Spain part one – Andalucia

Since we all have blogs, we’re going to write this as a combined effort of Ben, Gerrod, Kirsty and John – so don’t be surprised if you see the same story on gerrod.com, John and Kirstin, and stickfly.com.

Ben: I don’t want to influence anyone’s decision here, but the cool people would be reading this on stickfly.com so if you aren’t switch over now for the ultra special, directors cut, HD version. It’s the experience that counts.

John: When you return cold and unfulfilled from Stickly, johnandkirstin.com will be there to welcome you home like a big warm hug.

Gerrod: … insert shameless ad for gerrod.com here …

Gerrod: Moving along… the first destination of our holiday was Seville, which is the capital city of the autonomous community of Andalucia, in the south of Spain. Shamefully, I’d never heard of Seville before this trip was booked. The bus from the airport was fairly effortless, except for some reason the six of us couldn’t work out the best route back to the hotel, even with a map and a compass.

Ben: I blame the information desk girl who showed us where to get off (ie. the last stop) but then we found out she hadn’t accounted for all the tram ways construction work being done, so wrongly informed us. It was all downhill from there.

John: I think there is nothing more exhausting than getting off an aircraft, boarding a bus and ending up in an unfamiliar city filled with unfamiliar people.

Gerrod: But as I’m sure you’ve guessed, we got there eventually. The hotel was marvellous, except our room was so tiny that Kristy and I couldn’t get our impractically large suitcase open. (Note for future travel: buy a hiking backpack.) The other two’s rooms were better, especially Ben and Michelle’s which was practically the Taj compared to ours. Oh, the only other complaint of the hotel was that the walls were paper thin, so we could hear everything going on around us. This came in very “handy” for monitoring John’s coughing throughout the night.

Ben: If by Taj you mean we had a bidet, then yes. Still haven’t figured out how to flush a number two down one of them yet!

Kirsty: I suppose I should say something boring and informational about Seville here otherwise this blog entry will be nothing else but Ben and Gerrod prattling on about Spanish bidets. Well, Seville is situated in the south of Spain. The architecture in the older parts of the city reflects the Arab (Moorish) influence who had control of the land in the 700s until it was re-conquered by the Catholics in the 12th century. Much of the flamenco culture stems from the Andalucian region, aaaaaaand for some reason Seville is covered in orange trees (which apparently is great for making marmalade).

Gerrod: I was surprised more that the oranges were actually still on the trees! How come no-one (except Ben) flogged them?

Kirsty: Unfortunately for most of the holiday John was bed stricken with an infection of some sort so he isn’t in many of our photos or videos. I’ll have to regale you all with our two (yes, two!) visits to the hospital in the next entry. I spent a fair bit of time in search of the ever elusive “los kleenex” (“tissues” in español). By the way if you are ever in Spain looking for tissues, they keep them behind the counter at the pharmacy. Ahh the joys of discovering the quirks of a new country.

Kirsty: I was able to find out the word for tissues from Kristy who has been taking Spanish classes in her spare time, and surprised us with her command of the language. However I am kind of wishing she never taught Ben how to say “La cuenta por favor” (The bill please) as that is one phrase that he proudly acquired and that we would all hear over and over and over during our trip.

Gerrod: To be fair, the conclusion of our meals at restaurants was always Ben’s time to shine. And he also had the phrase “Buenos Aires, por favor” down pat, though it escapes me why he kept asking for the capital of Argentina.

John: As Kirsty mentioned, I was very ill for our Spain holiday. The room in the hotel was to be my “Seville experience” for all but one of our days whilst in the city.

Ben: whinge, whinge, whinge.

Gerrod: So out and about in Seville turns out to be a bit of alright. There’s a huge cathedral close to the centre of town which has a giant tower that we climbed up to get an overview of the city. The architecture was just beautiful – so unlike anything I’ve seen before. Clearly this was not New York!

Ben: I must admit, having seen a Brazillion cathedrals and castles over thelast two years, I was not thinking I’d be impressed by Seville’s finest but paint me gold and call me Oscar,this cathedral rivals St. Peters in Rome. Truly impressive.

Gerrod: Having seen all of about two cathedrals over the last two years, this one impressed my socks off.

Kirsty: Yeah – I had thought I had seen all the cathedrals worth seeing (and many, many other cathedrals not really worth seeing), but turns out I was wrong. The Seville cathedral is truly spectacular inside and out. It is actually the largest of all Roman Catholic cathedrals and was built to demonstrate Seville’s wealth. The Cathedral’s tower was originally the minaret from the mosque that was built there in Arab times. The Catholics converted it to a bell tower. Also the cathedral apparently contains the tomb of Christopher Columbus.

