Seville

Wow! What an incredible weekend! My friend Heather and I took a little getaway together to Seville, in the southern Andalusian region of Spain where it's always sunny and warm. It was so wonderful escaping the rain and cold for a few days to enjoy the sun and 85 degree temperatures! We kind of went about the weekend without a single plan other than going to the city, we even weren't sure if we would get a room in our hostel because they overbooked us, but thankfully we were upgraded to a private room with, get this, A REAL SHOWER! Those were the two best showers of my life maybe. The majority of the weekend was spent wandering the streets, discovering beautiful parks, admiring the architecture, and simply sitting at the sidewalk cafes enjoying the weather and good food.

We really lucked out because our hostel was right in the center of the old Jewish quarter of Seville amidst the most beautiful houses like this:

and the is home to the largest cathedral in Spain and it's bell tower, La Giralda (which we climbed up!)

this doesn't really capture it's full size or detailing, it was incredible 

just one of the many gorgeous views from the top of La Giralda 

small glimpse of the inside, it would take about 4,567 pictures to fully capture it all

Another important monument in Spain, I think the most visited, is the Plaza de España. I'm not even quite sure what it is, and I wasn't expecting to see what I did when we walked up to. 

Again, it was beautiful and intricately designed with lots of colors, murals along the bottom wall representing each city in Spain, and built along the curve of the little river in front of it. 

example of the colors and designs here

I tried paella for the first time on this trip and it was really good, just a weird experience. I'm forever grateful of the work my mom does to peel our shrimp for us (I don't know how you do it). Other than looking at shrimp and crawfish heads, the dish itself was delicious! We ate Italian food one night and it was probably my favorite meal of the trip! We got really cultural and even tried a Mexican food restaurant that turned out to not be too bad, they had delicious guacamole. You know what they say, when in Spain eat Italian and Mexican food. LOL. 

yummm Paella Mariscos 

The Spanish national team actually played a pre world cup friendly game in Seville on Friday night, but I had no idea (I feel ashamed of myself for not knowing) but we ran into a little fiesta in one of the parks with a free concert and giveaways and photo-op posters and even a museum on the history of the team (unfortunately you had to pay and the line for that was very long). On Saturday, we were headed to the Metropol Parasol aka The Mushroom, and another free concert was going on so we stopped for a few minutes, but were weirded out by this belly dancer-esque routine and left. I don't even know what was happening on stage. Anyways, we saw the mushroom, I don't know it's purpose but it looks cool and underneath we saw some Roman ruins (again we didn't want to pay to see the full thing, but we did see a pretty good glimpse at some of it!) and to round out the full Seville experience, we saw a flamenco show!! It was so cool! 

"The Mushroom" 

flamenco 

Also, we explored Seville nightlife a little with people from our hostel and it was really cool to meet people from all around the world! We talked to a group from Seville for a long time. Over the course of the whole trip we talked to people from all over the US (lots of study abroad people), Belgium, Mexico, Canada, France, England, Brazil, and Australia. It was super cool to get that kind of cultural experience all in one city! 

Spanish word of the day: Siesta-nap; necessary for Monday afternoons