Holiday In Spain

Seville – Cordoba – Cadiz

(April 30 to May 5)

Words could not even begin to describe this past weekend, but I will try my very best.

Wednesday afternoon was spent in great anticipation, some packing, and lots of nerves. My bus left Estación Sur at 11:00 p.m., Kim’s at midnight, and Caroline’s at 1:00 a.m. I probably could have accomplished quite a bit Wednesday afternoon but I was too excited. Oh and the nerves… we had bus tickets to and from Seville, high hopes, great backpacks… but that was it.

I arrived in Seville at 5:35 Thursday morning, and then just as we had left we arrived. Kim came next around 6:00 and Caroline showed up by 7:30. We felt gross, tired, and a little hungry. So we thought we might attempt a search for a hostel. Difficult. It was a holiday weekend (we did know that we might encounter this problem before we left, but where is the fun in that?). One very “nice” place had vacancies. Okay, whom am I kidding, there was a reason it was the only place with vacancies, but at least we had a back up plan. After a half hour of searching and a detour to sneak into the Cathedral, we decided we might try calling a few places in my wonderful Let’s Go book. Success. It was almost too easy, and it was located next to the most delicious bakery. So room and breakfast were taken care of, as well as a quick call to a hostel in Cordoba to make reservations for the following night. Amazing. We were rather impressed with ourselves. We’d gone from only a bus ticket at 7:30 to hostels in Seville and Cordoba by 9:00 a.m.! I called my friend Erin who was studying in Seville, so after coffee and croissants we decided to meet at the Alcazar.

The Real Alcazar de Sevilla was built in the 1600s by the Moors. The Arab influence in all of Andalucia was striking. Anyway the palace had beautiful arches, patios, and gardens. The gardens were breathtaking. Fountains, palm trees, ponds, more arches, courtyards, roses, more flowers, ducks, beautiful.

We met up with Erin and her roommate and went to the Cathedral next. It is the third largest in the world and the biggest gothic structure ever constructed. There are 44 chapels, a patio of orange trees, a thorn from the crown of Jesus, and supposedly the remains of Christopher Columbus. We also climbed to the top of La Giralda minaret which was built in 1198. The view from the top was breathtaking. There is a law I believe, that doesn’t allow any building to be more then four stories so that it isn’t taller then La Giralda.

Did a little wandering through the streets after our touring. We learned about Seville’s colors, which we also happened to be wearing that day: Red for the bulls blood (bullfighting is very big) which Caroline was wearing, Yellow for the dirt/sand or maybe clay (Kim), and White for España (me)! We bought our bus tickets for Cordoba, saw the Plaza de España and then stopped for a long lunch near the Cathedral. It was mid afternoon when we finished and realized there was nothing left for us to see of major importance. Walking by a tapas bar we noticed it was overly crowded so we thought we’d stop by for a drink and hopefully meet some people so we could practice our wonderful Spanish. Kim aksed for “tres cervezas” which resulted in a song and dance from a group of people in the bar and us spending the rest of the evening hanging out with a Spanish Rugby team. Truly entertaining. This trip was turning out very well. The party eventually left the bar and moved down by the river and then we eventually said our goodbyes (it was almost midnight…) and met Erin to see a Flamenco performance. Sleep.

Friday morning we had breakfast and boarded the bus to Cordoba. Another beautiful city. Oh and did I mention the weather was gorgeous? Sunshine and 80 degrees at least everyday. Our hostel was adorable. It was a family’s home and very quaint. We had a balcony that overlooked the street. All of the streets in the old neighborhood were skinny and winding. Lunch and then the Mezquita.

La Mezquita was built in AD 783 on the site of an old Visigoth basilica. It has more then 850 columns and at the time it was the third-largest mosque in the Islamic world after Mecca and Medina. However in 1371 following the reconquista the first chapel was built in the mosque beginning its transition into a place of Christian worship. In the 1500s a cathedral was constructed in the center of La Mezquita. It looks horribly wrong. All of these Arab arches in red and white and then Christian crucifixes and chapels stuck amid the numerous columns. So very wrong, almost frightening, but also very cool. The original mosque was added onto multiple times over the course of two centuries with the same style repeated. I thought it was interesting because with the last addition there was a lack of funds. Instead of using actual red and white stones to form the arches, they simply painted the stone red to make it match the rest and save time and money.

We also visited an old Jewish synagogue, one of only three left in Spain and the ancient Arab baths. That evening we had teas and juices sitting on cushions in a recreated 12^th century tea house and then we left the walls of the old city in search of food. We ended up stumbling upon a small grocery store where they made us bocadillas (sandwiches) for less then a euro! Fruit, cookies, wine and pop (to make Calimocha) completed our picnic and we crossed the street to a park to eat and watch the sunset. Delicious. We also made friends with a dog whom we named Rodrigo. He was basically just using us for our food but we thought he was cute and he would sit and lay when we gave him the commands in Spanish! That night we slept with the doors to the balcony open. The weather was still nice…

