Day 6: Palaces, Shoes, and Impending Festivals.
We got to Sevilla this morning and it’s awesome. Waking up at 6:00 to catch a 7:00 bus from Nerja was not awesome, but hey we got to pet donkeys all day yesterday.
Seville is hot, other-worldly, neighborhoody, and happy, and the abundance of amazingly insane shoes of every possible kind is just killing me. I also ate an entire six square-inch piece of flan or Creme brûlée (I wasn’t sure I just pointed) by myself today on our five-minute walk back from city center to our hotel and I don’t feel bad about it at all.
Good 2:00 tapas at at Casa Paco, except this wildly unruly toddler got so aggro in her stroller that she flipped herself over backwards. It was scary for only 3 seconds before she started crying hysterically and it was established that she was totally fine, and then the weird part came when out of nowhere a street performer playing the accordion appeared and started playing lullaby tunes and gently shushing the baby to sleep. It was super weird and it was like a snake charmer appearing out of thin air except the snake charmer was a weird pre-teen playing the accordion and the snake was an annoying two year old. Seriously, so weird.
The Alcazar was magnificent – I didn’t really feel like going today because I was tired but Rebecca wisely encouraged us to go and then once we got in she couldn’t get me to leave because I wanted to spend all day in the gardens imagining myself in a long dress strolling around the labyrinth garden and killing people with my poison ring when I got mad at them (seriously these rings were on display in the museum inside like they were an actual common thing and they were so cool). We stayed until it closed, and in all seriousness the history behind the inception and then then ongoing expansion of the compound across many centuries and cultural dynasties is fascinating. To all those who said that this was a must see, yes you were right!
We got beers at an awesome little neighborhood street corner by our hotel where it seems the entire block was congregated and watched everyone prepare for a giant procession/street festival tomorrow at the Macarena Church for the Virgin Mary, and tonight’s pic is a preview of what it looks like pre-procession. The party tomorrow should be fun.