Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Spain, day 2 & 3

After a quiet night of duty it was off to Seville! A bunch of the LLCs, and a number of students were on the 11:00 train. The station was right next to the port so it was an easy walk from the ship but being my fathers son, I wanted to leave the ship at 9:40. Arriving at the station with PLENTY of time I got some Euros from the ATM and looked at my map of Seville. The two hour ride was nice and allowed some of us to see the outlying areas between town and others to read and fall asleep.




When we arrived Grant and I took a cab to our hotel and were pleased that they let us check in a bit early. We dropped off our things and took to the streets to explore. A word of caution, Seville is a pedestrian friendly city, but not so navigationally friendly. Maybe having grown up in a town that was a square grid system with each mile simply named by its mile number, set me up for failure. I usually think I am pretty good with directions, N.S.E.W, using a map and the such, and Grant made it clear from the beginning that he would be close to useless in this area. However, I was THAT GUY looking at the map at nearly every intersection. I got frustrated looking for the Cathedral so Grant provided the only support he knew how by suggesting we stop for some Sangria. I headed his advise without question. After a nice break we made a second attempt to find the Cathedral. Practice makes perfect.


In our journey we tried to do our part in the economic support of Spain making a few small purchases of post cards, a fan and things. As in Cadiz, the jean cargo man Capri pants were quite popular along with the mullet as Augustine said they would. I regret to inform you that I did not take the chance to photograph this phenomenon but I’ll keep my eyes out for fellow travelers who may have captured and evidence.

When in Spain we wanted to do as the Spaniards do, so we went back to our hotel for a siesta or a disco nap as a few friends back in LA call it to prepare for our evening out. Around 9:30 we went for dinner and I was pleased to see the menu was tourist friendly by having the items listed in three languages. After a few glasses of sangria (if you haven’t already picked up on it sangria will be a reoccurring aspect of my time in Spain) and a great dinner we made our way to a sidewalk café where we responsibly enjoyed, you guessed it, more sangria!

Prior to leaving the states Grant found a regular Sunday drag show so that was our goal for the evening. The show was fun and the music all in Spanish was passionate but impossible for me to understand. (Sorry Senora Nicho, my Spanish has only gotten worse from its already terrible skill level back in high school.) Grant feeling a little more linguistically inclined tried to order me a Vodka cranberry but I quickly learned that ‘vodka y cran’ wasn’t right and that I should not trust Grant. I got a tall glass of straight caramel vodka. I spent the evening sipping on it until I got myself a glass of soda and mixed them. If I remember correctly Grant asked for a mohito but I do know he did not get what he expected. At 4:30am the show came to an end and the bar quickly cleared so Grant and I called it a night.

The next morning Grant and I, no worse for wear after our evening of mystery drinks, checked out of our hotel walked around a bit more, got ‘lost’ a bit more, did some more shopping then made our way back to the train station for our ride home. Just like the ride there we had a number of students on our train and Grant and I both spent the two-hour trip reading.

Back in Cadiz I took some time to catch up on some journaling at a small café along with a glass of Sangria (its just that good) and enjoyed a quiet evening.

1 comment:

  1. Wish I could have had some Sangria with you! I'd pass on the straight vodka though. :)

    ReplyDelete