6 Days in Spain
I'm not quite sure how to go about detailing our trip to Spain. I could give you a detailed travel journal, I could just give you the highlights, I could give you our itinerary, or I could just say "we had fun" and leave it at that. You all know I would never choose the last option, it just isn't my nature.
We had three goals for this trip: to keep it cheap, kid friendly, and to be happy we get to see what we see.
Cheap: obviously our airfare prices fit into this category! We also rented a car on post, stayed at military hotels, ate as much as possible at the post chow hall, and bought gas and groceries on post. This saved us a ton of money. On post we used the dollar, off post the euro. With the exchange rate of $1.60 to a euro this was really important. We were buying gas and groceries in Spain for about the same price we would have bought them here. The chow hall is the post dining facility. It is nothing fancy but we were able to feed the family for $8 - $16 per meal. Not per person per meal but for all four of us! Those are fast food prices for a sit down, healthy meal. We also didn't buy any souvenirs (sorry everyone) and resisted the urge to stop every time we passed by a really cute cafe.
Kid-friendly: although watching a Flamenco in Sevilla, dining on traditional Spanish fare, and wondering through the streets at night would be high on the list of things to do for Matt and I, it just isn't that practical for our kids. We passed on these things as well as limited the tours of Cathedrals and other tourist sights. Every city we went to had at least a few beautiful parks in the center and often a playground. We tried to mix our walking and taking in the city with running through the plazas and sliding down slides. We could keep the kids interested in what we were dragging them through as long as they were promised a beach or a park when we finished.
We'll be happy with what we see: Matt and I really enjoyed just being in some of the towns in Andalucia. We liked people watching, trying to figure out some cultural norms, and getting a taste of life in these places. Sometimes we were able to walk around for hours, other times we were satisfied with a drive through of a city. We didn't have a solid itinerary, which is odd for me but we just were not sure of what we wanted to see or do until we got up that morning. There were places we would have liked to stay longer and things we would have liked to do, but in the end we really were just happy with what we got to do.
We had three goals for this trip: to keep it cheap, kid friendly, and to be happy we get to see what we see.
Cheap: obviously our airfare prices fit into this category! We also rented a car on post, stayed at military hotels, ate as much as possible at the post chow hall, and bought gas and groceries on post. This saved us a ton of money. On post we used the dollar, off post the euro. With the exchange rate of $1.60 to a euro this was really important. We were buying gas and groceries in Spain for about the same price we would have bought them here. The chow hall is the post dining facility. It is nothing fancy but we were able to feed the family for $8 - $16 per meal. Not per person per meal but for all four of us! Those are fast food prices for a sit down, healthy meal. We also didn't buy any souvenirs (sorry everyone) and resisted the urge to stop every time we passed by a really cute cafe.
Kid-friendly: although watching a Flamenco in Sevilla, dining on traditional Spanish fare, and wondering through the streets at night would be high on the list of things to do for Matt and I, it just isn't that practical for our kids. We passed on these things as well as limited the tours of Cathedrals and other tourist sights. Every city we went to had at least a few beautiful parks in the center and often a playground. We tried to mix our walking and taking in the city with running through the plazas and sliding down slides. We could keep the kids interested in what we were dragging them through as long as they were promised a beach or a park when we finished.
We'll be happy with what we see: Matt and I really enjoyed just being in some of the towns in Andalucia. We liked people watching, trying to figure out some cultural norms, and getting a taste of life in these places. Sometimes we were able to walk around for hours, other times we were satisfied with a drive through of a city. We didn't have a solid itinerary, which is odd for me but we just were not sure of what we wanted to see or do until we got up that morning. There were places we would have liked to stay longer and things we would have liked to do, but in the end we really were just happy with what we got to do.
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