The Great European {Hawkinberry} Adventure

In case you haven't already guessed I’ll tell you now: traveling is my passion. It has taught me some of my greatest lessons about life and about myself. It has opened doors for me and given me opportunities to do things of which I never thought myself capable.

What you might not have guessed is that traveling is not my first passion. I have another that dates back quite a bit further and is in fact the origin and the heart of who I am today. Without it I would not have the same values about how to treat others, work hard, and love much. It is quite possible that without it I wouldn't have the self-confidence and faith that are such an integral part of my travels.

I owe all this to my family.

Unfortunately, as my passion for travel has continued to take me to farther and farther away destinations my passion for family has had to sit on the back burner, waiting ever so patiently for my return but still supporting me all the way.

Now, as you can imagine, when the opportunity came up this year for these two things to be reunited I was positively ecstatic. My family traveling with me in Europe at Christmastime was the coming together of all my perfect worlds.

After two months of sweat, tears and attempted planning over a lousy internet connection, we finally managed to find each other in the Madrid airport on December 23rd, just in time for Christmas. Shortly into the 3.5 hour trip back to my city in southern Spain I found myself driving a car-full of sleeping family members... and I couldn't have been more overjoyed.

We spent the night of the 23rd and Christmas Eve at my apartment in Linares, watching Christmas movies, taking a tour of the town, baking cookies, exchanging a few gifts (which we all promised we wouldn't buy for each other this year... oops ;) and more or less catching up on everything we had missed in each others' lives in the past few months. We all figured it couldn't get much better than that and could have spent the whole two weeks of vacation in that one place, but of course we had big plans for the upcoming days that just couldn't be skipped.

{Our Itinerary}

December 25: A “get to know you” tour of Granada’s downtown area, including an unplanned stop in a cathedral we found open and the family’s first taste of café con leche and bocadillos (Spanish sandwiches made with fresh bread and typically including ham... of course).

December 26: An entire morning spent wandering through the Alhambra, a complex made up of various palaces and a fortress, the oldest of which dates back to the 10^th century.

Ceiling in the Palacio de Nazaríes

Patio de los Leones

View from the Alhambra

December 27: Checked out of our hotel in Granada and headed for Córdoba, a few hour drive to the northwest. About 8 kilometers outside the city we stopped to visit the ruins of the former capital of Muslim Andalucía, Madinat al-Zahrat (See pictures from my last visit). That evening we checked into our hostel in downtown Córdoba and Dad and I went on an adventure to find the “super close and easy to locate” parking garage, thus leading us through a maze of one way streets barely wide enough for a single car (like fold-in-your-side-view-mirrors-to-try-to-fit wide, no joke). Let’s just say we returned to the hostel over an hour later a little… on edge.

December 28: We had our own personalized monument and gastronomical tour of downtown Córdoba led by my roommate, a native of the city. The previously Muslim, turned Catholic cathedral called the Mezquita with its famous red and white arches, a stroll through the judería with its white buildings and cobblestone streets, a trek up the narrow staircases to the top of the towers of the “alcázar”, and tea at a local teashop in the Arab style (complete with low set tables and cushions on the floor for chairs).

La Mezquita 

La Mezquita

Calle de las flores

December 29: After a 3-hour drive to the north we stopped just outside Madrid to find out what the city of Toledo was all about. With its city on a hill landscape, unbelievably intricate cathedral, and medieval feel we were instantly enchanted. After an evening of wandering through little shops on streets lit by Christmas lights, we were sad to leave Toledo behind.

Yes this is the name of a real street. 

I <3 p="p" spanish="spanish" streets="streets">

Toledo's Cathedral

Very original Christmas lights

December 30: Tour of downtown Madrid. First, the Temple of Debod, an Egyptian temple brought piece by piece directly from Egypt in the 1970’s as a gift to Spain. A fresh plate of churros with chocolate was in order after only a couple hours spent out in the cold. Afterwards, a quick walk through the beehive that is Plaza Mayor, with dozens of stands selling costumes and decorations for New Years celebrations and people in crazy get-ups performing magic tricks. Puerta del Sol was equally bustling so we moved a little off the beaten path to find lunch. After sitting for a typical, hour and a half Spanish lunch of soup, paella and arroz con leche we were revived and ready for a walk through the Thyssen- Bornemisza art museum. Across from the Prado and with a much more manageable collection of modern art, we very much enjoyed our time there.

Templo of Debod

Churros con chocolate

Plaza Mayor

Street Acts

December 31: Arrival in Paris. Checked into a quaint hotel in the Latin Quarter and set out to find something open for dinner on New Years Eve. The first thing we stumbled upon was a tiny Chinese restaurant and since we had missed our traditional Chinese dinner on Christmas Eve (a tradition best left for explanation another day) we decided to stop in. A quick subway ride downtown brought us to the Eiffel Tower in all its sparkling glory just a couple hours before midnight.

January 1: Breakfast at a café with a heaping plate of fresh bread, coffee and orange juice. Later, the French Pantheon and a beautiful church next-door set against a perfect sky with puffy white clouds. After picking up some French pastries and macarons we found ourselves on a bench looking up at the one and only Notre Dame. We took our time walking through and around the cathedral, thrilled almost as much by the free entrance as by the surrounding views. We ended the day emerging from the subway once again to see the Arc de Triomphe imposing upon the street in front of us and ham and cheese croques for dinner at a pub nearby.

Le Panthéon

Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame

Arc de Triomphe

January 2: 35,000 art pieces, 652,300 square feet, 9 hours… Museé du Louvre. It goes without saying, we had to keep ourselves going somehow… ;)

Endless paintings...

...Endless fun

Mona Lisa herself

Courtyard Museé du Louvre

 January 3: To finish out our Parisian tour: Jardin du Luxembourg, the Eiffel Tower in daylight, and Museé d’Orsay (so many infamous impressionist paintings in such a small place = blown away). On the way home we decided to get Mediterranean style “take away” for dinner. My sister and father waited around for the food while my mother and I headed back to the hotel. After a solid half hour they returned to the room with an entire pizza, enough couscous for three, a giant kebab and a gilled cheese sandwich all for around 20 euros. Apparently after much discussion in broken English the owner agreed to send them home with plastic utensils instead of the real silverware and plates he insisted they take with them and return later (“Is no problem!”). With much convincing, we finally managed to get the receptionist (who spoke a wonderful kind of French accented English) to eat some of the couscous to sustain him during his 12-hour overnight shift.

Jardin du Luxembourg

Tour Eiffel

Tour Eiffel

January 4: With about 2 hours of sleep, we woke up at 3:15am still smelling the mountain of food we had eaten a few hours earlier. Upon arriving downstairs, still half asleep, we found ourselves face to face with… a feast: fresh bread, butter, jam, nutella, ham, yogurt, orange juice, and coffee made to order… the receptionist’s way of showing his appreciation for our leftover couscous. Within 20 minutes we had stuffed down more food than we could have ever hoped to eat in less than five hours, squeezed in as many smiles and “thank yous” as possible for the receptionist, and hurried out the door to catch our shuttle to the airport.

A short whirlwind later we found ourselves at the security gate in the Madrid airport, and perhaps for the first time since Kindergarten, my family left me behind… I handled it just about as well as when I was five.

Looking back on that moment I realize now why it was so hard. Harder than any other goodbye I’ve had to say to my family in the past. I finally had them together. For the first time it wasn’t one or the other. My two passions. Family and travel. Together at last. And it was bliss.