September 7 2010 / Seville, Spain

SEVILLE WAS AWESOME.  I’m going to put that out there right now.  Ellie and I woke up around eight o’clock to head out the door to catch our nine o’clock bus, which was nicely air conditioned and the seats reclined a little bit.  I fell right asleep, and when I woke up wondering if we had finished leaving Cadiz yet, it turned out we were fifteen minutes to the bus station in Seville (it was a two hour trip).  Seville definitely feels BIGGER than Cadiz does—the streets are wider, there are a lot more cars and people on the street.  The first thing we noticed was that the fountain that we were supposed to meet Lorelei and Nathalie by was in the middle of about four lanes of busy traffic with no real way to get to it, so we decided that we would circle the area as best as we could later. 

We then decided to voyage out to get the elusive churro con chocolate, as we had been looking for them the entire time we had been in Spain with no luck.  We finally found a place, though they didn’t know any English, so we had a good time miming out “churro con chocolate” and ‘orange juice” (which was pointing at the orange juice maker) and “bread.”  When they brought out the churros, it was a plate of twisted U shaped churros, a big pot of sugar, and a glass of melted chocolate.  Originally I was dunking the churros directly into the pot of sugar (go big or go home), but the waiter quickly spotted us and started yelling about not doing that.  So we sprinkled it instead on the churros on the plate and then dipped them into the chocolate.  It was incredibly fabulous and was very different to be able to dip them in sugar yourself (and the melted chocolate was divine).  We finished up our postcards for this port while sitting around a table as well, so hopefully those come in well.

Afterwards Ellie wanted to go to an internet café, so we walked over one that was across the Universidad de Sevilla, which I had thought was a gigantic palace at first, due to the architecture, statues, and the garden outside.  Apparently it used to be a tobacco factory, which was then the largest industrial building in Spain.  Anyway, outside the internet café we ran into Nathalie and Lorelei, and together we went into the Plaza de San Sebastian, which was a big public garden.  We went by the Portugal Embassy, which looked like something that was really cool (but was really the Portugal Embassy), which had lots of spires.  Then we went to what everyone was convinced was the Alcázar, but what I think was actually the Plaza de España, which is this huge castle-esque structure with a massive courtyard that was built for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929.  It had mosaics for all the cities in Spain, which was really cool, and was built in a “Moorish revival” style.  It was enormous, just this massive courtyard, though most of it was under construction.  Ellie saw a scarf she liked at a vendor, who of course was incredibly obnoxious.  We were lucky to have Lorelei, who is a fluent Spanish speaker and New Yorker, so she didn’t take any crap (he wanted 20 euro and got insulted when we said 5).  When he shoved Nathalie because she firmly told him we weren’t interested we knew it was time to continue on (literally a minute’s walk later were the same scarves for five euro). 

This huge golden building we saw actually turned out to be a casino, so we decided to head into the heart of town, where there was apparently the Cathedral of Seville, which is the third biggest church in the world.  The outside was really incredible, stone with spires, but when they refused to take our Semester at Sea cards for a student discount, I refused to pay the full price (8 euro as opposed to 2) to explore inside, as did Ellie.  I often find that I like looking at the outside of cathedrals far more than the inside anyway, so we snacked absently nearby a Starbucks.  We picked up a new member of our team, Caroline (who was my wifi buddy the other day) when we lost Nathalie as she was tired and wanted to go back to Cadiz. 

I was excited for the shopping district, as I had heard that Seville was the cultural center of Spain and I wanted to get a painting, but there was NOTHING.  I saw a single art gallery filled with photographs, but that was it.  I was really sad—I’m sorry mom and dad, I’ll have to find your painting for a country that’s not Spain but you’ll hopefully still like.  I went into a little tourist shop and found a little shot glass I liked (I want to get something small from every country that isn’t kitschy, so I decided a shot glass from all the countries would probably be something universal and inexpensive).  

Caroline was our cartographer (it’s what she’s actually majoring in) and figured out how to get us across the river towards the bar district, where our hostel was.  There were lots of kayakers in the river, and people had put padlocks all over the railing, I suppose as a permanent way to assure their presence noted?  One thing I’ve noticed about Cadiz and Seville—it’s dirty and graffitied, and people don’t seem to care.  I walked into a restaurant once and the floor was covered in dirty napkins and cigarette butts.  In the Plaza de España, there were names on there from 1994, and it didn’t look like anyone cared enough to try to remove it.  It’s just a weird experience.  =/

Anyway, it took us a little while to find our hostel, but it turned out it was all full up.  We checked out a hotel in hopes that it would be cheap, but 70 euro for two twin beds was not optimal for us.  Finally we found a hostel that had a room for 61 euro that had three twin beds, which by then we were so exhausted that we said that was fine—Ellie opted for sleeping on the ground, so Caroline and I stripped off our covers to pad the floor a little bit for her.  Because we were all kind of getting low on our funds, we went out to go to a supermarket so that that we could get stuff to make sandwiches and drinks so that we could botellón (a Spanish tradition where youths drink en mass in a public place before going to clubs or bars) by the River Guadalquivir, which Lorelei knew was big.   We bought tinto de verano (red wine mixed with orange or lemon soda), because it’s traditional, though we forgot it in our hotel room when we went to the river.  There were already people down by the river around ten, and we had to climb over a fence to get there.  I felt really self conscious because I was wearing a dress, but I just bucked up and jumped it, feeling like a fool.  We made sandwiches and played “I Never,” which caused lots of laughter, which I think we all needed because I think we were getting a little grumpy with all the walking that we’d been doing.  A girl wandered up asking for ice and got a piece of ham instead, and a couple of seventeen year old boys came up and started asking about drug culture in the United States, so we had a bit of a cultural exchange.  The river kept rippling where we thought fish were jumping, and people would walk behind us constantly to climb back over the fence.  It was a pretty good time. 

