18 of 30 - Spain Trip Pt 6 - Zaragoza!
Jun. 18th, 2009 07:00 am
Day 12 - Thursday, May 20th - (cont.) Bus ride to Zaragoza took about four hours. We arrived there around 7pm, with nowhere to stay.
Kerri-face however got a list of hostels and "pensions" from a tourism office at the Zaragoza transit station (Pensions being apparently where people rent out a spare room), so we found a payphone and started calling down the list. Shortly we found one that sounded good -- was cheaper than the hostels and nice and centrally located. We hiked two or three blocks over to it and took one of two rooms a nice old man had.
We then wandered around town a bit. I felt like maybe I was getting sick but tried my best not to admit it and to suppress the ominous achey feeling through sheer force of will.
For dinner we stopped at a little restaurant / cafe / bar. Looking at the menu, it was mostly gibberish to me (recall that I don't speak spanish), but I noticed a sandwich (bocadillo!) that said something about balsamic viniagrette and dijon. I like balsamic viniagrette and dijon mustard so I asked Kerri what it was. A duck sandwich she said. Sounded like an interesting experience so I got it.
And I must say, it was delicious. One of the highlights of my trip! Mmm so good. If you're ever in Zaragoza (which I recommend you be sometime), look for "The Boss" restaurant. (:
Stopped at a few bars on our way back to the hostel but ultimately we were rather more sober than usual by the time we were headed back to our place.
"I feel like we should drink more, but then again, it IS okay to be sober, I suppose" I speculated.
However twenty minutes later as we both lay in bed too hot to sleep we recanted "no, it is NOT okay to go to bed sober!" (:
Day 13 - Friday, May 21st - Friday we spent much of the afternoon just wandering around the town. There was beautiful historic stuff all over the place. Visited the AljaferĂa Palace, an impressive castle, that was the headquarters of the inquisition back in the day (and thus, would have been THE place where my inquisition entry took place, which is kind of neat).
I liked Zaragoza a lot better than Barcelona. I've never liked big cities. And Barcelona feels awash with tourists, while Zaragoza feels a lot more local and authentic.
That evening we of course hit the town. Ended up staying out until the clubs closed.. at 7am (:

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Pictures!
Pictures from the above-referenced days!!