Don't Eat the Bread

Two updates in one day! Why not. We went sight-seeing today, although we didn't know what half of the stuff was that we were looking at, but I have lots of new pictures to share and I forgot a couple of things in my last post.

I've learned quite a few things so far...
1. Escalators are not my friend.
2. My luggage has control of me.
3. DON'T EAT THE BREAD

Kels and I went to eat dinner last night at a little cafe right across the street from our hotel. The waiter set down a basket of two small loaves of bread on our table, each loaf was wrapped up and sealed. We discussed it being a little weird and wondered why they didn't give us a plate to put the bread on. After looking around and seeing other tables eating it we decided it would be okay, so once we got our meal we each opened a loaf of bread and ate some of it. Then we got our check and as we were concerned and wondering whether the gratuity was added in or not we noticed that we were charged for (2) Pan.....for 1.9 euros. Could've saved 3 to 4 bucks right there. Ha, so from now on...we decided we're not eating the bread that's wrapped in individual packaging.

We also realized that you can't expect to eat in a timely manner here. They are SO slow. Every time we've eaten a meal, starting in the train station through today, we've probably sat around for 25-30 minutes with no food in front of us, no one offering to help us and waiting on our check. That's something we're going to have to get used to.

This is the view from our hotel room of some lady's porch/garden. We even watched her walk around this morning, from one door way to another. She's quite the smoker...every time we've seen her she has a cigarette in her hand.

Here's a view of the street from our hotel room. All the streets are so narrow and the buildings are all built up, but nothing is super tall.

We went sight-seeing all day today. I now understand why I've been told not to wear heels over here. We had a hard enough time walking in our flat boots! All the streets are made out of stone that is now cracked, worn and uneven, but it makes it seem so homey and classic. 

This is what we found when we walked all the way to the end of the street with our hotel. It was such a pretty bridge! We also ended up eating lunch at a little coffee shop at this intersection.

We had a wide variety of three choices we could choose from on the menu. There was a lot more actually on the menu, but the waitress just yelled at us in Spanish and said we could only choose from the top three, so we did! I had a jamón serrano bocadillo (sandwich). It was very thin ham/bacon on a really good roll with some olive oil. It was pretty good, but I'm currently starving and that was only a few hours ago. Kelsie and Olivia had similar sandwiches as well, only Kelsie's was a Spanish tortilla on the same roll with olive oil. They also had espresso con leche that they said was really strong but good...something they could get used to. I'm feeling like I could use one of those right about now too!

These orange trees are everywhere! They make the town seem so tropical. They literally line the streets and I think they are so pretty, so I had to get a pic.

This begins our afternoon of sight-seeing, even though we didn't really know WHAT we were seeing. This was some kind of park. Parks are everywhere here. We walked through at least three, and, as you can see, they don't believe in grass here. It's all sandy/clay-like grounds. I thought the tree in the background was cool. It was made to be an archway that people could walk through.

This is kind of a central area of Sevilla (I think). This is a fountain you see a lot and in the background you can see all the buildings and palm and pine trees which together are so random to me.

Our first glimpse of sunshine in Sevilla! I have a feeling it may be limited the next few days.

La Plaza de España

This is where part of Star Wars has been filmed. I'm nowhere near knowledgable on Star Wars, but I think it may be a scene from one of the more recent movies? It was such a pretty area. We walked around here for probably 30 minutes.

Me and Olivia

There were gondola rides through the water behind us. The architecture is already reminding me of campus with its Spanish Renaissance look.

Each area at the bottom of the arches had a different city in Spain on them. They were all in alphabetical order. Each one had some kind of symbols or picture representing that city and a map showing its location in Spain.

Here's our cute little hotel for the next few days! It seems pretty old and kind of reminds me of the Haunted Mansion at Disney World, but I guess that keeps it entertaining!

So that was our day so far, now we're all back in the hotel taking advantage of the siesta time! :) We all have aches and pains from lugging around our luggage yesterday...and the day before. Oh and the walls are paper-thin here, so we can hear from room-to-room and everything everyone is saying outside...ESPECIALLY at night. Last night the Spaniards were out during their normal partying hours (2 a.m. to 6 a.m.) and they were having a good time while all of us jet-lagged Americans were trying to sleep. This is when I wish I had mom's infamous Sleep-Mate that we always give her such a hard time about. It really is a miracle machine!

Hasta Luego,

Paige