Day One: Friday
We all got a very good night’s rest and took our time getting up and out the door today. Our Seville flat is GORGEOUS! It’s roomy, and modern and everything we could have hoped for … except when we plug in and run the heater in the bedroom, we trip a breaker. After doing that about five times, I finally figured it out and now we just won’t use that heater.
And why would we need a heater? Although the sun was out today, bright and clear, it reached a mere 58 degrees F. And let me tell you, 58 degrees F feels a lot cooler in Seville, Spain than it does in Juneau, Alaska. But we were happy to see the sun and bask in it when we could. And though many locals were bundled in heavy coats, hats, gloves and scarves, these tough Alaskans didn’t feel the need to go that far. So we didn’t.
The night before, after we had arrived and settled in, we went in search of food and found that most restaurants don’t open up until 7:30 p.m. Plus we couldn’t read the menus very well. I am able to get around very competently in Mexico with my 4 years of high school and college Spanish and my family is appreciative to have me around in those instances. Spain is an entirely different world. Maybe by the end of our three weeks here, I will have gained an ear for it. But for now, it is beyond me and so we decided to forgo the restaurant route and went in search of groceries, which we found. Three grocery bags, 2 bottles of wine and a dozen eggs later we were back at the flat feasting on salad, bread, cheese and a prosciutto-like meat. And Reece imbibed in her first taste of Kava … a Spanish sparking wine. It was my first taste too and it was delish. Reece also managed to sneak in a bag of chocolates … what actually turned out to be puff pastry covered in chocolate. My two cohorts also selected some delicious-looking pastries … Reece to enjoy for dessert and Keith to have with his breakfast the next morning.
After getting up and getting out onto the streets, we decided to just wander. Seville has signage that tourists can follow that will show them the way past the important monuments. I think we ended up going in circles and we never got too far from the center of things.
The city is beautiful. And clean. As much fun as London was, its rather a dirty and trashy city. Garbage everywhere. Not so in Seville. The streets are spotless. I think I heard a street sweeper drive down our little cobblestone backstreet at around 12:30 a.m. this morning. And athough it was sunny and dry this morning, the streets looked as if they had been rained on which must mean that something came by to wash them. Keith is wholly impressed with everything about Seville. Except the fact that that the menus don’t seem to have anything Mexican food-like at all. He has trouble selecting anything from the menu (part of the reason he didn’t eat any lunch today though he said he wasn’t very hungry) because he doesn’t recognize anything listed. I hate to break it to him but Spain isn’t Mexico. The similarities are there but there aren’t as many as you might think. I give him a hard time but this all being part of the adventure … if we wanted to stay in our comfort zone, we could have stayed home. Or gone back to Mexico for the umpteenth time. Instead we are taking risks and doing things we never thought we would … eating things we thought we would never eat … like that cappuccino that wasn’t anything like the cappuccinos we got in London. It’s all good. We’re figuring it out. And we have each other which is the only way I would have it.
All three of us are partial to the architecture and as historic as London was, the Spanish architecture is in a class by itself. There was such a contrast in London … centuries old buildings next to modern skyscrapers. So far, Seville architecture seems to have stayed true to its history.
We were having a bit of difficulty orienting ourselves without the use of Google maps. How did people get around in foreign countries when there were no cell phones? It would be even worse if we didn’t have our 16 year old with us to troubleshoot the technology! We tried to do a self-guided walking tour today but didn’t get very far, very fast. Also, Reece did not dress for spending more time in the shade, where it was considerably cooler, than in the sun (the buildings aren’t SO tall but the streets ARE narrow so much of our walking was done in the cast of the shadows). So after a quick lunch for Reece (chicken kebabs and shrimp croquettes) and a couple of hours of walking around, we headed back to the flat, to have our tea (with pastries from a nearby cake shop … and they were GOOD!), to do some studying (Reece started her 2nd semester Pre-Calculus class today), download and edit all the photos, do some additional local research and to generally just get our bearings. Keith’s homework was to pick one of the self-guided walking tours in the book we found conveniently in our flat, figure out how to get to the start and discern the route on the more detailed map he found on the ground during our meandering today. He picked one that starts nearby and ends at the oldest historical tapas restaurant in Seville. Here’s to planning for success!
Cheers!
Teresa