Third Day In Seville

We are still in Seville (Tuesday the 10th). We asked our Spanish speaking hotel woman "podemos estar aqui por una mas noche?" She happily ran my credit card for another €55. But it limited our stress in Seville. So we got to have a relatively stress free day in Seville. Tomorrow (Wednesday the 11th) will be our day of travel to Morocco.

We woke up leisurely (no jackhammer this morning) and showered and left. We took the laptop and went to the free internet place. Across the street from City Hall (Ayuntamiento) by the Plaza San Francisco there is a free internet/WiFi point that is open on weekdays from 10-14 and 17-20. They have about a dozen terminals, a couple broken down, that one can use for free for an hour. You just have to sign your name on some sheet at the desk and have the girl assign you a terminal. The WiFi is just connect & go. This morning we went. Elena got a terminal and I used WiFi. Checked up on election news--nice handoff from Hillary to Obama. Checked my email--but didn't write any. And most importantly did a blog dump. "Blog dump"is my coined term for when you write a bunch of blog entries offline and then upload them all at once when you get online. If I haven't gotten around to fixing the timestamps, you can see when I did the blog dumps. So we spent some time there and then came back to store and recharge the heavy computer.

Then we decided to shop for necessities. Seville is actually not a good town to try to outfit yourself for a trip to Africa. I might have to have REI ship me stuff to a hotel in Marrakech or something. Anyway, I got a couple more stuff sacks at Intersport, ear plugs (for hostelling with snorers), a pair of hiking pants, and a shirt at H&M. We stopped into a pharmacy, but it is a bit tricky here as the pharmacies don't put any pharmaceuticals out at all. You have to ask for everything. So I got some Immodium. Elena got some mosquito stuff. I tried to tell her that there are no mosquitos in the desert, but she thinks Africa==mosquitos.

Elena got a nice print blouse at H&M The probador (changing room) was in the lingerie section so I was watching a half dozen sexy women choosing lingerie while waiting for Elena. Very nice. Much much better than yesterday when I was waiting with 3 other macho mustachioed Spaniards for their women while they tried on stuff.

We went to a place for dinner that we tried to go to yesterday, but their special had ended. It is called Las Escobas and they have €7,90 liters of sangria and a 5 tapas plate for €8,50. The tapas and the sangria were yummy. The tapas we got was 1) squid rings and lettuce, 2) red pepper puree ? and cheese/sausage, 3) spicy rice with shellfish, 4) potato slices and gravy, and 5) a cassis custard type thing with deep fried bread pieces. Very good. And a pretty good price. I have noticed that they like to tack on €1-€2 of unsolicited bread here in Seville.

We had a nice little nap/siesta/reading of Generation X in French with wine (Veranza, Tinto Roble Seleccionado, 2007 Vino de la tierra Valle del Cinca). Then Elena snapped me into gear. We headed out to look at Seville by night. First we got tickets for Tarifa at the San Sebastian bus station. Then we checked out the Plaza España. Finally, we wandered around the cathedral some more, checked out a few more streets, and found the lively section with all the tapas bars.

Just a note about tapas in Spain. You may think it is easy to do tapas in Spain. Actually it is difficult. First, you have to find tapas places that serve tapas in the €2-€3 range. It certainly isn't everywhere. You have to look at a lot of menus and even places that bill themselves as tapas places, upon inspecting the menus, don't actually have the cheap tapas. Then once you find a place, the names of the items are in Spanish. Not normal Spanish but tapas bar Spanish. Some you can guess. Some you can't. There isn't much that a normal person can't eat, so experimentation is fine. But if you are vegetarian, kosher, allergic to stuff, or a picky eater, you'll have problems with the "throw a dart at the menu" method.

Anyway, Elena chose a place and we sat down. But when they brought the menu, no tapas. So we found another place. They didn't have empty seats outside, so we went in. The waitress didn't speak English and the menus were only in Spanish. Actually a good sign. Elena got a sangria, I got a caña (€1,25 for a caña whereas the equivalent "demi" in France would be €2,30-€4,20 depending on the place), and we got three tapas, "prenga" in quotes like that even on the menu, jamón, and tuna in ????. They came and were yummy. Then we ordered pimiento with something. It was good too. The bill came to €11,75. This time they didn't charge us for the bread. Yay!!!!

We walked around some more and came home 7 minutes to midnight. Our last night in Europe for a while. Tomorrow night when we go to sleep, we'll be in Africa!

Next post from Morocco...