5.13.11 Welcome to Granada

A few pics (only 50 today)

On Friday people started waking up incredibly early and weren’t making any great effort to be quiet about it. Two new girls had charged in like they owned the place at 1 in the morning, waking everyone up, and then charged out again at 7. Two other girls had come in at midnight, although much more quietly, but they were packed up and gone by 8 as well. It turns out that out of the 14 beds, only 1 person would be staying that night.

We planned to walk over to the bus station and find a bus to Granada. After showering and packing and breakfast and checking out and the walk, it was after 11 when we arrived at the bus station and so we bought tickets for the 12:00 bus. We asked a woman in Spanish what time the bus would arrive in Granada, and she answered us in Spanish. I should have caught the “a las tres”, but her sentence was long and my brain didn’t interpret it, so we stared at her blankly and she switched to English. It would be a 3 hour bus ride.

We’re getting good at tossing our bags under the bus, finding our seats, working on our laptops for a while, and then napping and/or listening to music. When we pulled into the Granada station, we loaded ourselves up like pack mules and found the correct bus stop without having to ask for directions (go us!). The bus let us off near the Alhambra, and then we were supposed to take a second bus to our hostel. It didn’t seem that much farter though, and not worth an additional $2, so we set off in the direction of our place. We were only staying there one night - we had booked late and since it was a Friday, all the better hostels were full already.

The walk towards the Alhambra was slightly uphill, and we soon came to the entrance of the park where it was located. The road took a turn for the seriously steep. We actually had two choices: the road, which wound up the hill, or the “pedestrian path”, which cut unabashedly straight up the hill. We chose the road. After about 20 minutes of huffing and puffing, I made Tricia sit with me on a park bench, and we ate apples leftover from a shopping trip in Seville. And then I drank all my water. And then we continued - onward and upward!

Finally, we arrived at the entrance to the Alhambra, and the hostel directly across the street. We walked in the door, and there were already about 8 people waiting at reception, but the receptionist was no where to be found. Six people were Spanish, and they take this sort of thing much more in stride than much of the rest of the world. They were lounging around on their bags and talking. There were two women who spoke French (I somehow got the impression that they were Dutch, but I may be crazy) pacing around annoyedly. I also do not have a whole lot of patience for this sort of thing.

Let me here explain the lobby to you: It looked sort of like an abandoned cafeteria or schoolroom. There were warming trays pushed to one side, as if they had once served food there. There was a foozball table that dipped in the middle like someone had sat on it and looked as if it hadn’t been played in years. There were a bunch of tables set up and strewn with school papers. A little blond boy about 9 years old was sitting at one doing homework. There were no overhead lights. There was a tiny little desk - the type you stand behind, like a hostess at a restaurant - with a desk lamp clipped to it.

Ten minutes or so later, the receptionist finished walking her dog and came in. The dog sniffed around my backpack which I had tossed off in the lobby while the receptionist started with the Spanish crowd. They didn’t give her a hard time, although they took a while as there were a lot of them. The receptionist pulled out a giant pill bottle (like for vitamins) and opened it. It was full of bills and change - this was the cash register.

The French/Dutch ladies were up next. They were not thrilled about the whole situation. They had seen one of the rooms, and were apparently refusing to stay. The receptionist, for her part, was refusing to let them cancel less than 48 hours in advance. So, they ended up staying 2 nights and cancelling the rest of their stay. This conversation was a mix of French and English, and took quite a while.

Let me now interject something else - this hostel has the worst reviews ever. It’s only saving grace is it’s good location, which I actually don’t think is that good since it’s at the top of a freaking mountain. I’d rather leave my stuff at the bottom of the mountain and hike to the top of the mountain with nothing on my back. But I digress - the two women should not have been expecting, well, anything but clean sheets and hot water. Which is basically what we got.

