Sevilla

This weekend I went on a trip to Sevilla, which is a bigger city in southern Spain. I went with 6 other ISU students. We left Friday morning and took a 4 hour bus ride there. When we got to Sevilla, we all fell in love with it right away. The weather was gorgeous, it was around 65-70 degrees the whole time. The city has a lot of palm trees and orange trees, and there is a big river that runs right through it.

We walked to our hostal. We had some problems, because apparently we needed our passports to check in, and none of us had ours. After some awesome Spanglish sweet talking, we finally convinced the owners to let us stay there illegally on the promise that we wouldn't get arrested and get their hostal in trouble.

Our room was small. The 6 of us girls had a room all to ourselves and the one guy who came with us had to stay in another room. We had 3 sets of bunk beds and a bathroom. It was actually pretty nice for how cheap it was.

That afternoon and night we just walked around the city. We went to the Plaza de Espana, which was absolutely amazing. It was sooo beautiful. We also went to the Parque Maria Luisa, which was really pretty too.

The next morning we had free breakfast at the hostal. It was fun to be in the commons room there, because there were people from different countries staying there. We got to meet other students from Brazil, Germany, Sweden. The breakfast was really good too, plus we went to Starbucks after that. Sevilla is big, so they have Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King, Baskin Robbins, Domino's Pizza. And they have Pepsi machines everywhere, which is weird to see in another country.

All day Saturday we walked around. We saw the main Cathedral, which was HUGE. It's actally the largest Gothic cathedral and 3rd largest church in the world. Inside is the tomb of Chistopher Columbus, which was cool to see, but someone said it's a myth and he's actually buried somewhere else. But I like to believe I saw the real one, it makes for a better story.

We went to Alcazar after that. Its a royal palace, and one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I was totally blown away by how big it was. There were so many rooms, and levels, and everywhere there were fountains and exotic plants and gardens. Every wall and pillar had amazing paintings on them. The palace was origionally built in the 14th century, and they have kept adding onto it since then. The best part of it was outside there was a maze. Like a real hedge maze that you can get lost in. It was so much fun.

We ate lunch at a restaurant and later took a break for churros and chocolate. It's a really common Spanish treat, and it was delicious. After walking all day, we were so tired and our feet were in a lot of pain. So we went back to the hostal for a nice little siesta.

That night we went to dinner at a sandwich place that was kind of the Spanish version of Jimmy John's. Then we went to a discoteca. I was sooo excited! I hadn't been to a discoteca like this since Ecuador. The place was huge, and packed. There were 3 different levels of dance floors. We danced all night, and didn't get back to the hostal until 4am. It was so much fun.

Sunday morning we had breakfast again, checked out of the hostal, and made one last Starbucks run. We found an outdoor cafe/restaurant by the river and sat there all afternoon. We were so tired from walking the day before, plus we had already checked out and didn't want to drag our bags and everything all over the city. So we relaxed there, and it was so nice because it was like 70 degrees.

We went to the bus station at 4 and got back to Caceres around 8. Steph and I were so exhausted. We ate dinner then rested before the Super Bowl came on. The game started at 12:30am for us, and ended around 4am. We watched it on Steph's computer, who was skyping her boyfriend, who set his computer up to his tv. It was the only way we could see the game, but it worked out well. It made us really homesick though, because all of our friends back home were having parties and watching it together, plus I just miss American football so much. We had our own little Super Bowl party with bread sticks and nutella, and Spanish cake. :)

Steph and I were both really tired today. After the long weekend of traveling, walking around sight seeing, then the 4 hour bus ride back, plus staying up til 4am watching football. We made it through class today, then had a tour and lunch with other students who arrived in Caceres from Germany, Austria, Italy, and the U.S. That was fun, I love meeting people from other countries.

When we got home from that, Steph and I both crashed and took a 5 hour siesta. It was nice to finally be rested from the trip. It was a great weekend though, and hopefully we can travel much more while we're here.