Semana Santa, Part 1:

Sevilla:

So my Semana Santa (aka my 2 week long spring break) got off to a fantastic start! First of all, my itinerary was as follows… Sevilla for 2 nights, Morocco for about a week, and then Italy for about a week. Second of all, I’m traveling with my two best friends here, Kelsey and Diana (well, only Kelsey and Diana in Sevilla… Kelsey, Diana, and about 80 other study abroad students, from other parts of Spain, in Morocco, and Kelsey, Diana, and Tyler in Italy)! Anyways, we left for Madrid, Spain on Thursday night at 10pm. When we arrived in Madrid, we decided to immediately find the train station that would take us to Sevilla, Spain… you know, in case we got lost or something. We looked on a map and the train station looked big, big enough to be open all night. We were wrong. We arrived at the train station a little before 1am, right as they were closing, and they told us they didn’t open again until 5am. We found a bar really close to the train station, parked it in a booth with all of our luggage, and ordered coffees to keep us awake. The bar was supposed to close at 3am… but thankfully, the owner was playing poker so he let us wait in his bar after he closed it down to the public until the train station opened. We passed the time with card games, travel board games, iPod games and music! Finally at 5am, we were able to get into the train station… only to have to wait another hour and a half for our train to arrive. But once the train arrived… OMG it was FANCY! (And it was my first real train ride… besides the train rides Beth used to make me go on at amusement parks when we were kids). Also, I heard the train ride from Madrid to Sevilla was beautiful… and I’m sure it was, but I fell asleep almost immediately until we arrived 3 hours later.

When we arrived though, we arrived to rainy weather, which isn’t normal for Sevilla… apparently I’m not supposed to escape the rainy days of Bilbao. Anyways, we found our hostel pretty easily and dropped our bags off so we could explore the city before check-in. We definitely didn’t do much exploring, but got lost instead. The streets in Sevilla… 1. Don’t look like streets, more like sidewalks, 2. Go off in all different directions, they’re not straight whatsoever, and 3. Most aren’t labeled on the map. But after checking in and getting lost again trying to find the hot-spots of Sevilla, we came back to the hostel for some real activities!  Our night started off with going to a Flamenco museum, followed by a Flamenco show.

   

Flamenco dancing is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen! There’s so much emotion that goes into the dancing, the singing, and even the guitar playing. All of it was beautiful. We even got front row seats! We were close enough to get sweat dripped on us… which actually happened! After the show, we went back to our hostel to learn how to make paella. Paella is a seasoned rice dish with some type of meat in it, chicken, chorizo, shrimp, muscles, etc. and sometimes veggies, mushrooms, peppers, onions, etc. After the demonstration, we were able to eat the paella that was made along with a glass of sangria. YUM, best paella I have had yet! But with full bellies and less than 3 hours of sleep the night before, we fell asleep right after dinner. 

On Saturday we intentionally got lost in Sevilla. However, we happened upon a horse and carriage ride that would take us around the city and show us the sites! Definitely an experience. We got to see Plaza de Espana, the Cathedral, the building holding the records of when Columbus found America, a university that was once a tobacco factory, the most expensive hotel in Sevilla (900 Euros a night… about $1300), etc.

After this, we had lunch and decided to lay low for the rest of the afternoon/night. However, we did buy frozen pizzas and ingredients to make a creamy garlic pasta with garlic bread, and we just cooked ourselves dinner in the hostel (“we” meaning Kelsey and I cooked the pizza according to the directions on the box and Diana made the pasta, the sauce, and the garlic bread… Haha!) But it was delicious. By the time dinner was over, it was midnight… so we decided to go to bed, or rather nap, until 3am (because at 4am, we would be leaving for MOROCCO!)