I think our turn went fairly quickly - we had our receipt for the reservation, paid the lady, asked if she had a map, was told she didn’t, asked if the pool was open (okay, it had 2 saving graces), was told it wasn’t (so much for that one), and we went up to our room. It had a bunk bed, a sink, and a bathroom. Here’s how you should picture the bathroom: take a bathroom stall from McDonalds. Shrink it down a bit. Turn the toilet sideways. Add a shower. Seriously. If you sat all the way back on the toilet, the door would just barely close touching your knees (although it didn’t close all the way, so you had to be careful not to bump it or the door would open giving your roommate a free show). The shower was miniscule, and if you raised your arms to wash your hair, one elbow hit the wall and one went out the shower curtain. If you turned a little, your elbow would run into the faucet handle.

Luckily, we take these things in stride. We decided to walk down the mountain and look for some food. We accidentally ended up on the nearly-vertical pedestrian path, and had to inch our way down. Near the bottom, I came up with the most brilliant-beyond-brilliant idea. When we got off the city bus, it was right near our second hostel. We should have gone in, left our bags, and hiked up with just our day-packs. Completely, absolutely, amazingly brilliant! Too bad I had it 2 hours too late.

Down in the city, we saw a Kebab place that advertised free Crepes if you spent 3 Euros, so we went in and sat down and asked if we could split a meal that included a Kebab pita sandwich, fries, and a drink. And the Crepe? Turns out you only get that if you order 3 Euros worth of tea. This took us a while to get: in Spanish, it’s pronounced TAY, which is how the owner pronounced it even though we were speaking English, so this was hard for our brains to translate. However, we quite enjoyed our Orange Fanta, fries, and yummy yummy sandwich, even though we didn’t get a free Crepe.

We wandered around the city a bit longer, but in the end decided to return up the mountain (we didn’t want to be climbing in the dark) and go back to our tiny tiny room. We needed to get up at 6:30 in the morning to get in line at the Alhambra to get tickets. They sell most tickets to tour groups online, and you can’t buy tickets in advance at the door (as we learned when we stopped by before returning to our hostel). So every morning they have only a limited amount of tickets left, and they go to the people who line up at 7 to wait for the ticket office to open at 8. So that was our plan. We also stopped at a grocery store to pick up breakfast and lunch - pastries, apples, and nuts to tide us over for the day. And then we curled up in our little bunk beds and went to sleep.

5.12.11 - Seville

Here are lots more pics

We had decided to go to the Cathedral instead of the alcazar in Seville, but it didn’t open until 11, so we weren’t in any big hurry on Thursday. The room was much quieter than on Wednesday, and even the noise from the kitchen drifting through the open window seemed more subdued. So we were able to sleep a bit later. We had our usual toast with Nutella, cereal, and strong coffee with milk, sugar, and cocoa mix. At Tricia’s recommendation, I mixed chocolate flakes, corn flakes, and granola with dried fruit together in one bowl. I wouldn’t exactly call it good, but it was certainly an improvement over taking any of them separately.



10% of CC's body

Around 11 we walked over to the Cathedral (which is the largest gothic building in Europe and the largest cathedral in Spain) and joined the long line that had formed. We weren’t entirely sure why people had gotten there before 11 and formed a line, but we waited in it anyway, as it was moving now that the Cathedral was open. I found the architecture very beautiful, with white columns and archways and carvings. There were museums of gold rosaries, goblets, and plates used for the wafers, as well as the usual floor-to-ceiling dioramas. In the front we saw the casket holding (at least 10% of) Christopher Columbus’ body.

After we’d seen everything in the Cathedral, we climbed up to the bell tower. There are 34 ramps that were used by the nobility and by the bell-ringer to ascend the tower. I have to say, they make for a much more pleasant climb than stairs. Up in the tower, we jostled with school groups for a spot at the windows so we could take panoramas of the city. It was a great view of the buildings and windy little streets below (which were purposely made narrow and windy so that air would be cooled in the shade of the buildings and pushed along to the plazas where people gathered). There were tons of bells, and they went off while we were up there, making all the high school kids shriek in surprise.

With admission to the Cathedral, we also got a free ticket to the Iglesia del Salvador. Never ones to pass up free admission, we asked the guard how to get to the church. We listened gravely to his long speech on directions, didn’t understand much of it, nodded, and trotted off confidently in the direction he pointed. We did manage to find the church, which also had a museum inside. It included a “Suit of the baby Jesus of the Virgin”.

