Seville!

Hola gente! This week something quite exciting is about to happen: I will visit Seville! First however, some classes had to be attended and some homework has to be made.

Monday is my usual ‘get up early day’, meaning that the alarm clock rings at about 7 a.m. to follow some not that interesting courses. Especially Strategic Management, where you have or a case or a lecture which is so uninteresting that you almost fall asleep. That night however I went out for dinner to Lateral, a very nice place for some tapas, with Kelly. We had bacalao Lateral, tapa de albondigas, tempura de verduras con tzatziki and croquetas de gambas, all lovely tapas. I really enjoyed the food and the atmosphere there. Real nice place to have some dinner!

The rest of the week was not that interesting, besides that there are some problems with our landlord. As we did not sign any contract (Tip 1: a big mistake, always ask for one!), there were some issues with the payment of the gas, water and light. Our landlord never mentioned those costs and now she was asking us if we would pay 50 euros per person for 2 months. I would not have a problem with that, if she had mentioned these before. So that led to a bit of a quarrel were we finally paid the expenses. At the end of this month however we want to have all our arrangements on paper, otherwise we will not pay.

To get some distraction, Kelly and I finally were about to go to Seville. We asked our Spanish friends to go with us, as they told us that they had never visited Seville, but they were too busy with school projects. Thus we decided to go by ourselves and that Thursday night at 1 a.m. we had the bus to Seville, a 6 hour trip. We took the bus so early as we still could do something this day. Otherwise we could have taken the bus of 9 a.m., meaning that we would arrive at 3 p.m., which is quite late if you want to visit something. We had not booked a hostel beforehand because we do not have a credit card (Tip 2: get a credit card when you go to Spain!). So we had to search when we arrived, but that was not difficult as we had looked up some addresses and one of those had a nice price-quality relation. Now was the time for some good breakfast, but that was to early we found out. Nothing was open yet that offered something that fills, because a croissant or tostada and a cup of coffee is for me not enough, so we first went to Real Alcazar, the palace of Seville. Only 2 euros entrance, and boy it was good value for money. Really stunning interior, although the garden was even more beautiful. Enormous palace garden with huge palm trees and symmetric sections with water. The weather that could have been worse, only 25 degrees, so sold for the end of November.
Next stop was Plaza España, located in a nice park. It somewhat resembled Venice, with its water and bridges. Also very nice were the Delfts-blue tiles on the whole building. So far Seville beats Madrid in the beauty contest! To get some sleep we decided to go back to the hostel; however, under way we found a nice Italian restaurant were we reserved a spot for that night. Satisfied we got ourselves a nice siesta.

The next day we would again have the night but at 1 a.m., but looking back we could have taken a bus back earlier, because Sevilla was not that big as we would have hoped. In the morning, we walked north to see some kind of city wall, but that was nothing special at all. Furthermore, we wanted to go to Casa Pilatos, but that had an entrance fee of 8 euros and we did not want to pay that. The rest of the day we just relaxed in front of the cathedral as we had already seen whole Seville. I have to admit, it is a city definitely worth a visit!