Seville

Wednesday we left the hostel around 7:30 to make it to the train station in time. The ride was a little over 2 hours so we got to Seville around 11am and it was beautiful out! We found the hostel and dropped our things off before exploring. Since we had a bike tour planed for the next day, we took this day to relax, have a few beers and explore with no plans. We stopped first to grab some lunch then a few for the road. We wondered down by the water on our way to yet another famous park and found a place to rent paddle boats! We split boys and girls and paddled/floated around the river for about an hour. We then café hopped our way to the park where we took a very impromptu horse-drawn carriage ride around the park and found our way to the Plaza de Espana (pictured above). After dinner and heading back home to change, we went to a small area near our hostel that was described to us by many as “alternative.” I am still unsure as to what that ment, but it was fun and cheep (Seville was SO cheap, tapas, beers, shots, water/soda bottles were all about 3 dollars less than we have paid elsewhere). Only 4 of us made it to the suggested nightclub near our hotel and we were literally the ONLY people in there. At 1:30 they were still stocking the bar, getting music prepared and telling us that it didn’t get going until around 3am…we left and went to sleep.

Thursday we got up at 9:30 to go to a bike tour around Seville! Like usual, only 5 out of the 8 made it to the actual tour due to stomach flu and tiredness from the day before. We met Carlos at a central location and he took us back to the shop to get our bikes. We then road around all of Seville! It was so much fun and I saw places I would have never known to go to without a tour. We stopped for drinks and tapas halfway through and then biked to the other side of the city. I was definitely not as impressed with Seville before the bike tour but afterwards it definitely moved up my list! We biked for around 3 hours and then visited the interior of some of the places we rode past earlier. My favorite was the bull-fighting rink we went to, Real Maestranza. There was a guide for it so I learned a lot about the sport...it is such a big deal in Spain! The season doesn’t start until April but I bet seeing a fight is pretty amazing. I left after the bull ring tour for a nap in prepartation for our last night. We all ended up napping and waking up around 7:30. We got ready and left for dinner in a local area Carlos pointed out. I finally had Paella - a signature dish of Spain- and it was soo good! Our waiter was quite a character and made the dinner a ton of fun. After dinner we went to a local bar called Big Ben. It was there we realized that Seville is FILLED with American study abroad students. We paced our night so we were ready to go to the club around 2am (when it would be crowded) – these times are crazy. We went to Buddha, a three story club with different music on each level. We set up shop on the third where American music was playing - meaning the others up there were mostly American too haha It was another late night and none of us got more than a 2 hour nap before we woke up for our 8am flight. Friday was pretty terrible with constant waiting in the airport and then long bus and train rides home making for about 12 hours of traveling. Needless to say I slept pretty late today. I will be around Riva this weekend getting myself organized for this upcoming week since Lauren is coming to visit on Tuesday!!!!