Days 8 & 9 - Seville, Spain

We arrived in Seville, Spain around 10PM, left our bags in lockers, and set off into the night. It took us a while to make it to the center of the city, but we had a fun night once we got started. We visited a well decorated café (wine = great), a chic outdoor bar (average age = 38), a little hole-in-the wall bar (boy to girl ratio = 10 to 1), a fun outdoor bar (number of drinks = ?) and sketchy Spanish nightclub (STD infection rate = high). All in all it made for a fun night. The next morning, Diana and I had some churros and toast and apricot jam and espresso and began our exploration of Seville. We found our favorite grocery store (Lidl - sketchy, cheap and delicious) and got some lunch before heading back to the train station to grab our bags.

Unfortunately, we trekked and bussed for about 3 hours in the sweltering 100+ degree heat (damn you Portugal and Spain on a Budget) but made it, sweaty and disgruntled, to another campground on the other side of town. When we realized the supposed pool was dried up, we took cold showers and immediately started sweating again. When we realized the tapwater tasted like ocean/sewage, we got some bottled water from a café down the street. We took a sweaty nap in our un-ventilated tent. I guess that campground was great, minus the lack of pool, undrinkable water, crazy number of cats that would attack our stuff, ant infestations, and lack of reliable transportation. It did have toilet paper though, to give credit where credit is due.

We went into Seville for Tortillas, a delicious omlette-esque dish made with egg, potatoes and onions. Verdict – delicious. Diana’s sort of addicted, so you can imagine they were not our last.

Okay, this was our super hard core sightseeing day. We visited the palace, cathedral, and art museum – all wonderful and impressive. Diana was my personal art guide, which was awesome. The palace and its Moorish influence was impressive, but it really can't be captured in words or pictures. Then we had some ice cream and Sangria, and saw FLAMENCO! It was amazing! We were lucky to find a smaller venue that was very genuine. There was one live guitarist, a singer dude, and both male and female dancers. They didn’t dance together, but each one was super emotional, talented and spellbinding. Seriously, if you’ve never seen flamenco, you should go to Spain and do it. And that night we slept in a hostel! Hot shower, bed for a night, and breakfast included. Let me tell you, it was great.

Observations:

1. You might see a theme here – “exploring.” That’s how Diana and I did places. Few plans and much walking. It was great – we saw a ton, avoided the tourists, and got a more realistic feel for each place we visited. But of course we did the big sights too.

2. Picking a good travel companion for is key. They can’t be all that moody (cuz you barely sleep), they can’t love complaining (cuz you’re together all the time), they have to like the same things as you (cuz you do ‘em all together), they can’t be boring (or you’d get bored) and you have to like to talk with them (cuz you have lots of down time). Diana was awesome on all fronts – seriously, she rocked. I’m really grateful for that. And I guess it helped a tad that could speak the language, too. And she put up with 2+ weeks of me.