Sevilla

I spent the weekend in Sevilla (or Seville). What an amazing little city! Sevilla is very charming and the people are very friendly and open. I spent the weekend with my friend Rafa. By chance my other friend Ruben, who works for my company, and his boyfriend, were spending the weekend in Sevilla so we ended up staying in the same hotel. We arrived late Friday night and got a bit to eat and went to bed. Saturday morning, the four of us got a quick breakfast and began a typical Sevilla Saturday. We walked to the city center and Ruben gave us a quick tour of the city. After we saw the impressive Cathedral, Real Alcazar, and Gold Tower, we headed for the first of five bars to have a beer and a couple tapas. We spent the rest of the day going from bar to bar. For about $45 dollars, we had drinks and food at five different places, quite a bargain!! It was great to spend the weekend with Spaniards as I felt more at home as I was able to have a local experience. After we were good and drunk we headed back to the hotel for a siesta on the sun roof (it was about 80 degrees in Sevilla) and then a siesta in the hotel room.

Around 9 we headed to another cheap tapas bar for dinner (most of the dinning in Sevilla consists of tapas; according to my little book about the city, other forms of dinning are really expensive). I enjoyed most of the food but one type of ham they eat isn't for me. It tastes good, but I'd have to cut all the fatty parts off of it to eat it and I felt stupid trying to do it. After dinner, two girls who work in our store, Yolanda and Fatima, joined us for drinks. Ruben and his boyfriend went back to the hotel and the girls, Rafa, and I went dancing.

Spain's timetable is very different. When we got to the dance club at two in the morning, there was no one there. About an hour and a half later, the place was packed. We had a lot of fun and left around 5 in the morning. My eyes were in pain from the combination of smoke and my contacts (which I'm still getting used to wearing again).

Sunday was a pretty relaxed day as Rafa and I were a bit hungover and tired. We had a nice lunch of paella and then walked around the city again. We walked through the cathedral and into the tower (pictured). We got some ice cream, had some dinner later and picked up our bags from the hotel on the way to the train station. It was a great weekend!