Saturday morning we took a bus from Cordoba to Cadiz. It was time for the Beach. We arrived in Cadiz by 2:00 in the afternoon. Perfect sun-time. The water was blue, the sky was blue, we didn’t have a place to stay so we went straight to the beach with our backpacks and everything. We kind of assumed that since everything had worked out perfect so far it could work out once more. After about an hour and half of lying in the sun we were realized we were hungry and really hadn’t eaten at all that day. Plus we were hot. Cheap Chinese food hit the spot. And then disappointed that we could see no visible tan we thought we might find a place to sleep that night since we were tired of carrying around our massive bags. After a half hour walk to the old city we were ready to begin our hunt. We walked into the center of a plaza and a middle aged man stopped us and asked if we needed a hostel. Well “yes!” of course, that was easy. Although it might be a little shady we were thinking… but we said we’d go look at it. So he grabbed his bike (the non-motorcycle kind, don’t freak out mom!) and we followed him to his apartment on Feduchy street number 15. The whole way there he told us about the room, bathroom, and who else was staying in his home at the moment. This was our first experience with an “illegal” hostel, so we listened intently. It turned out to be a third floor apartment, slightly cluttered, but extremely clean. It was cheap, there was a lock on the door, and there were three of us. We took it. That was the easiest hostel to find yet! (We later realized that he was an obsessive compulsive cleaner. He mopped the bathroom everytime after we used it, emptied the garbage multiple times a day, and took our sheets to wash before we even left.)

More beach time after we “checked in” to our hostel then a stop at the grocery store so we could pack lunches for our beach day on Sunday. After showering the three of us admired our “color” that had appeared over the past few hours. That color happened to be very reddish. Lotion time. That night we tried a hookah bar, but they were out of the tobacco. Instead we had a few drinks and chatted. Then a group of 17 and 18 year old Irish boys invaded our table. They were funny, immature and in high school. We left and went to another bar to eat potato chips!  They also offered us some carmel pretzels.  Don’t fall for it!  Kim opened the can and out popped those boingy snake things… The bartenders thought they were pretty clever…

Sunday morning we had a breakfast of coffee and churros and then toured the cathedral and bell tower of Cadiz: amazing views from the tower of the Atlantic Ocean and the city. The Cathedral was built in the 18^th century and took over 116 years to build. While the Cathedral is newer the city itself was founded in 1100 B.C. by the Phoenicians and it’s thought to be the oldest inhabited city in Europe. The old part of the city is located on a peninsula and is full of winding streets with open plazas. The people of Cadiz go to the beach. I’m not sure if they do anything else. Sunday afternoon we went to the beach again with our lunches and laid out some more. It was full of people. Very fun to people watch, the little kids were adorable. Went back to our “hostel” by 4:00 because we couldn’t take the sun anymore and showered. The nice thing was that there was no check out time…! Cleaned off all of the sand and put on fresh clothes for our marathon bus rides. We said goodbye to Miguel, our host, he gave us business cards made out of construction paper and written in pen. We told him if we were ever in Cadiz again we would definitely look him up. At 6:00 p.m. we took a bus back to Seville.

In Seville we stopped at a tapas bar along the river for a light dinner. Plus it was only 8:00, Kim had three hours until her bus left for Madrid and Caroline and I didn’t leave until 1:00 a.m. It was a swanky place called “Rubek: International Cocktail House.” We couldn’t afford the cocktails but we could afford a jar of Sangria. Yum! We also ordered some patatas bravas, croquetas, and meatballs. All of it was good. They served it with little cracker like breadsticks. We were hungry. We basically licked our plates clean. Then we reminisced and laughed about our wonderful weekend. We also joked about asking for more breadstick crackers. Most people don’t even eat them, they were kind of stale. So we asked our waiter for more. Laughed some more. Then the gentleman behind us got up and yelled at the waiter “Get these nerve-wracking girls Chupitos (shots) on the house. They speak perfectly good Spanish and here they are sitting babbling in English.” We looked at him surprised. Nerve-wracking? Really? Who uses that word to describe girls? I personally might have tried obnoxious… but NERVE-Wracking? And was the shouting necessary? Who did he think he was? The man sat down behind us with his friend again and asked us where we were from. We did the brief run down then we turned back to finish our stale crackers. He wasn’t done talking to us though. Turns out he owns the bar, as well as a few others in Germany and Amsterdam. He was originally from Ohio and now lives in Seville. He was a little crabby because his ex-wife was in town and had taken his car for the weekend so he couldn’t drive to the beach. That was a surprise to us. So we got our shots on the house. They were good. We kind of hoped our whole bill would have been on the house… no such luck. He probably heard us insulting some aspects of the establishment before we knew he was the owner and he was in earshot… His friend did offer to drive us to wherever we were going. We told him we could manage the five-minute walk to the bus station.

Kim caught her bus. Caroline and I went to McDonalds and got McFlurrys and played hangman and MASH for two hours. I slept relatively well for it being a bus. We arrived in Madrid by 7:10 a.m. Monday morning. Just the right amount of time to take the metro home, change, eat breakfast and go to school.

Five hours of interrupted sleep, classes, homework, I need to pay rent, go grocery shopping… I’d really prefer to go back to Andalucia at the moment! At least Madrid is sunny and in the high 70s today, and I have Flamenco class tonight.

Grenada and La Alhambra this weekend. Hopefully. I think we may actually make reservations for a room this time. Ha!