DAYS 31-32: WELCOME TO SEVILLE.

Wow, I should never two weeks to write about something.

staue in front of the cathedral.

Now that I'm looking back, I can barely remember what happened the weekend of Seville & Cordoba. It's also hard to concentrate given because when I type directly into Blogger, nothing is autocapitalized and ' are never put in automatically.  What a pain.... problems of the first world.

Anyway, the ISA gang and I went to Seville and Cordoba for the weekend, approximately two weekends ago, spanning across days 31-32 of me located in Spain.

Seville was founded as the Roman city of Hispalis.  Like all cities in Andalusia, it was then overtaken by the Moors and now is Catholizied.

Friday, 2/22/13.

Friday we departed via bus for Seville, getting there two or four hours later.  I can't remember but I am almost positive it was an even number.  Basically, the directors handed us our hotel room keys and told us to have fun.  Well I guess, to their credit, it was after a "panoramic" tour of the city... in which we drove around by bus through the same series of buildings.  Like five times.  Really.  I can't remember the Spanish word for them at the moment, but they were something like consulates.

We did stop by the Plaza de España, which is actually the plaza that J.C. Nichole's based the Kansas City Plaza off of.  This was kind of cool.

Sarah and I were put with another girl in our room, so that night the three of us joined three other girls to go out for some pizza and find a bar.  Why pizza?  Well, we've been eating Spanish food for a month now.  Believe me you would get sick of it too.

We found pizza, it was alright. We found a bar, it was alright.  And then, we went to the hotel to sleep. I don't really know... Friday nights are kind of lame in Spain.

Saturday, 2/23/13.

Saturday was a bit more exciting, as we toured some of the sights of the city.

Hmm... what did we see? Obviously it left quite the impression on me, no?  Just kidding.  Going back to edit my photos is proof of how spectacular Seville is.

We started the day at the Catedral de Seville, which is officially the largest cathedral in the world.  Like most of the cathedrals in the area, it was built to overshadow an Arab mosque.

The cathedral also is holds the remains of Christopher Columbus.  A part of the cathedral contains his tomb and a monument to him.  Our guide explained that his remains consist of only a few broken bones because they were moved several times after he died until finally resting in Seville.  It is thought that half of his remains are still in the Caribbean.

Next, we headed on over to Alcázar, which is a combination forts, gardens, and palaces that have been added on to over the years, as the strange combo of architecture shows.

After the tour, our guide let us go for free time for the remainder of the day.  Madison and I went to search for a cute little cafe with "el menu del dia," where you can have a drink, first and second course, dessert and cafe o aqua for usually 10-15 euro.

We did find a cute little place, and ended up ordering a pitcher of sangria to share. Now before you go and think all kinds of bad things about girls who drink a pitcher of sangria over lunch, this was probably the fifth pitcher we'd ordered over lunches since we've been in Spain, and we've only eaten lunch out (at this point) as many times as that.  Drinking during meals--including during the day--is normal and just a part of life here.  Also, the sangria or more juice that intoxicating alcohol...

But... this day, our waiter suggested champagne for the sangria.  As it was the same price, we went for it.  But with this sangria, a glass was enough to need a nap... so we went and took a little siesta before heading back out to photograph some graffiti.

Near the hotel there was a huge bridge and under the bridge, along with high schoolers drinking and doing who knows what else, was a ton of absolutely stunning graffiti.  It seems as if all of Europe is tattooed with tags that really are (for the most part) absolute works of art.  I wish we had more of this back in the states, to be honest.

After, we went to find ...  After a 30-40 minute walk taking every which way but the most direct, we found it.  It was definitely worth the exercise as the building was (yet another) work of art.

The night ended at a quiet italian place (yes another!), with a lemonchello shot (sipped!!!), and bed early to prepare for our adventure in Cordoba the following day.

Fotos to come chicos, way too many to stuff in this blog!