Sangria and Rooftop Patios. A match made in Heaven

This blog entry may be a bit shorter than the others, since this day was primarily a travel/beach day, and so there are less exciting things to look at pictures off. So it some of the pictures seem a bit odd... just know that I only had 43 pictures with which to choose from. I have had blog posts with more pictures than that! So bear with me as we explore the day that was our trip from Sevilla to Malaga.

So we woke up bright and early yet again. Probably around 10? I actually can't remember when the alarm went off... Probably 10, that is about when we have been leaving. Eric and Allison still had to pack. Eric had most of his clothes just sitting in a pile and it all looked very unorganized. He claimed that he could pack up in 3 minutes.

Eric with his pile of stuff. I am not sure that looking contemplative will make the bag pack quicker.


I started a timer and Eric was off. He actually got all his clothes packed in two minutes and declared himself done. I thought he meant he could pack all his stuff in three minutes, which he didn't attempt. So we will call this one a draw.

We were aiming to catch the 1 PM train to Malaga, so we wanted to leave by 11:30 or so to make sure that we made it with plenty of time to spare. The trek to the train station is pretty long, so we tried to build in a bit of insurance time. We actually leave the hotel at about 11:50... maybe 11:45, which for us is actually pretty good. The fact that we were within 15 minutes of our scheduled departure is a vast improvement.

So, we walk out into the heat of Sevilla and head to the train station. We figured that we had been pretty inefficient in how we got to our hotel so it would be a little easier. Since Eric knew the map pretty well we sent him out in the lead and headed out.

Eric leading the way through Sevilla.

The trip was long and hot and by the time we got to the train station I was yet again sweaty all over, actually a common occurrence in Sevilla. I am pretty sure that the weather hit triple digits, and when you are walking around with all your stuff... well.... that leads to sweat. For those eagle eyed readers you may have noticed that Eric is wearing the same shirt today as he was yesterday. He did this figuring that it would just get sweaty and gross again and he would just want to change it anyway, so why not just wear the same shirt. This seemed a bit controversial to me... but after getting to the train station and having my shirt be soaked... I actually thought his idea was pretty good.

We had to get tickets, which actually went pretty smoothly. The guy did not speak english, but we were sort of able to stumble through it. More specifically Eric was. I think it went something like this.

Eric: Hable engles?
Train Man: No!
E: uh... tres (holds up three fingers) sevilla to malaga
TM: MA-laga
E: si?
TM: jabbers at Eric in spanish
E: Uh....
TM: Draws a picture of a clock, point to his own watch, draws a 1 on the paper.
E: Ah! Si! 1 o'clock
TM: Grumbles in spanish and gets out tickets for us.

It is a pretty smooth operation we got going on down here, we totally have them eating... out of our hands, it is good we are leaving soon or we might own this entire country through sheer charm.

Anyway, out breakfasts had been pretty small and we were all a bit hungry from out walk and the fact that it was 12:30, so we get some lunch. Eric and I both get Spanish Omelet Baguettes and Allison gets Pasta with red sauce, which she has seemingly been craving for the entire trip.

We get our food and we stand in the station and watch as our train does not have a platform and it is soon 12:55 and we still don't have a platform. Soon the platform is flashed and we rush down to board, only to find that... there is no train! So we decide to eat lunch.

Eric and Allison with Lunch at the train station. (sans actual train)

The train soon arrives, right as Allison is finishing her pasta, which is extremely good timing. Perhaps they were watching? We file onto the train and find our seats. I am in the very last row, sitting right behind Eric and Allison, which allows me to spy on them. However, I could also easily be attacked as my seat is right by the door.

This train is not as nice as the one from Madrid to Sevilla, but it is also 60 euros cheaper, so we will live. The AC does not really work, well at least it is pretty warm on the train. But if that is our biggest complaint than we are doing fine.

Eric and I both read for a lot of the trip and Allison listened to her iPod

The exciting view of the seat in front of me.... I almost couldn't stop watching it was so exciting!

About 2:30 hours later and after stopping in several small towns. We arrived in Malaga. It was about 78 degrees and it was soooooooooooo nice after being in the furnace that was Sevilla. We were also treated to a view of some amazing hot pants. It made me thing of this video that Katie had been watching a lot. I know that mentioning this may inspire another round of video watching, but I can't help it. For those unaware of, and interested, the video can be found here!

I wonder if she is going to activate her dance floor kitty?

I had written down directions from the train station to our hotel. A vast improvement from our previous methods, which was.

