Sevilla

Our very first welcome to Sevilla was by a friendly professional flamenco dancer who decided to strike up conversation with us at the airport from Barcelona to Sevilla. He was from Andalucía and an avid fan of the area. I will tell you what else he was a fan of…. Rachel! Hehe. This man could not stop asking Rachel questions in Spanish - clearly intrigued by her Asian roots. Do to her lack of understanding of the Spanish language, yours truly ended up as a translator for this 30 minute conversation. A splendid exercise of my Spanish skills but an even more entertaining overall situation. Did I mention this man was about 75 years old? :-] He also wanted to whisk the two of us off to his exotic home near Cadiz. Charming….

Day 1

Once we landed we took a city bus for the 20 minute journey to our hostel. This hostel was such a haven fully equipped with a roof top terrace upon which Rachel and I would enjoy several nights of tranquility, great company, and the preparation and enjoyment of a giant paella that the Hostel would serve us our second night. But lets not get ahead of ourselves…

The first night we met up with our dear friend Brent Fellows (another fellow MST student from Cal Poly who is studying here in Sevilla and has been in Spain for 2 months in language school). He showed us a bit of the town, including the Cathedral which was beautifully lit that evening. Then we met up with his family and friend for some extremely yummy tapas (probably the best we have had our entire time in Spain) that included patatas aouli, solomillo de vino dulce, fried calamari, a dish with fried brie dipped in raspberry sauce, and we drank tinto de verano. The waitress was another story - probably the rudest person we have encountered on our whole trip but, hey the tapas were worth her attitude J. We finished the night with some “gelati” (as our Aussie friends call it) and witnessed a fight break out among a large group of college students near by - and immediately after…their make up. Very heartwarming really.

When we got back to the hostel that night we noticed our room contained an odor that triggered our gag reflexes. We dismissed this, opening all windows, assuming one of our bunk mates might have some terribly fungus infected feet or BO and we would have to deal. The next morning we got to the bottom of it, and as it turns out, a past guest had left spoiled milk on the shelf! G-r-o-s-s! Once we cleared that out things started to smell a bit rosier J. Our roommates were very grateful for our discovery as well.

Day 2

That day we went on a walking tour of the city with our hostel tour guide, Dario - a quirky Italian who has fallen in love with Spanish life. We got to see much of the city and learn a great deal of its rich/often tragic history. Later that day decided to tour the Alcazar - a beautiful Moorish palace that was conquered by the Spanish and converted into a palace for the Spanish ruler. The building, like many of those in Sevilla and Andalucia, is a gorgeous marriage between Moorish and Catholic architectural influence and symbolism. After this we took some time to relax at the hostel and get to know some hostel mates. At night we went on a pub crawl with our new friends (one French who moved to Sevilla to learn Flamenco, another girl from Montreal who moved to Sevilla to teach English, 2 from Oregon, 1 from our very own Santa Cruz!). The pub crawl was hosted by our by now beloved Dario.

Day 3

The following day we decided to tour Cathedral de Sevilla, which was GEORGEOUS!! It is the 3rd largest Cathedral in the world - just behind the Vatican and St. Paul’s Cathedral! We spent a great deal of time there exploring each room and we even climbed up the bell tower for views of the whole city. We had montaditos (very small sandwiches) at a cervercia nearby for 1 Euro each. That night we enjoyed paella on the rooftop terrace of our hostel (my personal favorite (and Rachel’s too) of the two paellas we have had on this trip) and immediately following that we went to watch a Flamenco show!! The dancer was soo graceful and elegant in her movements but the dance was far different from what I expected - it was mainly like intense tap dance with Spanish flare.

Day 4

Our last day in Sevilla was a relaxing day consisting of wandering the city streets, desserts, and shopping! We went shopping with our Canadian friend Nadia and her madre and stopped at a gelati place. The gofre’s there weren’t as good as the one in Barca but I (Rachel) loved their dark chocolate gelati. Once we were back at the hostel we decided to make pasta (delicious) and baked beans and devoured it on the terrace watching the sunset. We ended up chatting with these Spanish bomberos (firemen) from Barca (or at least Michelle did) and one of them kept lecturing me (Rachel) how I should be trying to speak in Spanish. Nevertheless, we enjoyed their company. Thanks to our ridiculous sweet tooths (don’t deny you don’t have one anymore Rachel this next outing was your idea) we went to get more dessert! I got some Spanish candy and Rachel got a pastry. (Good thing we walk a lot or we would not fit on the plane on the way home!) When picking out the pastry we asked the guy what type of fruit it had. His reply (in Spanish of course “its jam“. We asked what the difference between the two were and he said “one is darker and the other is lighter,” cool - Spaniards are not very attentive to detail I suppose. Knowing that it was our last night in Sevilla, we didn’t want to stay in so we went to look for an Irish pub to see if there was a futbol game playing. Unfortunately there wasn’t but we ran into Dario again and he tried convincing us to go on the pub crawl but we passed. Our French friend then led us to Almadea de Hercules (where all the locals hang out) where we grabbed a drink before we called it a night.

We checked out the next morning around 11am and headed to the bus station. When we were purchasing our tickets we assumed that all buses were the same. However, the 11am and noon buses were express buses that cost 7 Euros more (25 Euros). We were somewhat reluctant but I (Rachel) was ready to leave Sevilla and what would we do for 3 hours with our luggage? However, the bus was a nicer bus with leather seats and they gave us snacks and bottled water. Michelle said it was one of the more comfortable means of transportation thus far (probably because she was able to sleep moreso then the other occasions).

Until next time…in Granada!