Afterwards, we needed to eat, so we stopped back at the Bar Duque where the waiter was friendly and the food was good. And the menu was in English. So sue us. We ordered Peppers, Russian Salad, and a Spicy Sausage of the Highland sandwich. Oh, and two beers. I’ve been having this weird craving for beer, which is quite strange as I’ve never, ever, ever liked beer. I actually hate beer. But I’m really enjoying cheap Spanish beer. And the other tapas were very good as well.

In Bar Duque they sold ham flavored potato chips, but we couldn’t get a good picture of them since they were above the bar, so we trotted off to find a store that sold the chips so we could take a picture. At first Tricia thought I was being silly to be so obsessed with ham flavored chips, but she soon got into it and was keeping an eye out for stores as well. In the chip aisle of a little Asian shop (think 7-11, but dingier), it took us a long time to find the ham flavored ones. We quickly snapped a picture, and then slunk out feeling a bit like shoplifters.

We stopped back at our hostel for a little siesta, and then it was off to the Museo de Bellas Artes. It was supposed to be free for Europeans and 1.5 Euros for everyone else. We had our money in hand as we approached the gate, but the curator was chatting with someone and didn’t want to be bothered with us. “Gratis, gratis”: “It’s free, it’s free.” And then he turned back to his friend. We hesitated a second, and then gave up and went in. No sense arguing with the man.

One floor was devoted to Catholic art, where I lamented that the paintings didn’t go in chronological order. Jesus’ birth is right next to his crucifixion; Mary learning to read from Saint Ana is right next to paintings of Mary Magdalene. (If you’re like me and don’t know the dates of stuff, that would be about 8 years before Jesus was born to a few years before he died.) And while I'm on the subject, painters tend to put all the wrong people in all the wrong places.  Like, since when was Mary Magdalene at the birth of Jesus?  The other floor was a temporary exhibit of Spanish artists who painted Andalucía (that would be Cordoba, Granada, Seville) in various years. We weren’t allowed to take photos in the museum (although I keep saying I’m going to start ignoring that rule because I don’t remember what we’ve looked at).

My finger in the "stuff"

Back at the Oasis, we set up shop on the rooftop terrace. We found an outlet for our computers and brought up our $2.40 wine. I stopped in at the bar of our hostel to ask if they had some alcohol or peroxide for my finger, and the bartender pulled out a brand-new first aid kit that they’d bought the day before. We looked through it together - it was a little on the skimpy side, in spite of the kit itself being huge. There were gauze wraps and a couple of bottles of “stuff” which we broke open. I read the Spanish on one and decided it seemed like the solution should be diluted in water, so I showed the paragraph to the bartender, who agreed and gave me a cup with water and the stuff. And I left my finger in it for 15 to 20 minutes as a certain mother suggested I do. (More than one mother has warned me against blood poisoning, which will travel to your heart and you will die.)

By the way, the wine was God-awful. We managed two little Dixie cups full each before tossing the rest of the bottle and going off to sleep.

5.11.11 - Seville



Our room (and Tricia sleeping in the top
bunk) and pics

 In a room with 14 people, it can be hard to sleep in. This was exacerbated by the fact that the kitchen window and the bathroom window opened onto the tiny patio, which also had a window into our room. And everything was tile. At 8 am, when breakfast started, 4 floors of backpackers descended on the kitchen. It sounded like a mob scene. All 14 of us opened our eyes and stared at the ceiling or at the bunk above our heads. Some people (like Tricia) gave up on sleep and went to join the mob. Others (like me) refused to give in to the noise and covered our heads and pretended we could sleep through the noise. In the room, we quickly realized which people got up early and which stayed in bed - we were all comrades in the battle for sleep.

Oh, and did I mention that there was the window to our room, then directly across the patio was the window to the bathroom? Sometimes it was wide open and the people inside didn’t realize it. Even when it was closed though, it didn’t do much to hide what was going on inside. At one point, a guy and a girl were both in there…..don’t think they realized the show they were putting on. Actually, the bathroom was for people from a couple of bedrooms, but only our room could see directly in. Tricia and I realized this on the very first day while we were doing laundry, so we were very discrete.

