Sevilla

Hey everyone! So we started off today by waking up around 7:45am to catch our 9am train to Sevilla.  We didn’t have hardly any trouble finding our departing station and were headed out of Madrid shortly after 9am.  I got about 4 hours of sleep last night so I took the opportunity to sleep on our 2.5 hour train ride.  The train was pretty nice and all of our seats were together.  But once we arrived it took about 30 minutes to find our hostel.  Our hostel, Samay Sevilla, is nicer than our previous hostel but the internet goes in and out which is frustrating.  After getting to the hostel, we asked the front desk for a good place to eat lunch.  They suggested we eat at Levies which was about a 5-7 minute walk from the hostel.  We ended up ordering tapas and two of the guys got sandwiches.  Our waiter spoke a little bit of English, but he was friendly and helped us out with some of our Spanish.  We found out that we had been correct that the 8% IVA was tax and we correctly found how to order a “glass of water” instead of being served bottle water.  

After lunch, we came back to the hostel, some of the guys showered then we headed off into the town to explore.  We first went to this really cool palace which was entirely too big.  It was in the shape of a semi-circle with two towers on either end of the plaza.  We took some pictures and got a lemonade type drink which reminded me of a Lemon Chill for 2 Euros.  Next we headed to what is supposedly the most famous bull fighting arena in Spain, and three of the guys toured it.  I didn’t feel like paying 7 euro to view the arena so I just sat outside and took a 30 minute snooze to catch up on my rest.  Next we went back into the heart of the town passing local restaurants everywhere and came to the famous church in Sevilla.  We got to the church right before it closed and so the guys went in and say it for 2 Euros.  I didn’t see the church because I forgot my student id and didn’t feel like paying 8 Euros to tour for 15-20 minutes as it was closing.  In retrospective, I probably would see it next time… so I’ll keep that in mind in the future (I should have brought my A&M id).  But anyways, after our exploring we were pretty tired so we came back to the hostel for an hour or two before heading out for dinner.  We got another suggestion for a place for dinner, but spent 30-45 minutes searching for the non-exist dinner place… we ended up just settling for a place next to the church from earlier that afternoon and it turned out to be a really good meal.  They had the local cuisine, but also had Irish, and American food and our waitress from Australia spoke English which was nice.  We’ve started to appreciate people speaking English because it makes things that much easier.

But tonight after dinner, we went up on the terrace for 30-45 minutes and met some girls from Canada.  We joking made fun of each other’s accents and talked about their travel plans and ours.  They have been here 2 weeks and had been to Barcelona so we asked some about what sites to see (they pretty much suggested anything you see will be awesome and just to get “lost” in the city)… So I’m pretty excited about Barcelona tomorrow.  I think we are planning on getting in and heading to the beach and spending day two seeing the sights of the city.

Tonight we went out to see a Flamenco show which was pretty interesting. It consisted of a guy singing, a guy playing guitar, and a woman dancing.  It was interesting to see local culture and experience some of the night life.  We sat next to this really funny group of Italians from Sicily who were all laughing and having a good time.  One of the guys especially, probably 55-60 years old was hilarious because he kept videoing his group with a video camera.  Also during the performances, he would “silence” his group by raising his hands like a person on the PGA tour with the “quiet” signs.  He was very very funny to say the least… I tried sneaking a picture of him, and the lady next to me saw what I was doing and started laughing hysterically.  He ended up posing for a picture and Sam refilled his drink for him. We also met some college kids from UNC and Wisconsin that were studying abroad for the spring semester and were about to head back to the states.  I didn’t talk to them all that much, but we learned about some of their experiences and where we should try to go. But that’s it for tonight. Talk to everyone tomorrow!

Jonathan