When my parents were here, we had the chance to go back to visit Sevilla. It was as wonderful as the 1st time! (except for an unfortunate throwing-up- in-the-middle-of-the-night incident that we won't mention :-) ) Such a beautiful city. Especially fun were the orange trees that were full of oranges all over the city. The descriptions of things we saw before may be a bit brief here, so if you need a refresher look here or here or here for the commentary on our last visit. (yes, we REALLY like Sevilla - it merited 4 blog posts! :-) )
Mom, Dad & Jason enjoyed the Cathedral the 1st morning (sorry, no pics) then we went back to the Alcazar the 2nd day. I enjoyed the Alcazar just as much as the 1st time! We marveled at the patterns, and enjoyed the beautiful grounds full of orange trees & palm trees. We got to run in the maze w/ Poppi and meet a garden cat who was very excited to sit in the sun and be petted by Katie.
After walking to the Plaza de Espana, we decided to take a horse drawn carriage back to the Cathedral - it was so fun! 
We got rained on a bit :-), but it was great. Lots of pretty things we hadn't seen before. (no good pics of those b/c of the rain :-) )
The coolest thing of our time in Sevilla (that I still cannot really believe happened!): We went back to the flamenco show at the same place we had visited last time. We thought about going to a new place, but since we've seen flamenco we didn't like we thought we'd better stick with a known thing. When we got there, a man came up to us and asked if we would want Katie to go up on stage at the end. (of course she had her flamenco dress on again.) 
Well, we said "sure!" b/c I was thinking he meant after the show was over (like we'd done last time w/o permission). But NO - he came to get her and put her up on stage during the last number! It was incredible! 
The beautiful flamenco dancers were still up there dancing and Katie was up there too!! :-) She did so good - I could tell she was a little nervous, but she smiled and clapped like she was an old pro. After a few minutes, she ran off the stage - I guess it got too overwhelming. We were so proud of her! :-)
After we left Sevilla, we stopped for a night in Cordoba on the way back to Madrid. It is a smaller town to the north of Sevilla, but still in the Andulsian area known for the Moorish influence. In the 11th century, it was one of the greatest cities in the world, with 900,000 people living there! There we saw the Mezquita - with a Catholic church built INSIDE a mosque! It was pretty crazy. (see the Moorish arches around the altar? we were a bit confused as to why the Catholics would do that exactly) 
The patterns here were also beautiful - and even more Moorish if possible. This mosque dates from the 8th century! (wow!)
We also saw the Alcazar (palace). It was not so impressive itself, but the grounds were beautiful. The pictures really don't do it justice! It was cool to be here b/c this is where Columbus traveled to talk to Queen Isabella about financing his little trip across the ocean. It was a beautiful day, even warm - which is something we don't get too much of in January here in Spain! (and especially nice after it rained on us much of the time in Sevilla)We had such a nice visit with my parents, with lots of sightseeing & lots of celebrating (given my slowness here, I don't think I'm going to get around to a post on my 35th bday - which the other celebration we enjoyed with them :-) ). We are so thankful they came to see us & to help celebrate Christmas with us!
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