The Barber of Seville

October 11th

I had slept on the couch after coming back from a party at Blake's piso, as Nathalie's parents were visiting and had been unable to reserve a hotel.  I didn't mind sleeping on the couch as I felt I should know how comfortable it was so I can recommend it without reservations when people come and visit.  Nathalie's parents had been extremely gracious and had already invited me to come and stay with them in Germany.

Antonio's bustling around the kitchen woke me up from my decent sleep around 7:30.  I ate a quick breakfast and grabbed my pre-packed bag.  We met in front of the hotel down the street from my piso.  There were 9 people traveling.  Heiko, his girlfriend from Germany who was visiting, 3 other Germans, 1 Austrian, Antonio, Blake and Me.

The drive went well and I slept part of the way.  it had been threatening to rain in Granada, but it started to pour as we got closer to Seville.  Entering the city, we drove through the narrow cobblestone streets looking for our hostel.  Antonio had to get out a couple of times and ask for directions but we eventually found our hostel and a place to park the cars.

The hostel was nice and it was really cool that were 8 of us who would be sleeping there as we had an entire room to ourselves.  I say 8 in the hostel as Antonio didn't wan to pay the 15 euros for the night and had decided to sleep in the car.

Rather than wait to get our keys, we left our bags in the hostel and started our walking tour of the city, heading in the direction of the Cathedral, Alcazar, and centro.

It was pouring as we walked, but we didn't let it stop us form enjoying the city, filled with fountains and palm trees.  Seville (Sevilla in Spanish) is the capitol of Andalucía and the largest city in southern Spain.  Like other cities in Andalucía, it has a diverse history of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim influence.  This is most saliently illustrated by the famous Cathedral, the largest in the world, that was built around the dome of the old mosque.

We first went to the Alcazar, the famous 13th and 14th century Muslim fort.  We got in for free with our student ID's.  There were many wedding photos being taken in the beautiful hallways, plazas, and gardens of the Alcazar.  Too bad it was raining.  Like the Alhambra, the Alcazar had amazing architecture and exquisite craftsmanship.  After spending a couple hours wandering around the main section, we went upstairs for a modern exhibit on global climate change.

The reality of not being in Granada's free culture of tapas set in quickly when we went to a bar and had to pay for a drink and a tapa.  The food was ok, but it made me appreciate Granada.  Still hungry, we stumbled across my favorite restaurant from Madrid, 100 Monteditos, where we ordered a couple small bocadillos and were very satisfied.

We tried to visit the Cathedral but it was closed.  Instead we began what turned into a six hour walking tour along the river and narrow streets of the different barrios.  We saw the "Torre del Oro," Tower of Gold, an ancient Moorish watch tower and also the famous Plaza del Torros bull ring where we saw advertisements for a bull fight the next day.

That night we went to another tapas bar and then walked around the different plazas.  We thought about going to a club but we hadn't brought that nice of clothes and didn't want to be useless the next day.  We returned to the hostel around 4:00am and I gave the keys to the car to Antonio who slept in the back seat.