January 30th, 2009

My hostel room seemed to be just as cave like as my room on the ship, and I woke up around 10 to a pitch black room and got ready in the dark.  Then waited downstairs for the girls checking email and what not until they were around.  We were so hungry at the point we decided to go back to the Tex Mex place since we knew we liked it and it was close.  ( We also know we aren’t going to have Mexican food for a while).  After a quick lunch the girls wanted to head to the Cathedral and Alcazar since they hadn’t seen it yet.  We walked through the little side streets or allies to get there.  It was a really nice walk and cool to explore a little.  While the girls went in the church I took a walk around enjoying the nice day and just people watched and walked around for an hour or so. At around 4 after doing some exploring we decided to get some ice cream and join the city in a siesta.  Anna was on a mission to find a waffle with ice cream and chocolate she had seen a picture of somewhere but we never did find one every again.  So while the girls went back to the hostel to take a nap I took  a walk back to the soccer stadium to buy a jersey from my new favorite soccer team.  Sevilla FC!!!!.  The jersey was only 10 euro and red which I can wear for the Sea Olympics that are coming up.  After my nice walk to the stadium and around a near by mall I walked back and too decided to take a quick nap. Cause our goal was to stay up all night and not sleep until we got to the train station.  I took about an hour long nap and then woke up and got ready. 

 

It started raining which we weren’t too pleased about but decided to deal and around 10 Megan and Michelle came to the hostel so we could all go to dinner.  We ate at an Italian restaurant were Me and Kelly both got caprese salad and split a vegetarian pizza.  We had a nice long dinner talking and laughing, and finally convinced ourselves to walk the few blocks to a local flamenco bar.  It too was a very cool experience, ( I think having people show us around that knew local places was a great help even if they did get lost a lot).  The flamenco dancing seemed completely different from the show we had seen through the SAS trip.  That appeared to be very planned and staged while at the Flamenco bar it was full of life, spontaneity, and culture.  I think I really enjoyed here too because there weren’t too many Semester at Sea kids it was a mix of locals and Americans studying abroad in Seville.  Here I again ran into someone from school Melanie from a class at the Flamenco bar.  It was nice to see her and to know she is having a good time abroad.  The bar was low key with benches and tables in a giant empty room, its hard to explain but here was one of the first places I felt I was experience part of the day to day Spanish culture.  When you first walked in you walked past a room where there was a Spanish singer and a group of people listening before you headed to big room of people, talking, drinking, smoking, and watching the woman Flamenco dancer do her thing. 

 

At around 1:30 we made our way out into the rain again to catch a cab to a club called Elefunk.  I was worried it might be really Americanized and have a ton of SAS kids but to my surprise it was more of a bar/club where we seemed to be the only Americans.  It packed with people and we danced the night away until about 4 in the morning.  When we got back to the hostel we noticed a Humburger place open next door that was packed with people and headed in to join everyone for a burger and fries before we went to sleep.

 

We finally made it to bed around 5 and then woke up at 7 to check out and get to the train station.  We were all so tired and dead but from an amazing fun filled time in Seville.