Sevilla

*November 1, 2009*

The next morning, we got up early to head back to the bus station to go to Sevilla! It was about a 3-hour bus ride, and we just took taxis again to the hostel... and wow is Sevilla a pretty city. Anyway, we dropped out stuff off at the hostel, made a reservation for a Flamenco show for that night, then left to go explore. Since it was a Sunday, not much was open, but we managed to find a Chinese market that was open, and bought a ton of fruit (which was cheap, too! Most of the fruit that I've found in Valladolid has been pretty expensive). Everyone but Rachel and I went back to take naps and eat, but Rachel and I sat in this little courtyard at a restaurant, where we ordered some chicken tapas that turned out to be curry chicken... delicious!

Later, while everyone else was napping, Hanna, Genelle and I decided to go wandering more, and we came across a Starbucks! I haven't seen a single one since I've been in Spain, so we felt compelled to try it. It was definitely overpriced (3+ euro for a latte, instead of the 1 euro for a café con leche at a café), but we ended up sitting and chatting for a while.

We went back to the hostel a while later, since they were offering a free walking tour of Sevilla. This guy Adam who works as a promoter (and who reminds me of Peter Pan) led us from the hostel to the meeting place, where we met up with a few other hostels for the walking tour.

(the 8 of us before the tour)

Our tour guide (ahh I forget her name now) was actually from Austria, but now lives in Spain. She led us around the old Jewish quarters of Sevilla, then by the Cathedral, and around other monuments and through plazas all around the city, telling us stories and fun facts. The short history of Spain that she told us ended up being a very abbreviated version of everything we've learned in Dr. H's Culture of Spain class (and had just taken a midterm on). I love that we are actively studying Spain's history, because I feel like I get so much more out of touring other cities when I understand the history behind it all. The fun stories our tour guide told us made it more interesting as well.

The tour ended near the bull-fighting arena... we are all so bummed that we are not in Spain during the season when there are bull fights. It's in spring (March-June) and then again in late summer (August - September), so we just missed it.

We did, however, manage to reserve ourselves seats at a flamenco show, which we headed to after the tour. It was AMAZING! It started out with a guitar player and a singer, then came in a woman dancer in a gorgeous blue, white and pick flamenco dress, then another man joined her, and they took the stage at different time as someone played guitar and the woman sang.

(at the show!)

It was a very intimate setting, not what I expected. We were in a little room, and the chairs surrounded this little stage that wasn't more than 6' by 6', and we were only 3 or 4 feet away from the stage, which was just raised a few inches off the ground. It was just a wooden platform meant to better the sound of their shoes.

We left the show in awe... and headed back to our hostel to get ready for the pub crawl. A few of us stopped on the way home at a tapas bar, where we got bocaditos (mini sandwiches) that were cream cheese (which they call Philadelphia) with smoked salmon... a little taste of home.

The pub crawl that night was fun... but I ended up leaving early with Rachel and Genelle since we were exhausted, and we ended up staying up late anyway just telling stories and getting to know each other.

I am so grateful for all of the amazing people that are on this trip. I guess it takes a certain type of person to put themselves out there and do a program like this - we all just seem to get along and can connect in a way I haven't before with other people at Cal Poly. We are starting to feel like a family, and I am really excited to have these new friendships once we are back at home.

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The next day, we slept in a bit, and went down for breakfast at our hostel.

Since everything was closed yesterday, we made today our touring the Cathedral day, so we headed out after we checked out of the hostel and stored our backpacks. Turns out, there was a HUGE line to get into the Cathedral, but it went fast. Tickets for students were super cheap (2 euro, compared to the 8 euro normal entrance fee), which was awesome. This cathedral is also the biggest gothic cathedral in the world, and is famous because they claim to have a casket with a piece of Christopher Columbus (his pinky, apparently - who knows if that is true). So we toured the Cathedral, then went up the tower.

As it turns out, there are no stairs to get to the top of the tower - it is just a slant. In our tour the day before, we learned that this was because 5 times a day, someone had to get to the tope of the tower to ring the bells as a call to prayer. Climbing 40 flights of stairs would be tiring 5 times a day, so they built it slanted so that they could use a horse to get up and down the tower. Poor horse!

The view from the top of the tower was breath taking! Sevilla looks so much bigger from the top of the tower than it felt when walked around last night... and it was such a beautiful city scape.

Since we were in a hurry to catch our bus at 2, we made our way back to the hostel, doing our souvenir shopping and grabbing lunch on the way.

We didn't get back into Valladolid until 10:30 at night, so we all just went home and crashed. Such an eventful weekend :)