Posts tagged spain

Recap Seville: My favorite European city thus far. It was like everything I was expecting from Venice, plus cheap food. I saw a flamenco show, drank sangria like they were stopping production, gazpacho, tapas, took a bike ride, tapas tour with my hostel, mad crazy gelato. It was incredible and beautiful and warm. The waiters were ruder than most, but still, the city was amazing. My favorite part was renting a bike because a) I needed some physical activity and b) the bike paths in Seville are so easy and clear. I went alongside the river for about two hours, went down to the park with the Plaza Espana (where I want to live forever) and then went back to my hostel and got lunch. Everything was peachy until the girl I was traveling with invited a friend of hers from Venice to come stay with us and it was like I stopped existing. Suddenly, Seville lost the rosy tint. I suppose the company around you really does effect experience.

Tomorrow, we as a class leave for Vienna at 930 AM. My sister lands in Venice at 130 PM. Really, really unfortunate. I still wish I were running the marathon on Sunday. It makes me want to cry seeing the ramps they’ve put over the bridges out by the water for the runners, I just want to be running this marathon. In Italy. With my sister. The one I trained for and told EVERYONE about. I kind of feel like a loser because I told so many people and now….nothing. I am still SO EXCITED for Courtney to run the marathon and then be here. I need some real people time. I just want to talk about something other than drinking and hook ups and gossip for five seconds. When I do something dumb, Courtney tells me to my face, I rectify it as best I can and we move on. Same goes for her. I don’t understand why this kind of normal human behavior isn’t commonly practiced amongst college students.

Anyway, we leave for Vienna, come back Tuesday. Courtney leaves the following Friday. We have an opera Sunday, then my parents arrive the next Friday. They stay till Thursday. The next day, we go to Rome for a week. Then I go to Poland for a week. Then a week off, then my best friend comes from London to stay for a week. Then 10 days till I am home. I hate to wish it away but man, I am missing New Jersey hard.

We are officially in Seville! Now let me backtrack….

We took the metro (couldn’t take the bus, everything was closed for a Saints (don’t remember which) Day) up to Park Guell. And by up to Park Guell I mean up the mountain but then we still got to ride the ESCALATORS that go up the center of the mountain to the park. So cool. Gorgeous views of Barcelona, a perfect weather day, I could not have asked for better conditions to see the city I’ve been dreaming of going to ever since I presented on it in 7th grade. After the park, we made our way down the mountain and walked back into the city, passing every Gaudi house along the way. That man was insane.

We went back to Sagardi and got ourselves a few more toothpicks of tapas and more cider. Damn, I already miss that cider. The lightest beer ever with a nice kick to it. So yum. We went and saw Maria del Mar and then took a brief siesta/packing stop.

We attempted to go back to the market to get my hands on some mint lemonade, but no luck. Closed for the holiday. We continued to stroll (ramble?) down La Rambla and eventually decided to just get an early dinner. Good choice.

Look, I hate peppers. When I go to James’ house I miss out on all this really incredible looking food because I won’t eat the peppers. Not that I haven’t tried, for some reason I just never really took to their flavor. But on this day, I found a deep love for the taste of red bell pepper. Muscles, drenched in this pepper/tomato steam bath. I was dying. We should’ve skipped the entree and had another pot of those. They were so good. Yes, pictures to come. Then we had paella and wrapped it up with Crema Catalana (best description I can come up with is flan pudding but better).

I took a walk down to the marina again, just to get some thinking and goodbye time in to the city and reminded me Europe isn’t entirely a tourist trap and went back home to sleep. Unfortunately, I tossed all night and didn’t actually get to sleep till 1.

(Before I go on, everyone who is staying in Barcelona should stay at the Itaca Hostel, eat at Sagardi, and go stroll down Argenteria in the evening).

THATS FUNNY BECAUSE WE GOT UP AT 2 TO GO TO THE AIRPORT. So, up at 2. Night bus at 3. Airport at 4. Flight at 5:55. Possibly the single most miserable traveling experience I’ve ever had. Let’s not linger.

After wasting a day of staring at a wall wanting to do (arrived in Seville at 8, couldn’t check in to our new hostel till 1) I made up my mind that no matter how miserable I was I would go on the evening tapas tour. You pay 14 euros, they take you to three bars to eat, drink and be merry. Well, let me tell you, I thought sangria was good in Barcelona but the sangria I had last night was on a totally different level. At one point, it was brought out to us in beer pint mugs. I love Seville. No, really, I love Seville.

Seville is like everything I want Venice to be. In as much as Venice is stunning because it’s a floating Seville, everything is goddamn expensive! Also, I like my food. Venetian bars do not serve delicious, delicious bite sized gourmet deliciousness on a stick while I drink liquored up fruit juice. THESE ARE MY PEOPLE. In addition, women in Spain don’t look like the toothpicks their food comes on. Refreshing.

So, anyway, three bars, 6 tapas platters at each bar, sangria, 1 hour sleep, and our last stop was a salsa bar. You do the math. Yes, I have a video.

Today is a walking tour, followed by hopefully me getting out to the bullfighting ring, the art museum and the flamenco museum. Tonight is dinner and a flamenco show. Ole!

On Saturday, my friend Anneliese and I hopped on a plane taking us to Barcelona, kicking off our 8 day tour of Spain (which includes Barcelona and Seville). We flew past the Alps and over the Appenine mountains, then an hour and 20 minutes later our caption told us we’d be landing. Excuse me? We are over and ocean, will you be pulling a Captain Sully and landing us in water? No thank you. Sure enough, apparently 8 seconds before we touched down, I saw land. Thank god.

From the airport we took a bus to Palaca Catalunya. From there we walked on a road parallel to La Rambla, about 5 minutes to our hostel “Itaca Hostel.” To anyone looking for a place to stay in Barcelona, I highly recommend this hostel. 24 reception service, locked doors, lockers, kitchen, free wifi, helpful staff, etc etc etc. Really a great place. Since this is vacation, we decided we were just going to take this week easy. I got out and buy food stuffs for breakfast/lunch/snacks for the days we are here, and Anneliese preps to go to “Sensation” (huge rave, google it if you’re in to that kind of thing). Yesterday we wandered around the city eating everything we encountered, and went to the Picasso museum. We had delicious tapas and paella for lunch and later that night I went to a concert of four spanish guitarists, which was mind blowing in ways I never expected.

This is backpacking so let’s be honest. I am here with two shirts, two pairs of pants, and a dress. Plus some underwear. We aren’t exactly on a luxury vacation but it has been very convenient having very little stuff. Tip about Barcelona: If you learned spanish in a public school in the US, you are sort of out of luck. Oranges are not naranjas and a lot of words have x’s. Good luck. So, I grabbed a bottle of “shampoo” at the store which ended up being conditioner. Result? I am now washing my hair with hand soap. Good times for everyone.

Today we went and saw La Sagrada Familia and sort of had our minds blown. Then more tapas. Then gelato with hot chocolate over it. I feel gross. We ate our tapas dinner at this place called Sagardi. It was more chill than other places we’d been to, you picked up a plate and took whatever you wanted off the bar. Then you handed your plate back to the bartender when you were done and they charged 1.80 per toothpick left on your plate. Washed down with some cider (I’d say comparable to a very light beer), it made for a perfect late dinner. Now we are hanging out, enjoying vacation. I approve.