Sevillaaaaaaaa

Spent the past two days in Seville.  It is a beautiful place, but getting here was not so beautiful.  I opted for the overnight bus from Santiago since I didn't have to pay for a night's accommodations, and if I needed to pay to get here anyway why not do it overnight than waste a day traveling.  So I boarded a bus at 4:25 PM and arrived in Seville at 6:59 AM.  LONG RIDE.  Napped for the first hour, then couldn't sleep until around 1 AM and even then woke up every hour or so.  It was bad.  Doing overnight trips again on Thurs and Fri night but those don't leave until late so hopefully I'll be tired once I get on the bus and pass out.

My route...yikes!

Anyway, made it to Seville.  Exhausted, but there.  Didn't even think about finding my hostel at 7 AM.  First order of business was walk to the park and find a spot to sleep.  Found a beautiful spot by a little stream-lake thing and slept!  It was great, I love not worrying about being robbed here.  Woke up occasionally but finally got up around 9:30, got a map, and explored.  Got some chocolate con churros and orange juice for breakfast...yum!  Orange juice, btw, is the best thing here.  They have these machines in all these places that have tons of oranges in them and it just squeezes them dry into a glass.  FRESH orange juice is what I'll prob miss most about Spain, aside from the cheapness and deliciousness of Cervecería 100 Montaditos.  

Seville is just a beautiful place.  Orange trees and these pretty purple trees line the streets.  People ride bikes everywhere.  The buildings are beautiful.  It's your typical Spanish city.  I mostly spent my first day exploring on foot, but not before taking another short nap on a bench in front of the river (I guess the sleeping pill from the bus didn't decide to kick in until AFTER I got to Seville).

  Streets of Seville

I was really skimpy in Seville in that I didn't go into as many places that charge admission as I did in other places.  For example, I ended up making it into the Cathedral when there was mass around 10 in the morning, before they start charging for visitors.  That was a plus, especially since €8 would have been a lot for that (even though it included going to the top of La Giralda, or the tower attached to it).  Anyway, the Cathedral is absolutely stunning-the 3rd biggest in Europe I believe.  Beautiful on the outside, beautiful on the inside!

Cathedral

La Giralda

Made my way back down to the park and to Plaza de España.  What a beautiful place!  It's a big government building with a huge Plaza with a little river thing going around it, and all around the inner perimeter of the building are mosaics for each of the regions of Spain.  

Plaza de España

Went on a tour of the bull ring the next day!  I'm not a huge fan of bullfighting but it's definitely a place that I wanted to check out.  Went into the arena and rooms of the stadium, and into the museum.  It was quite cool...they have heads of bulls that were killed there hanging on the wall in the museum...just ones that put on a good show and fought really hard to live...but were still killed.  Which is why it's sad.  Poor guys.

Bullfighting Arena

Those are my Seville highlights.  Off to wait for the bus to Córdoba now...I'm beginning my whirlwind tour of Southern Spain today.  Córdoba today, Granada Thursday, Valencia Friday.  Then I'm in Barcelona Sat-Mon, then FRANCE.  I'm in love with Spain but I cannot wait to go to Nice and lay on a beach for a day and rest my legs and feet and blisters.  But 6 more days in Spain first.  Bye for now!