Viva la Espana

This past weekend I flew to Spain to meet the Hernandez family in Seville. I was catching them on the tail end of their 10 day trip through Spain and was happy to find they were still in high spirits! I was also glad to find they weren't too sick of tapas and sangria yet! Either that, or they were very kind and humored me! I took a ton of pics of the two main attractions in Seville, the Cathedral and the Palace so I put those pics into two separate blogs.

I'll go through what all we did while we were there on this one. Before I left I did some research on getting from the airport to the city and I was set on taking the bus into the city center and then walking to the hotel instead of taking a cab. 2 Euros versus 30 Euros. Easy decision. Well as soon as I got to Seville and realized how HOT it was, I decided against public transportation! It reached 110 on Saturday and only cooled to about 90 at night, it was SO HOT! Anyways, when I first got there I met up with the Hernandez's at the hotel (after a very scary cab ride through the city..the streets are so narrow!) and we had a chance to catch up for a bit and then we headed down the street for some yummy tapas! I was a little worried after they had told me they had eaten pig ears with cartilage earlier in the week but I enjoyed everything I had and I am pretty sure there were no pig ears involved. It was nice being in Spain with people who spoke Spanish, although I could have been eating just about anything for all I knew! After dinner we went to La Carboneria for some Agua de Seville (the local cocktail) and some Spanish guitar and flamenco. It was so hot at the bar we thought we would take a dip in our hotel's rooftop pool when we got home at 2 AM. We changed into our suits and got up to the roof to find that apparently it turns into a nice restaurant at night...oops!

The next day we went to visit the Cathedral, which happens to be the third larges in Europe, I had no idea! It turns out that Christopher Columbus is also buried there. Check out the pics in a blog to follow! We also climbed the Giralda Tower, the bell tower. Which, by the way, is still in use...we were woken up every morning by the chiming bells! After the Cathedral we headed to the Royal Alcazares...the royal palace. It is still in use by the King and Queen of Spain whenever they visit Seville. The palace had a lot of Moorish influence which you can spot pretty easily in the pics and also had some beautiful gardens. All of this would have been a lot more pleasant had it not been 110 degrees! Ana and I opted out a little early to get back to the rooftop pool! We headed out for dinner along the river around 9 pm that night, we were WAY early for dinner..dinner starts about 10 pm in Spain! We went to a fish restaurant where the fish was served WHOLE, eyeballs and all...ick, they had some delicious young bull though...I am assuming it was veal.

The next day was both father's day (Happy fathers day Dad...you're the best!!) and Ana's birthday. We went to mass in the morning at the Cathedral. It was delivered in Latin and some Spanish so I was pretty much just looking around the whole time! After mass we went to the Archives, this is where they keep all of the information they collected while the explorers were off discovering the New World. The had letters from Christopher Columbus and many other explorers detailing what they had found. They also had many hand drawn maps on display. It was really cool to see all of that and think about how old it was. After that we did some shopping, wandering and then had some paella for my send off lunch! It was a short but fantastic trip! Oh, and don't think I didn't miss my connecting flight in Madrid b.c I was too busy shopping and eating to be paying attention to anything else! Luckily I got on the last flight home on Standby...but not with luggage of course...hopefully they will call soon and say they have it to deliver!!

View of Seville from the bell tower

View of the bull ring

They have orange trees growing all over town!

Agua de Seville...Whiskey, Vodka, Prosecco and Pineapple Juice

Me and Ana at La Carboneria

It didn't take me long to notice this sign!!

A Church...there were tons of these small churches throughout the city

Another small Church

All of the buildings were so cute, it is a very picturesque town

We stopped in to hear some Spanish guitar one day

more pretty buildings

PAELLA!!!

This was the only picture I got of us as I was leaving for the airport...Darcy, Guillermo, Ana and me....I didn't get a picture with Gabriela and Willie :(