Although Tricia had already eaten breakfast by the time I got up, she ate with me again at 9. We had our choice of 3 cereals, all of which were named “Discount Cereal”: chocolate flakes, non-chocolate flakes (like corn flakes), and a granola-with-fruit type of thing. I went with granola, but it was a bad decision. (I later learned there was no good decision with the cereal.) The milk was lukewarm since it is boxed (shelf-stable) and the fridges were all full with the food of 400 backpackers. We also had toast with a generic-Nutella type spread or with various flavors of marmalade. Finally, there was really strong coffee (espresso?). We added sugar, milk, and hot cocoa mix and were good to go.

At 11:15 we wanted to take the walking tour of the city, and joined in with the girls from Canada from the night before. We were extolling the virtues of the Madrid tour, and hoping that the Seville tour would be just as good. When we met our guide, Allie, she told us that it was her very last tour as she was leaving Spain in just a few days.

First up on the tour: we stopped to see the Cathedral and the Alcazar, which were right next to each other. According to the tour guide, the Cathedral is the final resting place of “at least 10%” of Christopher Columbus. I think she liked the Alcazar better, but since it was modeled on the one in Granada, we decided that the Cathedral would be a better use of our money. Allie asked if we could guess how many steps were in the tower of the Cathedral. Since the tower in Boston was only in the 200’s, I was guessing 2-3 hundred for the Cathedral as well. But it was a trick question: they used ramps instead of stairs so the bell-ringer could ride his horse to the top 5 times a day and ring the bell.

Next up comes the strangest story I’ve ever heard. In the 15^th century, the king died in a riding accident, leaving his 11 year old son as next in line. Since he was only 11, the Catholic Church took over for the next few years. They saw an opportunity to put the rich Jews in their place, and organized an attack in which 1000 or so Jews were killed. Seven years later, the Jews were organizing their own revolt against the Catholic Church. The daughter of one of the instigators, Susona, learned of the imminent attack, and was afraid for the lover she was dating in secret - a Catholic soldier. She warned him, and he warned the others, and another group of Jews was killed in the resulting surprise attack, including Susona’s father. Both her lover and her family then rejected her, and she fled the city, never to be heard from again……until she died. In her will, she asked that her head be cut off and hung outside her family’s house as a reminded to never go against your people. After 150 years of her head hanging there, they took it down and replaced it with a plaque.

Near the end of the tour, we stopped at the bull ring. For the last 2 weeks of April there were bull fights every day, but for the rest of the summer they’re only on Sundays. So we won’t see a bull fight in Seville, which is okay, because it’s an extremely, extremely violent sport. (Before the fight even starts, the bull is stabbed a couple times to make sure he’s not at his best.) Allie told us of a famous bull fighter who was told by his doctor that he couldn’t fight anymore. In addition, he shouldn’t smoke, drink, ride a horse, or have sex either. So, he got on his horse, bought some whiskey and tobacco, and hired two prostitutes. In the morning he killed himself, leaving a note that said, “If I can’t live as a man, I won’t live at all!” So they built him a statue.

We didn’t enjoy the tour in Seville quite as much as the one in Madrid, but we’d still had fun and gotten to see a lot of the city. We decided to skip touring the bull ring and head home for a nap instead.

We then got up to wander the city on our own. We needed some food, and were looking for tapas when we passed by a sandwich place that advertised “Euromania” where everything was 1 Euro on Wednesdays. That sounded pretty good to us. So we went inside and ordered an “orange-flavored soda”, a barbacoa sandwich, a chicken sandwich with guacamole, and a bag of homemade chips (impulse buy: they were sitting next to the register). On my way to the counter with our order, I stopped by a table and asked a guy what he was drinking. “Jarra tinto verano.” Jar of summer red wine? Ish? So I ordered that too. A large, since everything’s a Euro.

