Day 33 - Sevilla

We started the day with a walking tour, where we learned about all sorts of tidbits about Sevilla.  We found a statue dedicated to Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, a woman of more than 40 titles.  She and Queen Elizabeth will never be seen together because she is the only person the queen has to bow down to.  She is very unpopular lately, and the square in front of her statue is now boycotted.  We ended in the Plaza de España, a semicircular plaza built in 1929 to attract commerce and wealth to Spain.  The stock market crash hit soon after and the place was a complete failure.  But it was very pretty nonetheless.

Right on schedule, we scurried off in search of tapas, traditional small dishes made to share.  They are great because they are cheap and you can order several different things to try.  But they are also horrible because you will be hungry again about 10 minutes after you leave the restaurant.

We then visited Triana, the part of Sevilla located on the other side of the stagnant river.  Later on, Emily and I broke off to go to a flamenco show hosted by the hostel.  Our guide was the ever-so-charming Henri from France.  I practiced what was left of my high school French telling him how much I hated smokers.

Emily and I settled into the front row of the flamenco show with our sangrias.  The show was not at all what I expected, but it was amazing.  The performers consisted of a guitarist, a singer, and a male and female dancer.  They performed a song with an intricate clapping pattern.  Then the male got up to dance.  I didn’t realize how much of a tap element there was to flamenco.  This guy was tapping away very emotionally and quickly.  His feet literally looked like cartoon animals running.  The woman danced later, too, but she did not meet the bar he set.  They danced together at the end and left the stage with the audience in awe.

 

After the show, Henri had returned.  I find him smoking.  He is leading the pub crawl next and pleads for us to come with.  We can’t decide and eventually opt to get more tapas on our own.  We find a place and order fried Camembert in the most unexpectedly scrumptious strawberry sauce.  We also ordered some sort of garlic pork.  It took me a while to find the garlic cloves because they were cooked somehow so they didn’t taste quite like garlic anymore.  Whatever they did to it was amazing.  Part of the charm of Spain is that every restaurant or store is local and has a unique menu.

We wander in the direction of our hostel, running into dozens of SASers partying in the bar street along the way.