When I decided to study abroad for an entire year, one of my main goals was to travel as much as possible and see as many places I could. Traveling, unfortunately, takes a lot more planning than I realized so spur of the moment trips aren’t really very common. In the case of the trip I am about to describe, however, planning was not involved at all! On one random Wednesday my friend Kenneth sent a text to a bunch of us telling us about a trip to Sevilla that Erasmus (Europe’s continent-wide study abroad program) was putting on that was only 40 euro and was a short two day trip from Friday til Saturday that weekend. At first I discounted it because it seemed so soon and I didn’t know what I had to do that weekend but that night at dinner I brought it up and although Kelsey couldn’t go because her mom was here in Granada visiting from the states, Armelle said she would go if we could still get tickets. So the next day on my way home from class I stopped by the Erasmus office and bought 2 of the last 5 available tickets! So on Thursday, I bought tickets to Sevilla that had us leaving by bus at 7:30am the next morning.
When I woke up on Friday to walk to the bus I almost regretted my decision to go to Sevilla on a whim—it was sooo early it was still dark out, and it was freezing cold to boot!
Armelle and I were still excited to be going to Sevilla though.
I walked out of my apartment and seeing that the elevator was in use grudgingly decided to take the 7 flights of stairs down. Upon reaching the ground floor I realized that the elevator wasn’t just in use, it was stuck about 3 feet above the ground! There were people inside so I went closer to see if I could do anything to help and suddenly recognized the voices coming from inside the elevator. All three of my roommates were inside. You know how I wrote about how a late night in Spain is really an early morning? Well there was proof right in front of me; all my roommates got stuck in the elevator at 7am on their way home from a night out. They had already called the elevator technician so there wasn’t anything I could do to help and I had to leave for Sevilla hoping that they’d be helped soon. Luckily they were all in funny moods though so what could have been a disaster was just a good story for everyone to tell the next day.
As I was talking to my roommates through the elevator door, Armelle joined me at my building and soon the two of us were off on our way to the bus! A cold 15 minute walk later we cursed the Spanish sense of time since even though we were only 5 minutes early, the rest of the group leaving wasn’t at the meeting point yet and the bus was no where to be seen. But eventually the bus did come as did the rest of the kids going on the trip (who were all foreigners like ourselves, but from Europe since they were part of Erasmus). The bus ride was uneventful since we napped the whole time, except for a half hour potty break where Armelle and I had a lovely chat on some red phones we found at the rest stop.
When we finally arrived in Sevilla we went to the hostel Erasmus set up for us which was a crazy cramped building with lots of stories. They didn’t have our rooms ready for us yet, so we sat in the sun on the terrace on the top of the hostel for a while. Once we got our rooms Armelle and I decided it was time for some exploring. Sevilla is a gorgeous city, with the river Guadalquivir running right through it.
We ended up wandering around a beautiful university building, walking up and down the river, and exploring some of the city streets before deciding it was time for some café con leche. After our espresso (which, by the way, I have totally become addicted to) we went back to the hostel for some paella, one of the most classic Spanish meals you can come by. The paella was really good especially since they used chicken instead of seafood, something that made it better for me but worse for all the seafood lovers there.
The next day we did touristy stuff planned out by Erasmus including a tour of the Cathedral and the Alcazar of Sevilla.
Here's a pic of me with the view from the top of the Cathedral's belltower
Armelle and I at the Alcazar (Which was basically just a really pretty garden)
Overall it was a short trip but it was really fun. I got to see another beautiful piece of Andalusia on just a moment’s notice!
Halloween
Even though I didn’t see any little kids trick-or-treating, and the extent of my candy intake was one lollipop, I was excited to find out that they do indeed celebrate Halloween here in Spain! We went out two different nights and one night I was a pirate, the other I was Zorro.
Pirate, Guapa, and Hippie:
Zorro, Mannequin, and Leopard:
My Awesome Zorro Mask:
Soon to come—a really long blog about my trip to Morocco!!!