The food was pretty good for the amount we spent - little sandwiches and lots of chips and a great big glass of what turned out to be carbonated red wine. We made a note to stop back in a couple of hours. Tricia filtched some ice and stuck it in a silverware wrapper to hold to her back as it was hurting her a bit.

Next we went by the cathedral and went into the free portion where mass was held. It was very beautiful inside, with ornate carvings and paintings. And then back out into the city once again.

As we were wondering aimlessly and looking at architecture, we passed a building that advertised “Arte Sencial” in banners all over its sides. So of course we wandered in. There was a guard sitting at a table by the door with pamphlets spread in front of him. We asked him “cuanto cuesta” (how much?) and he told us it was free. Are photos okay? He gave us a “sure, whatever, I really don’t care” nod, and we went in to see what there was.

The exhibit was to help promote Spanish artists, since they don’t apparently get their due in Spain or in the rest of Europe. It seems that the Spanish feel they are behind the rest of Europe, and so they really love European art, architecture, etc. The photos and paintings were interesting: a photo montage of the walk to a church; a photo of hundreds of origami swans all laid out in rows. We stopped for a while and watched a video that showed clips of tides on the sand interspersed with cups of coffee: it would sometimes be slow and sometimes speed up to crazy speeds with flashing lights and colors - a juxtaposition between the tranquil and the fast moving.

After the exhibit, we went back outside and made our way again to Plaza de Espana. There is a sort of moat around the plaza where you can rent boats. A bunch of young girls had rented boats and were completely incapable of rowing them in the right direction. I don’t think they understood that they were supposed to row backwards. In trying to row forwards, they were trying to make the flat part of the boat cut through the water, and the most successful boats were only managing to turn in circles. We sat and watched for a while as the girls shrieked and rowed - they were afraid they were going to tip over (we thought they might tip over too, as they had no talent at rowing boats).

All over the Plaza de Espana all the railings are made of porcelain, which I think is quite funny. It was built in the 1920’s to show how advanced Seville was when they came to the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. Unfortunately, not a lot of people were traveling as the exposition ended up being the same year the Great Depression hit. In the Plaza, each city in Spain gets a bit of the porcelain devoted to it for a painting. Some are violent with soldiers on horseback killing each other, and some are religious with angels. We walked around the entire plaza and looked at the painting chosen to represent each city.

We’d actually spend a long time walking around, and three hours had passed since we’d last eaten, so we went to Euromania at the “Place of 100 Sandwiches” again (I may be taking liberties with the name, but I’m not too far off). This time it was 8:00, and the place was full to busting. Tricia and I both got Jarra Tinto Verano, and then went upstairs to wait for our two sandwiches and plate of nachos. There were no table upstairs either, so we stood and stared at the diners and tried to make them uncomfortable while we sipped our wine. Many other table-less patrons joined us, and there was a crowd of both sitters and standers.

When Tricia went downstairs to pick up our food, a small group of diners split off from a group of about 15 that had pulled 4 tables together. I pulled their table away from the others and sat at it to stake my claim. A lady hurried over to clean it off for me, and Tricia was very happy when she arrived with the food that there was a place to set it down. The nachos were ridiculous - a handful of chips with tiny bits of nacho cheese, salsa, and guacamole on the side. The sandwiches were pretty good though - we’d gotten ham, chicken, and cheese and “special” with green chilies and red sauce. All in all, better for lunch than for dinner.

On the way home we stopped into a little shop and browsed the wine. We decide on a bottle of red for 1.60 Euros ($2.40). We had planned to drink it on the terrace at our hostel, but instead got comfortable in bed typing on our computers and couldn’t actually get ourselves motivated to leave.

Thought I'd end on a panoramic of Plaza de Espana

5.10.11 - Leaving Cordoba and arriving in Seville

Pics!