Madrid: Walk around in circles trying to find it and spiral in towards it
Toledo: Know the name and the plaza it was sort of next too but nothing else
Sevilla: Walk a billion miles in the boiling sun through a sketchy stinky part of town.

By comparison our walk was easy! I got a little confused about streets and the sign for our hotel is not easy to see (At all!) In fact, if Eric and Allison hadn't of seen it I might still be walking. We walked into the building and found.... nothing, just stairs and 2 elevators... so we searched around and finally found that the hotel was on the 8th floor, so we hoped in the elevator and up we went.

We checked in and the internet seemed to be working great! So that was awesome! We walked to our room and... PATIO!!! Private PATIO! The room was awesome, The bathroom was down the hall from the two bedrooms, and we had one double bed and one room with two twins, which was prefect.

Eric and I exploring the patio.


Me on the patio.

I am not sure if you have been able to tell, but so far on the trip, every bed that we have had has been a twin bed. So even though Eric and Allison are sleeping next to each other, they are actually on different beds. In this place, they actually share a bed. So I am sure that is exciting. The adjustment to being in actually rooms is strange and for a while we just shout at each about our plans. I eventually walk over to check it out:

Hmm.. not sleeping? I thought it was a siesta.

We discuss our plans for tomorrow and due to the fact that it would be a 3 hour bus ride there and back we decide that we won't do it. At the moment, I almost wish I had gone anyway... but oh well, it's in the past. So around 6 we decide to head down to the beach, which is a bit of a walk away.

Eric putting on his liquid armor against the sun.

As we are headed out the hotel manager stops us and tells us in spanish, only so that we understand that after 8 the door downstairs is locked and that we have to hit a little button and he will let us in. And he informs us that we can do this at any hour. I guess that mean's he doesn't sleep? Or just during the day? We tell him we understand and head out.

After our walk next to the roaring traffic we find the beach. It is actually pretty empty, we walk down the beach until we find an appropriate spot and Eric and I head for the water. Eric dives right in. I am a bit slower and take my time. Not the best way according to Eric. He is probably right, but I always have problems jumping right in.

Come on Chris the water won't hurt! you can do it!
Eventually I get in and we swim around for a bit. I am not all that strong of a swimmer, but it is nice to swim. It would have been nicer if it was warmer, but it was still great, and we can now say that we have swam in the Mediterranean Sea!
A picture of the beach and some of Malaga

After we got out we showered the sand off and began to head back. It should be noted that we didn't actually have any towels. Which... was a little annoying, but we dried pretty quickly, so that was nice.

As we were walking back we saw this really ribbed guy doing handstands and flips and stuff. I am including a few pictures, since it was pretty impressive, both what he was doing and him. (just so you know, you can click to view it as a bigger picture, this works for all photos.)

Look how flexible he is!

Our final stop of the day was ice cream, which was another thing that Allison had been craving. We ate it as the watched the Sea and this little dog run around chasing birds and kids, and anything that he could find.

They wanted me to take a picture by the ice cream stand. I was confused.
On the walk back we saw another cat, well... actually 3. This one wasn't doing anything. I actually think it might have been sick. But there are a lot of stray cats here, and in Spain. I think they need a spanish Bob Barker who can remind them to spay and neuter their pets.



We headed back home, this time we walked through the park, which was a much nicer walk than by the busy road. We also saw quite a few couples making out. This was a much better place than the Italica. It seems like parks are actually a pretty common place to make out.

We get back to the hotel at about 8:35 and ring the bell. The guy lets us up and greets us and waves. I go to ask him if he knows were a supermarket is. so I stammer... tienda de comida? "Store of Food" and he seems to understand so he calls me over to his window and directs me to walk all the way down the street and at the end, there will be a supermercado, but... it closes at 9. He emphasizes this by holding up nine fingers and saying it three times. But he was super helpful and friendly, so its all good :)

We quickly head up to our room, change our shoes and head out. We make it there with 12 minutes to spare and run around getting food. They have everything that we want except for baguettes, so we end up getting a pretty nice feast and we take it back and eat it on the patio.

The day draws to a close as we finish off another thing of Sangria. Eric and Allison try to convince me to play Sangria pong tomorrow, which I finally agree too. So we will see how that goes...lol, even though I already know :)

French Fry omelets lead to stomach Problems... who knew? Shoulda just had sangria!

