Sevilla was hot, crowded and beautiful...

I’m happy to report that I’m finally home from weeklong adventure in Sevilla and Barcelona. It was fun, but I’m very happy to be back in Granada. So much happened in both cities that it’s gonna take me a while to catch everybody up.

Lauren and I met Emily, Valerie and Lizzie (EVL) at the bus stop last Friday. The ride went well and when we got to Sevilla we had no problems getting to our hostel (this is bizarre because we somehow always get lost). We get situated and head at to eat delicious paella at EVL’s hostel. Words cannot describe to you all how much I love paella! It was amazing. The shrimp were huge and the rice was cooked to perfection

Afterwards, we decided top off our meal with some gelato and do a little bit of night walking. As we were walking out of the ice cream shop a Semana Santa procession was happening. For those of you back in AMURRICA who don’t know what this is, Semana Santa is the week before Easter when each church carries around a float looking thing made of gold with Jesus on the top. A whole bunch of guys who look like they are part of the KKK walk around town in different colored outfits for a couple of hours with the platform. It’s really cool to see once or twice, but after ten processions and not being able to go where you want to go because it’s so crowded is really annoying and by the end of the trip I was over it (more on that later).

We continued our walk to the river and took a stroll along the side for a while. It didn’t take us too long to realize that this is where all the kids come to Botellon because everyone was drunk.

A couple of drunk girls started walking beside us yelling at us in Spanish, calling us putas and what not. This was a tad bit ironic because they were dressed in short-shorts and midriff tops. They seriously looked like prostitutes. Then one of them asked me where I’m from.

Drunk girl: (in drukedn slurs) dedondeeres?

Me: Estados Unidos

Drunk Girls: Colombia?

Me: No, los Estados Unidos

Drink Girl: ohhhhh GIDDY!

After all this we decided that we were too tired to continue and we went back to our hostels.

The next morning we had breakfast and took a free tour of the city. The girl was really nice and showed us a lot of cool things, like this window.

Tour guide: if you look closely you can see how the iron winds in and out and then you realize that it’s all one piece of iron. When they renovated this building they didn’t know how to explain this. So what do the Spanish do when they can’t explain something? They blame it on the Devil!

We also learned about a little street called Calle de la Muerte. Basically it was part of the Jewish quarter and there were two different massacres of the Jews in the area totaling about 5000 Jews killed. I really wish I was paying attention to Valerie because when we were walking away, she did a little hop/run because she was so freaked out.

“I can’t believe there’s the blood of 5000 Jews on this street.”

After the tour we headed to the Parasol and the Alcazar. Later on in the day we met up with Lizzie’s friend, Matt, had a couple of drinks at happy hour and went out for dinner. That night Real Madrid was playing FC Barcelona that night, so we found a place to watch the game. I just have to say Spain has given me a new love for football, and I am a full-blown Barcelona fan.

Reasons:

1.     Barcelona is a way cooler city than Madrid.

2.     Their jerseys are better looking

3.     My brother likes them, especially Messi. When it comes to sports, I can trust my brother’s opinion (except the Dallas Cowboys will always suck)

4.     David Villa is the hottest thing in Spanish football.

 All perfectly respectable reasons for supporting a team. Anyway, they tied and by the end of the game, we were all tired and decided to turn in early.

The next day we headed to the park and Plaza de España. For those of you who don’t now, this is where they filmed parts of Star Wars Episodes 2 and 3 I believe. It was also the start of Semana Santa. It was nice, but it was too crowded. Everywhere you walked there was a procession.  We saw our first procession at the park. It was long but it was nice. When we left the park and headed back to EVL’s hostel we rested and attempted to head out to Triana, the gypsy quarter.

This was way easier said than done. Basically there was a procession on every single road leading to the bridge and there were tons of people in the way. The processions had a t least a hundred KKK dudes, which made it really hard to cross. In the end, what was supposed to be a 15-minute walk took us over an hour.

When we finally made it to Triana, we were all hungry so finding food was our first priority. Of course, being close to the river everything was expensive, so after we turned the corner we decided on the 4 Euro Chinese food.

Afterwards we made our trek back to EVL’s hostel, which again was a mission because of all the processions. We made it ¾ of the way until we hit a procession that all of a sudden turned silent and we didn’t know. We made it back to the hostel, barely missing the Jesus float.

After waiting about an hour or so, Lauren and I attempted to go back to our hostel but of course the Spanish don’t sleep during Semana Santa because there are so many processions going on. This time it wasn’t so hard, but at the last turn we were behind a lady with big-ass hips who was moving as slow as possible. A ten-minute walk turned out to be a 30-minute one.

The last day we were there we stopped by the cathedral to climb the tower, Giraldo, and see Christopher Columbus’ tomb. I have to say, the church is beautiful, but the Columbus’ tomb was pretty anti-climactic. I thought it would be bigger and better since he discovered America and all. Climbing the tower was awesome though! We walked up 33 ramps and got to see this amazing view of the city!

Up next: Barcelona!!!