Eight a.m. came way too early, but we had a bus to catch, so we packed up groggily and ate our oatmeal and lumbered outside with our giant bags. We didn’t need to wait too long before a bus showed up, and the stop was right outside the door of the hostel, which was great. The bus wound slowly through the city, and it seemed to take forever to arrive at the train/bus station. Once there, we found the line to buy train tickets and told the teller in Spanish that we wanted to go to Seville. We said this so well, he initially tried to respond in Spanish, but quickly realized he wasn’t coming across and asked which language we actually spoke: “Frances? Ingles?” We switched to a mix of English and easy-for-the-tourists-to-understand Spanish. The man turned the computer screen to face us so we could see the times, and tried to sell us on the 8:50 high-speed train for 17 Euros, but we had our hearts set on the 9:25 local train that would take 20 minutes longer and cost 7 Euros less.

Everything so far brought us all the way to 8:30, so we had a bit of a wait before the train left. We of course settled into the hard blue chairs routinely found in bus stations all over the world and pulled out our computers. At around 9 we’d had enough of that, and walked off in search of our train. There were 4 different ramps leading down to the trains, and we didn’t know which to take. So we went to the first ramp - labeled “1 and 2” - and showed our tickets to the security guard at the x-ray machine. She shook her head and waved us on. We walked a bit farther - to “3 and 4” - and tried again. The lady there took pity on us, and said in perfect English with a French accent: “You always need to verify on the board which platform you need. You see, it says Cadiz is on platform number 6. The train will go to Cadiz after it stops in Seville.”

Still Cordoba - across from the hostel

We thanked her, and didn’t ask how we could possible know that the train to Cadiz was also the same train as the one to Seville, and also kept to ourselves that it would be nice if they could print just a little more info on the ticket itself. We went over to the next ramp - “5 and 6” - and walked down to the platform…..and then turned around and realized we hadn’t passed any security guards or x-ray machines or anything. Apparently, they are only worried about their high-speed trains. Not only was there no security at the low-speed trains, but there was no one there to look at our tickets and verify that we were in the right place. So we put our faith in the lady with the French accent, crossed our fingers, and got on the train.

Seville

The train did in fact stop at Seville. Since it was a local train, it made 5 quick stops before Seville - so quick that we jumped up as soon as the train slowed down for Seville so that we wouldn’t miss our chance and end up in the next city. We walked around a bit trying to find the correct bus stop for our hostel, and when we did we found that there were already a lot of people waiting for the bus. While we waited, two different people asked if this was the bus station for the airport - one in English and one in Spanish. While we’d been looking for our stop, we’d passed the airport stop, so I pointed them both in the right direction and felt pretty darn proud of myself.

Between us and our backpacks and an entire tour group loaded down with rolling suitcases and various other bags, we stuffed the bus full when it arrived. We didn’t get a seat, and struggled to find a bar to hold and keep ourselves upright as the bus turned corners and stopped more quickly than it should have. The ride was ridiculously short, especially considering they’d charged us each $2 - we could have walked it in no time! We still had quite a hike anyway, so a bit extra wouldn’t have made much difference.

We had an hour before we could check in to the hostel at 12:30, so we dropped our bags off so we could walk around the town without being bogged down. The clerk wrote our names down on cards and tied them to the bags with a rubber band. We traipsed off into the very very hot May Sevillian sun to find something to eat for lunch.

We found a strange little bar called Bar Duque that was sort of in a trailer, and we did the thing where you walk in a bit zig-zaggedly to show that you haven’t really committed to eating there. But, the place had tapas and an English menu, and it looked rather good, so we settled in at the bar (which was pretty much all there was in the tiny space) and ordered a hamburger and a “tuna on toast”. We first had a long conversation with the bartender about what was on the hamburger, as our choices were “hamburger,” “hamburger with ham”, and “hamburger with vegetables”. The bartended eventually decided that the regular hamburger would come with lettuce and tomato, and so that’s what we ordered. When it came out it was clearly a store-bought frozen patty that was quite possibly pork instead of beef, but it was still pretty good. The tuna came with roasted red peppers and tomatoes on a toasted sandwich (it was a piece of tuna steak, not to be confused with tuna from a can), and it was delicious. We also asked for tap water (“aqua de grifo”, as we learned from Jose in Madrid), and were delighted to get ice cold water from the beer tap instead of lukewarm water from the faucet. The place was a hit for us.