So I thought that this post was going to be kind of epic, since we did a ton on this day, but I am not sure how much I am actually going to be able to adequately explain. There are actually fewer pictures today, since there were a couple of things that we did that are either impossible to capture on film, (Flamenco), we just forgot to take pictures (the walk through the Barrio), there wasn't much to take pictures of (the map exhibit), or we were too terrified (the bus station). So we will see. I went into this thinking that for sure it was going to be the longest post, but now I am not so sure.


So before we went to bed, we debated when we should get up. I thought that we should get up early and try to get about doing things before the heat really set in, so I suggested maybe 7 AM, so that we could get up and out and catch the first bus at 830 to the Italica. (Roman ruins about 30 mins out of Sevilla). This did not go over well with Eric and Allison and instead we set the alarm for 9 AM, pretty much insuring that we would be there in the noonday heat.

So the alarm did a pretty good job of actually getting us up on time and we got out of our apartment by around 10:15 or so. A little later than we actually wanted to get up by, but pretty close. And we headed out and on our way. Our breakfasts were pretty meager. We each had a piece of fruit and some snacks, but probably not as much as we should have had. The walk was pretty nice, we made sure to not walk down by the river like we had the first time and as the temperate was much nicer at 10 than it is during most of the day, the walk was quite pleasant.

We arrived at the station at about 10:40 and stood in line to see if we had to buy tickets. We found out that we just paid our fare on the bus and so we headed down to the terminal where there are lots and lots of buses, Eric decides to go to the bathroom as we wait for the bus, which is supposed to leave at 11 AM. The bus soon pulls up, but we can't really get on since they are cleaning it. Allison, who had thought about going to get something to eat, decides that she will just wait since there will probably be something at the Italica.

Eric arrives right as people a re allowed on the bus and so we board and pay our 1.30 euro fare. The driver says "Italica.... spanish spanish spanish?" "Si" I reply. "Italica" He seems to know where we are going, so that is good. He says the same thing to eric, who replies similarly. So we have a pretty cool driver. At first Eric really wants him to be the driver in Corvallis, since he drives crazily and will stop for people who are late. Then as the traffic violations pile up, such as cutting across 4 lanes of traffic in basically a diagonal line, we realize that maybe he wouldn't fit in very well in Corvallis.
We're on a BUS!

The trip to Italica takes us through a really poor part of town, or I guess a poor suburb or slum of Sevilla, and then to Santiponce, which is where the Italica is. It is an interesting look at Spain, since you don't often seem sights like that.

I don't think that you can see it from the picture above, but there was one other couple that was going to Italica on the same bus as us. A young Spanish couple, that made out briefly in the bus. Which isn't surprising given that it happens everywhere in Spain, but I mention it only so that I won't have to mention it later. We will call these people, RJ for Romeo and Juliet.

So we get to Italica and we walk up and we get in for Free!!! It was only 1.5 euros anyway, but still, free is free, so that was exciting. The entrance to the ruins is actually nicely shaded and it looks really good. However, you soon reach a part where there are basically no trees and in the 11:30 AM heat, this is pretty hot. I feel kind of vindicated about my statement that we should leave early, but I stay silent (until now).
Allison is eager to get started, she bolts ahead while Eric is still going to the bathroom. Allison bolting ahead was actually a common theme at the Italica.

As soon as we walk into the ruins, it looks pretty cool. Obviously they are pretty damaged, otherwise they would be called buildings, but it is cool to look at the foundations of things that used to be there, and think about what they were like.

Eric and Allison, figuring out where to go next/looking at the ruins.
Eric and I checking out the town wall... where is all the shade???

There were a couple of really cool mosaics that were pretty undamaged. This is the mosaic of neptune and was kind of declared the second coolest thing at the Italica. Hopefully it comes out well.

This is me looking at some other mosaics and doing some funky hand movements. Great timing for a picture. :-/
I redeemed myself by posing for this awesome picture with a naked statue. I got this shot, because I was willing to walk behind the guy. The statue was very impressive. I guess everything was to scale so that made it more so.

The shot from behind wasn't bad either.

Part of Italica can't be dug up because the city of santiponce was built on top of it. As you can see in the background of this picture, I am not sure why that was a big deal..... Seems like santiponce doesn't really need to stay there? bah... oh well :)

After walking to see this thing way out in the middle of nowhere and then walking to see the baths we found another feline friend, chilling in the shade of this little stone block. It was just so random and the cat didn't seem to mind us walking by. I tried to give the cat some water from my nalgene bottle, since we thought it might be thirsty. It didn't show any interest in the water whatsoever and just meandered away and went and presumably found some more shade.