Ben: Climbing to the top of tower afforded us some of the best views of Seville’s surroundings. From here we could see the river, the bull fighting ring and even a few people tanning around their rooftop pools.

Gerrod: Our Lonely Planet guide came in very handy, directing us along a walking tour around the most interesting parts of Seville. Many thanks to our guides Ben and Michelle who did a won
derful job of not getting us lost!

Kirsty: The Alcázar (castle) of Seville was our next major tourist stop. A fascinating mix of Islamic architecture and gothic elements the Alcázar is a photographer’s delight.

Kirsty: A couple interesting stories about the Alcázar. Inside there is a court yard (“The Courtyard of the Maidens”) which refers to the legend that the Moors demanded 100 virgins every year as tribute from Christian kingdoms in Spain. Elsewhere there is the “Baths of Lady María de Padilla”. Pedro fell for Maria and had her husband killed. She in turn poured boiling oil over her face to disfigure herself and ran off to become a nun. She is regarded as a symbol of purity in the culture of Seville.

Kirsty: Speaking of Spanish culture – it is on a completely different time table to our own. Lunch is at 1pm (okay … so that part is the same). 3pm – 5pm is Siesta time (all the shops close up too). 9pm is the earliest time anyone thinks about going to dinner. By the way – we had some fantastic dinners!

Ben: and it doesn’t look good when you pike early and end up in bed before midnight

John: Today I got to visit the east wall of my hotel room. It was very nice, it has a window in which the many noises from the street could be heard throughout the drowsy day. The highlight of my day was definitely when Kirsty arrived with tissues.

Gerrod: We were also lucky enough to find a wonderful little bar near our hotel which served the most amazing Sangria that I’ve ever tasted. I watched them make it to discover the secret ingredient – peach juice! We owe many a morning headache to that Sangria.

Kirsty: At the bar we got talking to an American girl who had been living in Seville for a number of years. We asked her to recommend us a place that had authentic flamenco. She did, although, the flamenco wasn’t *precisely* how I expected it to be. I mean, I thought we were going to be watching a woman dance around in a big skirt. Instead we got to watch a man pretending to be a woman dance around in a big skirt.

John: I missed out on seeing the Spanish version of Tamara Tonight but I did get to try out the local goon. I couldn’t really taste it but I am sure it was nice.

Ben: Be fair guys, she was a *really* good dancer and I’m sure that’s all that matters to her blind husband.

Gerrod: I was just surprised at how many people actually hung around to watch her him the dancing person. The room was packed! Maybe everyone was drunk?

Ben: Thinking we should make the most of our short stay in southern Spain, it was decided that a day trip out to a nearby smaller town would be a wise decision. Kristy had researched this place called Jerez (heh-reth), Spain’s premier sherry making region, and we all thought it would be a great idea to jump on a bus and see some countryside.

John: So, buoyed by the rave reviews I was hearing I decided pick up my tissues and rubbish bag to go out with the team. Boy was I glad I went!

Gerrod: Our first stop was for some lunch at a cafe recommended by our The Lonely Planet guide. I ended up taking a bullet for Kristy who ordered the “breaded whiting”. Seemed harmless enough, but it came out looking like this:

Kirsty: Unfortunately what we didn’t get a picture of is the sheer look of horror on Kristy’s face when the plate was set in front of her. Gerrod ended up swapping his meal with Kristy and spent most of the time remarking “Actually, it’s not that bad”. Hehe.

Gerrod: Mmmm…. fish…. Anyway, we continued our walk through the absolutely deserted town (there’s very little going down during siesta time), and on to the Tio Pepe winery – home of Tio Pepe sherry. We signed up for a tour then waited around for about half and hour for it to start.

Kirsty: I won’t bore you with the details of the tour as it was about as exciting as a lecture on how to correctly watch paint dry. I actually think I blacked out half way through and then came to when the repulsive smell of Tio Pepe’s dry sherry wafted through my nostrils.

Gerrod: Suffice to say, we were glad when we finally came to this part of the tour:

Kirsty: I didn’t however, mind the sweet sherry, and ended up purchasing a bottle. I later had to throw it away because I wasn’t allowed liquids in my carry on luggage for our flight to Barcelona even John assured me with the utmost confidence that it was only flights from London they did that for.

John: I claim the poor sick guy defence.

Gerrod: The final nail in the coffin was finding the exact same sherry for sale on the other side of the security gate, in the duty free shop .

Kirsty: Stay tuned for Seville Part 2 – Catalonia!