The chef wandered out as we were finishing up, and we waived him over and displayed our money in an international “we are ready to go how much do we owe you” gesture. I could follow enough of the Spanish to understand the dialogue that followed: he called to the waiter across the bar to find out what we’d had; the waiter answered that he should know we’d just had a hamburger and a tuna sandwich. But the chef didn’t know who had what. The waiter explained that we’d taken a knife and cut everything in half (which the chef had missed, being in the back), so he thought we just needed the total and we’d figured out how to pay on our own. The chef turned his attention back to us and clasped his hands together. “Total?” We repeated the gesture and nodded. “Total!” We actually each had our 2.25 Euros ready, since tax is already included in Spain and we could do the math ourselves. We just needed to make sure they hadn’t added anything for the water or the little breadstick basket or eating at the counter or anything else.

After lunch we returned to our hostel - the Oasis. It was brand new and very cheap - only about $16 per bed. We were staying in a 14-bed room, and the hostel had gotten some mixed reviews since it had only been open a month and only had 2 bathrooms for all 14 people. However, as soon as we saw our room we were very happy! Even though there were 7 bunks, the room was really 2 rooms, so ours only had 4 bunks, or 8 people. The second room held the other 3 bunks, and also had a cute little balcony (we were on the 2^nd floor). We also had a tiny patio just for our room, with little wicker chairs and potted plants. And under each bed was a giant drawer that locked that was about twice as big as each of our backpacks, so we could put our packs in the back and still have room for clothes, toiletries, food, purses, computers, and all the other daily items we needed in the front.

Since it was the middle of the day, we took advantage of the empty bathrooms and did some laundry. It was my first time doing laundry, and I filled the sink with water and scrubbed my clothes on the pink “Zote” laundry bar I bought for this trip. Mostly I just scrubbed the “problem areas”, and then wadded the piece of clothing up to get it all nice and soapy. Tricia and I strung a clothesline around our bunk and hung our laundry on three sides, making a curtain of clothes for me on the bottom bunk.

We decided to spend some time exploring Seville, so we walked to the other side of the city to hit a couple of little churches. In front of one was a shady square full of couples and kids relaxing and playing on bikes and scooters. It was a really nice little scene, and we sat and people watched for a while. As we began our walk back in the direction of our hostel we passed a grocery store called LIDL which had really cheap prices - like an Aldi of Spain. We bought some chocolate-covered cream-filled pastries for about a dollar and made a note to return for real food (although we never did make it back there).

There was a museum called the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo that was free on Tuesdays, so we walked over the bridge across the river Guadalquivir to check it out. It was situated in a huge monastery on a ton of land, and the entire place felt like a ghost town. We walked around aimlessly, not really sure if the occasional gate in a wall was an invitation to enter or not. Finally, we passed a bike rack with about a half dozen bikes in it, so we figured we were getting close to where we wanted to be.

We walked through a completely empty courtyard where an encouraging little sign said “tickets” with an arrow. On the walls were what we took to be graffiti: someone had drawn pictures of dollar signs in strange positions with the caption “Money Having Sex”. Soon after we learned that this was actually art, The artist is the American Jessica Diamond, and her other work at the museum include giant letters reading “I HATE BUSINESS”, the slogan “Faith in Paper”, and “Is this all there is?” That was it. I wasn’t sure I really got her work.

Finally, we arrived at the ticket office. We asked the lady if it was free, and she shook her head sadly. It used to be free on Tuesdays, but now only on Sundays. Oh well, we’d come all this way, how much is it? Well, it is 1.50 Euros each. As we began looking for change, the lady spoke again: on Tuesdays it is only free from 7 to 9 pm. We looked at the clock: 6:45. Seriously? Um, okay, we’ll go ahead and wait. We sat down in the air conditioning of the reception area, and watched as several other people came in and had the exact same conversation: “It costs1.50.” “I thought it was free today.” “No. It isn’t free today. It’s only free on Sundays. On Tuesday it isn’t free until 7.” Each person looked at the lady like they were sure they were missing something, and then went back outside to wait until 7.

