I woke up at 5 a.m. Friday morning, about 3 hours past finishing that last lovely post for you all, threw some stuff in a bag and got a taxi to the autobús. We departed at 6 a.m. for el Sur (south) de España, with about a five hour ride to Sevilla. This trip was a bit different because only eight of us from our Auburn group attended, since it was an excursion organized through Cursos Internacionales (our university). So we were accompanied by a few other Americans, a Canadian couple, and muchos muchos Brazilians.
So, Sevilla. To be honest, Sevilla was not very amable (kind) to me. Upon rolling out of our bus slumber into our hotel my roommate Melanie and I were sad to find that our beloved aire condicionario no funciona. Our air conditioning in our 5th floor room was not working. Trying to bear it, I basically stripped down to bare necessities and ate my picnic lunch packed from our house madre. We both took quick cold showers and then I finally broke down my talking-on-the-phone-in-Spanish anxiety and called the front desk. The phone call did not turn out to ease my anxiety considering I have this problem with remembering Spanish numbers and the man was yelling at me about windows and room number and then the phone console fell off the table and then I had to call him back and he yelled some more and finally just came up to our room, shut our window that we didn't know was cracked open, and whaddya know, the air kicked on! Lo siento, Mr. Hotel Man.
Sevilla also turned out to be a bit of a death trap, but only for me. Even with my struggling capacity for Spanish numbers I couldn't tell you how many times I tripped in this city. It all started with a small ledge that separated our hotel baño del resto de the room. Naturally toes were stubbed and curse words yelled many, many times over this. Second, whenever we go on a walking tour, I have to master the trick of walking at a very fast pace to keep up with our tour and also have my face behind the camera lens taking pictures at the same time, because Joaquín ain't stoppin' until we get there. So that results in some bumps and bruises, but especially in Sevilla because for some reason there are just mini poles sticking out of the ground everywhere. I also made a poor footwear decision and my trusty old pair of sandals turned out to be my fussy old pair of get-caught-on-cobblestones-and-split-my-toe-open.
Anyway, aside from being diva klutz of Sevilla and experiencing the relentless odor of horses that seemed to permeate the city, the sights to see were breathtaking as always. Friday our only tour was of the huge Catedral, which is the third largest church in the world.
After the Catedral, Joaquín walked us over to the Plaza de España, which is an absolute architectural stunner in the Parque de María Luisa. The beauty of this place will be burned into my mind forever.
What will also probably scar forever is the fun occurrence of Joaquín kind of ditching us at said Plaza and then we ended up getting lost trying to walk back to the hotel. Melanie and I tried to walk with a few other people and we all just ended up getting a defeat taxi after over an hour of hiking through the streets of Sevilla. My patience and my cut open toe's endurance were at an all time low, but no worries, we made it just in time to meet up with our Auburn friends to find some delicious comida.
And when I say delicious, I mean the most delicious tapas meal anyone could ever ask for. We went to a restaurante called La Vineria San Telmo (muchas, muchas gracias a your suggestion, Spencer), split a bottle of vino and ate tapas to our heart's content. They sat us at a table under an Aerosmith (yes) quote painted onto the ceiling: "Dream on, dream on, dream until your dreams come true." Thanks Aerosmith and tapas for a dream come true, and Sevilla, you redeemed yourself with food. After dinner we got a serious craving for helado (ice cream) and sought out an adventurous quest through windy back streets to find the holy grail of heladerias.
Caption contest winner: "It's like, I spend all my money on alcohol, but ice cream is way better."
All in all, it was a great, chill night in Sevilla. Sevilla, I love your palm trees, ice cream, and the enormity of people on Razr scooters and roller blades. Also, thank you for the miraculous cold front and for not melting us into 100+ degrees Fahrenheit-induced puddles.
The next day we checked out pretty early and toured Real Alcázar, another beautiful palace. The Moorish influence there was amazing.
Then off we went on the bus again for a few more hours to Granada. When I'm not sleeping in really awkward positions, I like to do a little bit of reflecting on bus rides. This time, while driving through the beautiful scenery of the Southern Spanish mountains, I realized I've been bit by a serious travel bug. Going to all these places, seeing so much, so fast, feeling so free, meeting so many people, good times, bad times, sore feet, from hunger pangs to a full stomach, all I want right now is to see it all. Good motivation to start saving for a future backpacking trip through Europe? I'm thinking sí.
In Granada we started off at Capilla Real, the royal chapel, where they do not allow fotos inside. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand II are buried there. Buuut (shh) we snuck in this secret selfie, of course. My submission to the funniest photo of the weekend contest:
Walking through Granada is probably one of my favorite things. All of the buildings are intricately designed and even the street lights were some of the coolest geometric designs I've ever seen. We had free time the rest of Saturday night so we walked around, got stopped by a huge Bachelorette party of girls dressed up like Playboy bunnies who wanted a photo with us, which resulted in me getting more action than all of the guys combined because either the bunny next to me was trying to rob me or just wanted to grab my butt while taking a photo. So awk.
Saturday night we three girls and two of our guys just had to check out these Arab baths--which turned out to be one of the top 5 experiences of my life, probably. A full massage and and an hour and a half of "immersing yourself in the past with an Arab bath ritual, a circuit through the culture of water and aromas from that period, recovered by the Hammam Al Ándalus to allow you relive a historic experience." My body said, "DEAR GOD thank you!"
The Granada night experience turned out to be just as chill as the last one in Sevilla--in fact, it was literally kind of chilly. I think that Granada has a very cool California vibe. We ate some fast Mediterranean food and then explored a bit, getting more helado of course. We saw another wedding taking place at a beautiful little chapel. Que bueno, Granada.
We ended our trip with an all-day visit of the Alhambra, a huge palace and fortress that is essentially indescribable other than with these pictures.
Oh, to spend all day wandering through those gardens. That's the thing about tours is that you only have time to stop and smell one rose!
We also went up to the summit to get a stunning view of the city. Again, only pictures do it justice.
What a weekend and what a great group of people. Another highlight was receiving a text from our other friends who had run with the bulls in Pamplona that simply said, "Vivimos!" They were alive! I got so excited I dropped my Samsung. Que suerte.
The trip home to Salamanca was a looong one, with two stops at Abades, which are basically huge, glorified gas station rest stops with overpriced cafeteria food and wee-fee gratis. Being on that bus is like being in time warp, and I swear they pump sleeping gas through the vents. We tried to watch the Last Samurai en español but I was passed out 20 minutes in. Otherwise the time was filled with our Brazilian friends singing in Portuguese (a language I'm catching onto a bit but still can't fathom how anyone could fully understand) and watching it rain while pulling into town.
Es todo. Hasta luego.
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