Sevilla y Cádiz

This past weekend the trip went to Sevilla with API. We all met up in Plaza Catalunya just as it started sprinkling and everything was completely gray in Barcelona. The bus and flight was very uneventful; no delays or anything this time, unlike the trip to Italy. We got to Sevilla and the sun was shining!! How awesome! Almost immediately after arriving at our fancy hotel (not that fancy but rrreally nice!) we got back on a bus to go on a tour of the Cathedral of Sevilla and of the Real Alcazar which is where the royal family has lived and where they still sometimes do.

Oh, I should mention that I woke up Friday morning with an indescribable pain in my throat and a cough. I figured it would go away but uhh it didn’t. I spent all day Friday absolutely miserable and I didn’t actually take much in that first day. I saw everything and thankfully I took pictures but the pain was really distracting. Our API people were really great though and as soon as the tour was over, Laura took me to a pharmacy and I got some ibuprofen and some delicious medicated mints and I felt almost instantly better.

The cathedral and Alcazar were both really cool. They are both clearly of Muslim design; everything was decked out in Arabian writing and the typical Muslim extravagance… it was really beautiful. There were also orange trees everywhere and it smelled like citrus. That with the sun shining made the entire thing really nice. Except for the throat thing.
We went out for tapas that night, for dinner, because supposedly the tapas in Sevilla are the best. Well, they certainly were good. We all decided to order 3 each and then we could kinda pick off each other’s and honestly, not one thing was just “eh”. They were all so good and we were all stuffed after dinner, which I thought was amazing because they were such small servings. A couple of people went out that night but Katie, Charlie, and I just went back to the hotel because we all had something going on with our health. We didn’t go home before getting ice cream though. Of course not.

Saturday we went to Cádiz, a small beach town on the Atlantic where the constitution of Spain was signed. Weird, right, that it wasn't signed in a big city like Madrid or Barcelona or something, but rather in Cádiz of all places. We went on a short bus tour of the town and then got off the bus to walk around. The town was attacked way back when by the English and after the attack they built a wall surrounding the entire town to keep out the unwanteds. The entire wall and some of the buildings are built with something called ‘oyster rock’ which is basically fossils extracted from the Atlantic. We were also told that on one of the Cádiz beaches is where they filmed part of the 007 movie ‘Die Another Day’. You know, the part where Halle Barry comes out of the ocean in an orange bikini? Yea, that’s in Cádiz. I guess it was supposed to be filmed in Cuba but they weren’t allowed to so they went there instead. Pretty cool. We went on a quick tour of the town, just Charlie and I from our group cause everyone else was laaazyyyy, which is made up of a maze of teeny streets, and when we arrived at yet another cathedral to tour, Charlie and I skipped out to go explore on our own. We decided to walk out to this fortress thing, which was a part of keeping out the English and whoever else, on a long skinny strip of rock. We weren’t allowed to actually go in but the walk itself was really beautiful and it was really cool to see the entire town from an outside perspective. It is SO pretty! We met up with the others, got lunch and bought a couple of beers and then planted ourselves on the beach for the rest of the time there. As we were walking back to meet API we walked by some kind of sadomasochistic punk lesbian “show” going on… I’m not sure exactly how to describe it. They were doing all kinds of Rated X things right there in the middle of this small square where people were sitting outside sipping coffee and kids were walking around with ice cream cones. Bizarre, I guess I would say. We were all a little taken aback but we kept walking and made it to the bus and were on our way back to Sevilla. I GOT A SUNBURN IN CÁDIZ!!! First sunburn of 2010 was in March. Sweeet!

We decided to get Mexican food that night which was a little random and which got us lost in Sevilla because we had no idea where the place actually was but when we found it we were in heaven. It’s weird because at home you don’t have to search for long to find some decent Mexican food but in Spain, it’s not that easy. We were very happy with our food, which consisted of lots of cheese, beans, tortillas (the Mexican kind, aka. NOT an omelette), and more beans.

Sunday we had a bike tour planned and that was really good, especially because my group’s tour guide was REALLY cute (: No but really, it was good. We went on a bike tour of Barcelona within the first couple of days of getting here, which was good, but we were always stopping to talk about something or other. The Sevilla bike tour was better in that we just biked. There was barely any stopping at all so you were able to just take it all in. We went to Plaza España which is a big plaza with big mosaic pictures for each region in Spain. We all got excited when we found Barcelona<3 Part of one of the Star Wars movies was actually filmed in this plaza too! Hollywood is allll over Spain, apparently!

The rest of Sunday was spent just hanging out, getting lunch, and heading back to the airport. The trip was exactly what I wanted it to be. It was very relaxing and the surroundings were absolutely stunning. I definitely love Sevilla and Cádiz both, much more than Madrid but not as much as Barcelona. It’s a very different place and atmosphere; Sevilla is a small big city with small streets, small buildings, small everything. It was a nice little getaway and I came back to Barcelona feeling relaxed and happy. I’m still coughing and phlegmy but at least I’m not in extreme pain anymore.

I have one more day of classes, a Flamenco show organized by API, and then I go to Lisbon! I guess it’s supposed to rain while I’m there, which sucks but I’m excited to go either way. Not sure exactly what I’m gonna do but I figure that’ll work itself out when I get there. The flamenco show tomorrow night is just one of the things API has planned, among others, for us to do if we want. I’m excited to see legit Spanish Flamenco, maybe learn a thing or two to take back to zumba… haha I don’t know but I’m sure it’ll be fun (:
Hasta luego!