At 7 the lady smiled sweetly and called us over and handed us our free tickets. We learned that most of the exhibits are temporary international exhibits that stay for three months and then move on to a different museum. This was particularly confusing to us in the exhibits where they’d painted directly onto the walls of the monastery as with Jessica’s work, or in the Marxist exhibit where three rooms of the monastery were painted blood red and then filled with books and couches to facilitate discussion and provoke thought. (I came to the conclusion that while I don’t understand modern art, I really have no use for contemporary art: painting a room red and signing your name to it doesn’t make you an artist in my opinion.) The theme of the entire museum was “The Political Constitution of the Present” (I didn’t make that up - it was in the pamphlet). There were Italians bemoaning the apathy of the populace, a room full of tiny clay people apparently depicting famous scenes which were also played out on little tv screens (the clay people played them out, not real people - the only one I recognized was from 9.11), a timeline of the fall of the USSR stretching through several rooms, another timeline depicting Lebanon’s conflicts (in English, not Spanish), one entire wall devoted to clippings of every time a country was mentioned in one particular newspaper (just the county’s name, over and over; apparently this is repeated every year - we were looking at 2010’s offering) and another entire wall where the artist repetitively writes the word “woman” on note cards, but half with her left hand to symbolize visual tension and changes of rhythm. Overall, it was quite strange.

The thing about the monastery is that it has a ton of history all by itself. For example, Saint Anne’s chapel held the body of Christopher Columbus for 25 years back in the 1500s. Today it’s full of articles cut from newspapers of genocide and slavery from around the world that the artist didn’t think made big enough headlines. The “Little Cloister” is one of Seville’s finest examples of Mudejar architecture, combining Christian and Moorish styles. Back to art again - a very strange permanent exhibit was created in the monastery’s pools. There was a lot of flooding when the monastery was in use, and as a tribute to the monastery and the river an artist submerged pieces of the architectural remains of the building (mainly columns) into the pools.

We left the art portions of the monastery and wandered the grounds looking for two waterwheels. They weren’t where they were supposed to be according to our map, and we never did find them as it was almost 9 and I started to worry that, since we were just about the only people in the museum, they would lock the gates and we’d be stuck there for the night. We got out in time though, and began the trek home. I paused to take one last picture of a billboard that I mistook at first as being something other than art (namely, a billboard). I actually would recommend checking this out if you’re ever in Seville - it’s cheap, mostly in English, and completely weird.

On our way back to the hostel, we stopped at a Corte Ingles (which spanned a city block and had 4 flags pointing it out on our map). We found the grocery store in the basement of the 7 story building, and picked up cereal on a clearance shelf for $1.50, boxed milk that is shelf-safe until you open it, and a 6-pack of gala apples. Our total came to $6. We returned to the hostel and had some cereal. I was amused by the box, which had every sentence translated into 22 different languages and had serving instructions, for those people who had never eaten cereal before.

Our last stop of the evening was to a bar for some free Flamenco with a small group of other hostel-ers. Even though there were only 6 of us, the bar was completely packed, and we had to climb over one table to get to the only empty spot in the place - a table with 3 chairs. Tricia and I shared one, two girls from Toronto took the other two across from us, and the other 2 girls leaned on the wall behind us. The dancers had a great time, even pulling their friends from the audience to dance for us as well and goading the guitarist into showing off a few moves. What started with 2 female dancers ended with 4, and 5 if you count the guitarist. I’m actually starting to like Flamenco more as we see people who have more fun doing it, although Tricia likes the more technically proficient dancers better. Of course, the better dancers aren’t usually free. J

We considered having a drink since we’d stayed at the bar but hadn’t purchased anything, but since no one had paid any attention to us in the slightest we gave it up and walked home with the girls from Canada, who were also on a 3 month trip, having just finished their semester of school (they were born in ‘88 - ah, we are getting old!). The others went out on a pub crawl, but we’d had our fill of staying up until 4 am in Madrid and had had a full day already. Plus, in a 14-bed dorm the likelihood of our getting 7 hours sleep if we started at 4 am was absolutely zip. So we walked home and found our bunk and called it a night.