up and leave the Airbnb at 6:30am as it was an hour drive from Segovia to the airport in Madrid.
One cool aspect of my job is that I have team members all over the world: New York, Connecticut, Florida, Spain, Mexico, India, and the Philippines. I’ve been super lucky to have gone to Connecticut and India earlier this year for working sessions and on this trip I was able to meet Maria in Grenada and now two of my front end developers, Ivan and Ricardo in Segovia.
It was too bad that we didn’t get much time to explore the town of Sepulveda. Walking around last night and this morning it felt very empty. My hypothesis was that the young people have left to the city for new opportunities and only come back to see family for holidays. My co worker Ivan recommended that we stayed in Sepulveda as the Duratón River was nearby and is popular for kayakers as it runs through a gorge.
I set an early alarm to get up before dark to get another time lapse attempt going. This time I promised myself I’d be a bit more patient than yesterday so I could get a bit more of the sunrise going. We planned on hiking back to the gondola this morning and heading back down the mountain and start our way back towards the direction of Madrid and the beginning of the end of my Spain trip 🙁
It was 1am and Luke pointed out that the heavy cloud cover cleared up and that the stars and moon were out. We decided this would be a great time to get a few star photos and see the mountains surrounding the Hotel Aliva since visibility was so low when we arrived earlier in the afternoon.
It feels great to get out of the city. While I love taking in the sights and eating diverse foods only found in populated cities, these trips where I’m out in nature and going at a different pace really feels rejuvenating. The plan today was to run to the grocery store to get some fresh bread and anything else that we felt were missed during our Costco run.
Joanna got about 2.5 hours of sleep last night after packing her bags and then waking up at 3am to catch an uber to the airport. I walked her downstairs to get this pic for the blog…I mean say goodbye to my wonderful wife who is cool with letting me stay in Spain for a week while I run around with my friends. 18 hours later she texts me that she’s back safe at home in our bed.
Because we didn’t have Portugal as part of this trip. I wanted…no, I needed to have a traditional Portuguese egg tart while I was in Spain. I grew up eating the egg custard tart at dim sum and I’ve had the egg tarts in Macau which are slightly different which are the ones I prefer. I wanted to know how the original ones tasted.
When we arrived into Sevilla yesterday I started doing my research on the things to see and do in this city. I quickly found out that one of the main attractions called the Alcazar was a filming location for Dorne in Game of Thrones. I think I overestimated my ability to handle the heat and got ahead of myself to book tickets to visit this royal palace knowing that the only available time was at the peak temp of the day.
As we were walking along one of the main shopping streets in Granada on Reyes Católicos, I walked past a store that made me do a double take. There was a stack of iberico ham sandwiches with cheese. I told myself this would be my train snack as we headed to Sevilla.
