the sevillana never seemed so cool

Day 48:

Sevilla welcoming us :)

Next stop: Sevilla.
We trekked to our next hostel, The Garden Backpacker.  Again, super nice and everyone was friendly again.  There were way too many Asians (ahem, Koreans..) there though.  They even had Seoul's clock time on the wall, and someone had drawn a South Korean soccer player on the whiteboard.  Our Korean roommate made it clear she did not really feel like conversing with us, so we left her alone too.  Ehh, not a fan.  Plus, they completely hogged all the toasters and made like, eight slices of toast per person during breakfast.  So I ended up just eating plain bread and butter.

Seoul clock.  why.

Anyway.  Sevilla was a very easy city to sight-see.  We basically followed Rick Steve's again (best travel buddy ever) and walked around the old parts of town again.  I loved the drapes that hung from building top to building top, as they sheltered us from the scorching sun.  Amazing how cool it kept the area even during mid-day.  We visited the Alcázares Reales de Sevilla, originally a Moorish fort.  Again, more beautifully decorated Moorish architecture.

We continued touring a zillion more plazas in the town and got pretty tired.  I remember feeling the most dehydrated I've ever felt in my life.  After downing tons of water, we walked into the shopping area of the town..which was crackin'.  We sat down at a touristy restaurant and had a really crappy dinner, which included a poorly made paella.  Sorry to Stella, who had a bad first paella experience :(  But it felt good to sit down after another long kill-feet day.

We returned to the hostel and got a little more dressed up for our flamenco show!  We walked over and all bought Don Simon juice boxes due to more lack of fruit.  We're such dorks.  Got seated at the theater and ordered sangria!  It was really entertaining to watch the real sevillana, after imitating it in high school spanish 4.  How cool that we actually learned the same steps (although they looked way better doing it than we did..)!  Flamenco was so amazing.. how do they make it so intense yet so beautiful at the same time?

Day 49:

The next morning we headed to the Cathedral of Sevilla before our bus ride to Madrid.  We got to see the tomb of Columbus, and the craziest altars ever.  We also climbed to the top of the tower to catch a view of the entire city.  I love the rooftops in Spain.  People have swimming pools and cute little dining areas and stairs.  We barely had time to do anything else and had to rush to the bus station.

That evening, we arrived in Madrid.  I remember thinking it was perfect weather as we came out of the metro station.  The air was still warm from the hot summer day and there was a slight cool breeze too.  Way Hostel was right next to the station, which was extremely convenient.  This French guy helped us check in and he was really nice too (what's with Spain and friendly people!  LOVE IT).  Our roommate on the other hand, was a little bit TOO nice.  Hah, oh Dave.  Never got the hint to back off.  Anyway, we headed to the grocery store and made a delicious stir-fry filled with vegetables and chicken.  Then we indulged in fruits.  One of our favorite meals of our trip!  That night we went out and only had to wander for a few minutes before being swooped into several bars by promotors for free drinks.  I loved our neighborhood.  Sunset was one of our favorite places just for the people we met.  :)