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Published: September 14th 2005
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Plaza de España
You might recognize this from one of the new Star Wars movies. However, it´s a spectacular construction with tributes to each of the great regions in Spain. Tuesday August 30, 2005
After a 4:45 am wake up in the hostel David and I tried to call a taxi. Lo and behold our phone card from the front desk last night did not work any longer, so we had to wake up the shift manager who sleeps in the lounge when they are closed. He was not particularly happy about it either. Fortunately he called a cab for us, and when it arrived we negotiated a very fair price to get David to the Train station and me to the airport. David and I parted ways and I took hold of the hostel manager’s advice at the airport. Ryanair is so picky about their 33lbs. checked luggage limit and charge you outrageously for every kilo overweight. The manager, in his early twenties, said “find a girl (which most of the check-in staff were) who is not clearly a self-obsessed beauty queen, just a normal Italian girl, and give your best smile and compliment her, then you will not have to pay!” His girlfriend was there and just hit him lightly as though insulted, but then laughed with us. As I approached the counter, I thought as hard as you
Bouldering the Night Way
Not totally sure they were smoking cigarettes, but these college kids are definitely some impressive climbers. They´re here every night, chalk bags and all, to find some new routes and hang out with friends. The bridge was designed by Eiffel right after he did the big radio tower in Paris. can at 5 in the morning after two and a half hours of sleep, and out came some comment about how wonderful it is to see a beautiful woman so early in the morning. She laughed and turned beet red, and explained that it feels like noon to her because she’s been doing it so long. Putting my bag on the scale revealed that it was several pounds over, but she didn’t even pause, putting a tag on it and sending it through, wishing me a great journey. Wow, I’ll remember that one. Hopefully, it made her day, because it sure made mine, especially after losing 30 bucks to the overage last time in spite of putting a ton of stuff in David’s bag.
Ryanair is always on time, and today was no exception, as we pulled into Sevilla airport 30 minutes ahead of schedule. I took the bus from airport to the central plaza and met a great Italian couple on the way who were biology students taking a self tour of Andalusia. Later that night, we ran into each other again as my roommate and I took a walk through the city. My host family is amazing.
Toll booth?
This is some of kind of construction at the end of the Puente de Triana, that I can only surmise was a kind of toll booth. Trent, somebody´s going to have to go back and get a load of dimes. Loli and Salvador Jimenez are a cute little couple the same age as my grandparents and all smiles. They have one son left at home of nineteen years, four kids in all. Isais plays in a band, speaks pretty good English, and let us use his DSL computer connection to send emails home and even use Skype to call my house.
Jared’s bus finally arrived a few hours later than expected and he is a great roommate, more quiet than me, but intelligent and prepared with peanut butter, which they apparently do not have in Spain. Loli cooked a wonderful meal, after which we slept until 9pm! Then she had for us another meal! Apparently dinner is always at 9 in the evening in Spain. She took us out to see the nearby restaurants, heladerias, and bars and gave us directions for wandering around the city. And we wandered all over. Guitaristas plucked evening Spanish tunes and sang in tremoral Andalusian voices around the cafes while other musicians used accordions, harmonicas and various drums to compose a symphony of sounds whose movements were punctuated only by our movement between the endless supply of restaurants lining the colonial glass-lamp lit
Night Lights
The Plaza in KC is modeled on Seville's downtown. This building really shows off the comparison. streets and the riverside of the famous Guadalquivir, from which Columbus began his first voyage to the New World. As we crossed one of the bridges, we saw a dozen or so youth bouldering on the wall, never climbing more than a couple meters before changing routes. They took turns climbing all over, sitting on the foot high wall by the river, joking, smoking, and talking. I can’t get over how many people smoke here, even athletes. My Italian friends said that a great war like the one nearing its end in the states has recently begun in Europe, and that only this year Italy has outlawed smoking in public restaurants and spaces. The beautiful warm yellow light that glows over the streets reveals sidewalks of every type and color except plain concrete, some probably older than the U.S. itself. Couples are everywhere, and rightly so as the air of the city is ridiculously romantic. I have only been here one night, and between the city and the incredible hospitality of its inhabitants, I already want to live here.
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