Jaen Part 1: La Ciudad, Historia, y mas de mi familia excelente

My mom and Carlos in the Palace/Church

On our valiant quest to visit all 13 of my parents brothers and sisters, we travelled this past weekend to see Maria Jesus and Pepe, my mother's sister and brother-in-law(he did his post doc at MIT no big deal.) They, along with there two sons, live in Jaen, the capital city of another province in Andalucia with the same name. 

On Saturday we travelled around the city of Jaen, and got to know a little of its history.  There are a lot of really obvious Moorish influences in this part of Spain, and the architecture of Jaen is no exception, an Arabic bath, palace repurposed as a church, and countless other things were constant reminders that for hundreds of years this was part of a totally different world.  Sightseeing here in Spain is a little different than typical US sightseeing though so before I go any further let me give you a blow by blow of my day.



The inside of the Cathedral
(I think pics werent allowed but I didn't
understand the receptionist sooo)

Since we arrived on Friday night and stayed up until one, we all slept in till 10ish, after I managed to stumble through the shower and into the kitchen my wonderful Aunt laid before me churros with chocolate(side note: here in Spain churros are not rolled in sugar or filled, and are instead served for breakfast with a mug of some kind of thick chocolaty goodness, which is for dipping/drinking/eating with a spoon), fresh pressed orange juice, and coffee. 

After we leisurely finished getting ready we left the house promptly at noon, or 12:30.  First we saw a church that was once an Arabic palace, the courtyard was really beautiful.  We walked around the city a little and then toured the Cathedral, which was gorgeous, they were doing some kind of restoration as well, which we got to see. 

Then as all good Spaniards must do we took a break at 2:30 for lunch which was among other things, Paella(for those of you who have not ever experienced this gift God gave to man it is seafood and/ or beef, chicken, etc. with jasmine rice which makes indescribable goodness), then a couple of hours later we finished lunch with a cup of coffee and went to watch Alvaro's soccer game, which his team won. 

Upon returning to the house we looked at pictures of when my uncle and aunt lived in Boston and when my mom and dad came to visit them while we ate fruit for Merienda (afternoon snack).
Sometime around 8 we traveled up the mountain that Jaen resides on to the huge Moorish castle to watch the sun set.

We were starving after having gone almost 4 hours without eating and so for dinner at the request of my cousin Pepe we went to an eerily authentic 50s diner and my father was appropriately shocked when I did not have a cheeseburger(I could figure out why he gave me the look he did when I ordered, until later when I was talking with my sister)

Because we knew we had to get up early the next morning we crawled into bed early as well, around 1 am.

More on Jaen later right now I have to partake of more Spanish traditions, the Madrid/ Barc. soccer match.