Weekend Trip to Jerez de la Frontera

There are things about Madrid that are similar to New York. One is my morning commute. The train I take at 8:30 to Alcobendas is crowded, mostly with college aged students. Rarely do I find a seat until the train is almost to my stop. But the main difference is the train is above ground. So for forty minutes I have a lovely view of fields with grazing horses and the mountains in the distance. 

After work on Friday, I took a train to Jerez de la Frontera to celebrate Anna's birthday. I met Anna in Sevilla and we were in the same Spanish class at CLIC. Jerez is famous for its sherry, so of course we took a tour of Bodega Tio Pepe. This was my first wine tasting/tour, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

This is where the wine tasting happened. I liked the dry sherry but absolutely hated the sweet sherry. 

Here's the group of English teachers I went to Jerez with. From right to left: me, Stephanie, Laura (who lives in Jerez and is from NY!), Jenny, Anna (birthday girl!), Caroline, and Anton (I tried to remove the red eye but it didn't work!)

Tio Pepe has a tradition of setting up a ladder and a glass of wine for the mice to drink. Pretty cute.

For dinner, we ended up at Guadalajara, a Mexican restaurant. 

We had cava, cake, and ice cream. Anton and Anna also tried some of the lime looking oranges (looks like a lime, tastes like an orange) from one of the trees along the streets of Jerez. 

We also played Quien es Quien (Guess Who). Board games were provided by BB Jerez where we stayed. 

Jerez is small, about 200,000 people. It was nice to visit for the weekend and be able to walk around without getting lost. All of the pictures in this blog post were provided by Jenny, Stephanie, and Laura. 

On another note, I've been listening to Cheyenne's new album Kings County. Thanks for making me miss Brooklyn hardcore.