Seville

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

We arrived in Seville at around 3 p.m. and after we arrived at our hostel, Backpackers Inn Sevilla, decided to take a stroll around town and check out what Seville has to offer.

We walked aimlessly around Seville for a couple of hours before we stumbled upon the city’s bullfighting ring, Plaza de toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla. Although the bullfighting season had already come to an end, we thought it would still be interesting to take a tour of the arena and check the place out.

Having absorbed a fair amount of information on the history of bullfighting we decided it was time to stop for some tapas and drinks. After a minor miscommunication with the waiter we eventually got the actual tapas and drinks we were trying to order and were able to enjoy our time sitting outside watching the evening light fall over the quaint Spanish square surrounding us.

Of course since we’re Americans, tapas isn’t enough food to call dinner and we’re too impatient to wait until midnight to eat with all the Spaniards, so we headed to a grocery store to pick up ingredients for a substantial meal.

We cooked dinner in the hostel and then went to bed early so we could walk up for a proper walking tour of the town.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

We spent from about 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on a free waking tour provided by the hostel.

As we are quickly learning most of the free tours provided by hostels are pretty low-quality and led by newly enlightened university students who love to inject their stupid, new-found opinions into what should be an objective, fact-based tour. As expected, this tour was no different.

Despite the stupidity of our tour guide, it wasn’t a complete waste of time because we were still able to see all the main sights of the city, even if they were accompanied by Juan’s ignorant commentary.

Some of the sights we saw included: the Cathedral, Torre del Oro, Casa consistorial de Sevilla, Palace of San Telmo, General Archive of the Indies and the grand finale, Plaza de Espana.

At the conclusion of the tour we once again hit up a grocery story for lunch supplies, and proceeded to set up a picnic outside the Seville Cathedral.

Lunch lasted a significantly long time as we got into a detailed discussion about Francisco Franco, Adolf Hitler, George W. Bush and fascism. All closely related topics.

With the afternoon waning we made a quick stop inside the free section of the cathedral before walking to the ticket office to book our ticket for a Flamenco show that evening.

With our tickets in hand, we headed back to the hostel to cook up some leftovers before making our way to the Museo del Baile Flamenco Sevilla.

The show was phenomenal and was the perfect capstone to our trip to Seville. After such an energetic and stirring performance we were ready for a drink, so we stopped by a packed little bar on the way home.

It ended up being the perfect choice, because we enjoyed probably the best tapas we have had since arriving on Spain. Tarynne was especially excited about he selection of spinach and garbanzo beans. I have to say, she was excited for good reason because it was real tasty.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Friday morning was full of errands such as buying toothpaste and mouthwash because that afternoon we were making our way to Suryalila Retreat Centre, our new home until Nov. 26.

We were able to collect all the necessary supplies and make it to the station in time to catch the 3 p.m. bus to Villamartin.

When we arrived in Villamartin we were picked up by Harry, the Suryalila facility manager, and taken to our new home.