We wandered back to our hostel so that Ellie could Skype with her boy and Caroline, Lorelei and I could just talk about our lives.  Caroline has apparently gone skydiving 63 times and can go by herself.  The more I hear about it the more I want to try it in Hawaii, but I’ve already promised myself that the only way I would consider that is if I don’t spend considerably more than I think I will already through Japan on this trip—I refuse to save for skydiving when I can do that in the states later.  But I can dream…  While talking we passed around the tinto de verano—I thought it was pretty vile.  It almost tasted like coco-cola and wine.  But we decarbonated it a lot so it got better.  Still—can’t say I’m a fan of that local specialty. 

Anyway, around twelve thirty we decided to go out (the nightlife starts around midnight or one) and went out by the river looking for bars.  We had a tequila shot at one bar, which was a funny start to the night because when Lorelei picked up her drink, her shot glass snapped cleanly in half.  Next we went to a second bar called the Long Island bar, which I think was our favorite—it was an “old man” bar that Lorelei’s boyfriend told her about, which has different kinds of “mixed shots” corresponding to all the states.  We tried New York first (Lorelei insisted), which was caramel vodka—it was incredible.  Ellie also had her first (half) shot, Kentucky of course, which was rum and peach schnapps.  We tried a little of it before she drank it, and it was so tasty—I don’t think I’ve ever had such delicious shots in all my life.  We went outside and talked to a couple of American students studying at Seville, one of whom gave us some advice for India before trying to get another tequila shot at the American bar we went to at the very beginning—it had become dramatically more packed and a couple of SASers finally bought shots for us, to which we toasted to Spain.  Lorelei had heard that there was absinthe at the Long Island bar, and she and Caroline were infatuated with trying it (I tried it in Amsterdam and it was freaking disgusting, so no thanks on that for me), so back we went.  The bartender was really kind and teased us a lot, but was really helpful in answering all of our questions about Seville and even answered a couple of questions that I had about the royal family in Spain for my class.  We tried the California shot then, which was honey rum and lime juice.  It sounds really strange and it tasted really strange, though it did, indeed, remind me of California.  It was a great bar, definitely really friendly if pretty locals-only.  We left around three in the morning. 

We were walking back around the front of the river when Lorelei started talking to this group of four guys.  They were brothers and cousins from Morocco, and before we knew it we were walking with them towards  a club that didn’t have a cover charge, which we had been looking for.  I was talking to a guy who’s name I can’t remember how to say (they had Arab names) about life at home and he was talking about how different Seville was from Morocco.  We were all getting along pretty well, though Lorelei was definitely the life of the party.  We walked across the river again and far down until we could begin to hear the bass of the outdoor club. 

The club had a great mix of English and Spanish music.  It was outside with booming bass, with a square bar with hookahs all around and a big dance floor with flashing lights.  We found a corner next to the DJ and started to wreck havoc on the dance floor.  I definitely noticed that Spaniards don’t dance as energetically as Americans do.  They would often times just stand there while we were rocking out.  It was great fun though, leaping up and down and cheering.  I was dancing like a grade-A dork.  At some point the guy who I had been talking to was deeeefinitely trying to start something with me.  He was all, brushing back my hair and brushing his hand down my arm and started dancing closer and more ~*~seductively~*~ and  I was just like, uh oh.  No bueno.  I tried to do as many non-verbal cues as I could—turning to dance with Ellie or Caroline, keeping my distance, etc.  Nothing seemed to work. When he finally went to kiss me I turned my head and told him I had a boyfriend (a half truth), but I still thought that he was the best dance partner in all of Spain.  He said something like but he “liked me so much!” and I said to get in the queue for that (not really).  Anyway, I did a pretty good job of displacing the awkward, I thought, and frequently wandered away to get water anyway.  One of the guys we met (another cousin, apparently) had just had his nephew born in Morocco that day. 

We left the club around 5:15 in the morning, and the club hadn’t even STARTED to empty out.  Spanish nightlife is crazy.  It was lucky that our Moroccan friends were accompanying us, because we’d all discovered that between the four of us, we couldn’t recall what street the hostel was on or what the hostel’s name was.  But we found it all the same, and gave lots of hugs and took a picture when we all separated.  Despite the temporary awkward, I had an incredible time and really enjoyed myself.  Surprisingly, I only felt lightly buzzed—the shot glasses are a lot smaller than they are in the states.  It was a perfect adventure though, and when we fell asleep at six, I felt as though we had had a perfect Spanish nightlife experience.