Alright, as I clearly have failed at regularly updating this, bear with me as we backtrack to a long, long time ago. Hey - pretend it's a like a game and we're in a time machine!
No?? Yea, I guess that is lame. Anyway -- we're going back a few weeks..maybe a month.. and ahhh there we are - voila! We are in Sevilla! (January 30, 2011)
I guess there is one good thing about getting behind on the blogging bug -- after comparing it to all of the other places I have visited since, it still ranks pretty much at the top.
First up is...
The Alcázar
This place was incredible. It served as a palace for the Catholic royal family in Spain. One would think it used to be a mosque because it looks like an Alhambra copycat -- but it was actually built specifically for the King. As we have learned in art class, this style of Musulman influence in a Christian occupied territory is called mudejar. No matter its name though, it is stunning. Just like La Alhambra, the amount of detail was astounding. The walls, floors, and ceilings were covered in geometric carvings and scripts. Unlike La Alhambra though, the Alcázar was bursting with color.
reflecting pool
my favorite room
such intricate details
Equally impressive as the palace itself were the surrounding gardens. There were flowers and fountains and palm trees galore. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful morning to just go meandering.
incredible.
one of the many fountains
ducky.
this was way too precious
"WTF guys, come on"
Picnic at La Catedral
Earlier that morning we had feasted on the hostel's free breakfast of all-you-can-shove-your-face-full of bread and nutella. Sneakily, we took a few extra rolls each to save for later. So with our hostel booty in hand and the smorgasbord of snacks purchased from a nearby supermercado, we planted ourselves on a bench in the plaza of La Catedral. Fresh bread, meat, cheese, muffins, chips, cookies, and fruit! Not necessarily five star dining, and actually, both McKenna and Breanne were sitting on the ground, but the sunshine and the fact that we were just chilling out a stone's throw away from the world's largest Gothic cathedral made it an entirely special picnic experience.
Plaza de España
I could hang out here forever. Plaza de España was beautiful. They just finished renovations, and now it is equipped with a moat -- filled with silly tourists in rented row boats.
the gals
All around the perimeter wall are beautiful mosaics -- one for each province in Spain. We of course took a picture with the Granada one! We also decided to take a nap right in the middle of the plaza, sitting with our backs on the fountain, basking in the sun.
It was heavenly.... Until Breanne and I noticed the mysterious unattended backpack in the middle of the plaza. After observing it for a few minutes, we also became aware of the shady man on the cell phone that kept circling it. Clearly the backpack was a bomb that could blow at any second.
Sketchy man and backpack bomb.
So we saved the day by waking everyone from their sunny slumber and moving across the party across the street to....
Parque María Luisa
Essentially it is Sevilla's Central Park. Full of paths, streams, trees, benches, fountains, and foliage, it was a really fun place to take a stroll.
Random Parade of Crazies
On the way home from the parque, we stumbled across this gigantic parade of people dressed in outlandish costumes. There were people who looked liked they were doing a Chinese New Year dragon dance, people dressed up like Egyptians from Las Vegas, a whole horde of Vishnus and company, a group of Candyland-ers, and so many more odd themed get-ups. Not only were there outrageous costumes, but also dancing and entire drum-lines. The whole scene went on for about 15 minutes. It was all incredibly random and surreal. As the last masquerader marched by, it was as if the whole thing was just a very weird dream.
Pasta, Pasta, Pasta
Being cheap students struggling to pay for a degree that will ultimately make us overqualified to work McDonald's - which is no doubt the only job that will be available for us upon graduation - we are forced to travel on a budget. And traveling on a budget, means eating on a budget. Fortunately for me, pasta is my favorite food group. So with intentions of having a cheap, filling, and delicious (but probably not nutritious) dinner, we picked up some ingredients from the local M.A.S. supermercado to make a pasta dish. Grace and I were in charge of getting the pasta. As if I had not made pasta everyday after school for three years straight, I blanked out on how many people one box could feed. Grace's gut told us to go with three boxes for six people -- and since it only set us back 40 cents a box - why not go for the gold and get three?
Well, my friends - as we learned, three boxes could indeed feed six people.... for a month. That's why. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Back at the hostel, I imagined I was Wolfgang Puck competing in the Iron Chef competition (does he do that? I never watch the food network so I could be totally off base there... but it's my imagination, so I'll just go with it). I whipped around that kitchen like no one's business... And as the kitchen was the size of a postage stamp, it was not hard to do. Using some olive oil we purchased, some white wine vinegar, a mysterious clove a garlic provided by the hostel, and a friend's left over white wine juice box (yes, they sell wine in juice boxes here), I was able to create a pretty delicious sauce if I do say so myself. Adding a little cheese and BAM! - delicious dinner for less than a euro.
family dinner in the hostel
We sat down to eat, and after heaping helping #2, it was legitimately as if we were in possession of a magic pot. Six people, two helpings each, and it looked like we had made zero headway. It was a bottomless pot of pasta. Which is basically something dreams are made of. Unfortunately, as I finished helping #3, my body said NO NO NO to helping #4. So what do you do when you have an entire pot of perfectly good pasta left over and no tupperware to put it in? Well, you improvise and shove it in a plastic grocery bag to save it for later. Everyone made fun of me for that, but I actually thought it was a pretty ingenious and MacGyver-type maneuver.
i am not one bit ashamed.
I have to admit that sadly the baggie of pasta was thrown out the next morning, as I opted for gelato and chips for lunch instead.
Which leads me to my next Sevilla love:
GELATO. AND CHIPS FROM THE CHIP MAN.
It was Sunday and we were just tooling around town, enjoying our final hours in this beautiful city when - lo and behold - our stomachs started a rumblin'. Thank goodness we were just around the corner from the best gelato place in town. The other girls went with medium helpings of heaven -- and I ended up ordering a legit mountain of goodness. I went with some sort of fudgey chocolate swirl and another chocolate vanilla mix. In short -- it was purely fabulous.
But the fun didn't stop there. This plaza was a buzzing with activity -- and much of that was due to the Chip Man. There was a guy with a little cart doling out freshly fried patatas fritas, and there was no way we could resist. They were OH so delicious!!! Eating gelato and chips in this hopping plaza, as the sun was shining turned out to be one of my favorite moments of the weekend.
Misa a la Catedral
We ended up attending mass on Sunday at the Catedral for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The mass was of course in Spanish. But unlike any other mass I've attended, there was NO MUSIC. None. So I'm ashamed to say that at a few points it became near impossible to keep from nodding off. But overall, despite the lack of music, it was great to experience mass in the third largest cathedral in Europe. And it's where Cristobal Colón - AKA Chris Columbus - is laid to rest. They have a whole tomb and everything. And according to DNA tests, at least 10% of his bones are here.
That's all for Sevilla. And now reading over my post again, I realize that I am way too obsessed with food. Anyway, only 8293470137108 more posts to go until I'm caught up!
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