After we had finished with most of the ruins, we headed to the Roman Theater or Colosseum type place, which was by far the coolest place at Italica. Here is a picture of the entrance to it.

So we walk in and immediatly I think of what it must have been like for gladiators to walk through those doors ready to fight lions. and tigers! and Bears! oh my!! lol.... anyway, it was a pretty cool place, and of course it was time for a panoramajama.
The panorama didn't actually come out that well the building just sort of looks like a triangle...when I tried change the type of meld it just go really bad... so... we will stick with this one!
After looking at the main arena we headed underneath the seats, into the hallways of the Colosseum.


This might be one of my favorite pictures. This is us just walking the hallways, pondering what went on it them. We talked about whether they had vendors that sold candy or popcorn, or whatever it was the romans ate... fried sand maybe? Or ceasar salad.

Do you think they called cesear salad ceasar salad? That wouln't make a whole lot of sense. Maybe they called it something like ... Hercules Salad? no? well fine. I can just imagine Ceasar trying to order one.

Ceasar: I will take a me salad!
Waiter: a me salad? You mean meat?
Ceasar: No! A ME salad.
Waiter: uh...
Ceasar: Do you know who I am?!?! I am famous!

Here is Allison in the hallways.
We also managed to run RJ from the bus. The were making out in the back corner of the colloseum. I think they kind of hate us, since we kept running into them out in the ruins and they kept trying to stare us down. It was very weird. They left and went and found a new spot. I am not sure what they were doing. It was not a very good place to make out.

Eric and I posing outside the Colloseum.
So after Italicia is was about time for lunch/Menu del Dia. There was this little place across the street that Eric wanted to go to, and I thought it would be fun. Allison was less sure, but I think she was hungry enough to go.

She ended up getting a french fry omelet... which while not bad, wasn't very good, at least she didn't think so.

So we had to eat kind of fast, but we were able to get out in time and catch our bus back to the city.

Safely away from the french fry omelet. You can exhale now.

We got off a little early, before the main station and walked back to our room, which means that we got there actually rather quickly, by 3 about.

So after a siesta, in which Eric and Allison slept and I organized pictures and read, we were off again for more exploring.

The first stop was this map exhibit that had lots of old maps of the area. Eric and Allison are really into old maps, so this exhibit was fun for them. And it was free, so that was nice. The exhibit was pretty small and all in Spanish, but the progression of maps was cool to see.

After that we decided to walk down to the gardens that Eric wanted to visit, and so we started heading over there. We stopped to by postcards and noticed a landmark in Sevilla that we had not visited yet. Plaza de Espana, and it looked cool, so we were confused. Why hadn't we gone? So we quickly purchased our postcards and headed over there. On our way we walked through the barrio (jewish part of town and this was actually really cool and I wish we had had more time for it. Lots of neat little plazas and fountains.

Anyway, we finally get down to Plaza de Espana and it was amazing! I am glad that we went. It was a more modern building and the construction/remodeling was annoying, but the building was really cool and a nice last major site to see.

We also managed to get a picture with all of us, so that was really nice. You can see some of the building in the background.
It was again panoramajama time. However, due to construction, the pictures had to be taking from a not prime location... sadly, this affected the panorama. But it is still pretty cool.

They had these cool tiles, one for each state or area in Spain that were decorated with a specific event and then they had a map in front showing where it was. Eric and Allison explored these and took some pictures while I did my panorama.

A cool Don Quixote Tile:
Allison near the tiles.

We walked around a little more and found some cool stairs. We could go to the balcony!!!! So of course we did.

Well... Allison was tired of walking, she stayed down there.We pretended we were lords and we were surveying our land. We are sort of looking in different directions. We must have a lot of land.

After, we walked a little through the park that Eric had wanted to explore. I finally took a picture of the horse carriages that are all over Sevilla. There are so many! It seems like there are way to many. I don't know why they are all there. I guess looking for work?
On our way to the flamenco dancing that we had for the night we saw this cool building that houses flamenco dancing I guess? It was also on the news since some famous people stopped by earlier in the day. The royal family maybe?
We made it to the flamenco bar at about 8:25, we needed to be there by 830 and so we stood in line. We were not pushy enough so some people cut in front of us. Annoyingly common in Spain. But we eventually got in. The seats were not great. We couldn't see the dancers feet, but the dance was incrediably. very passionate and chaotic and amazing.... There is no way that I could describe it. At times the dancer looked angry and times happy and the dancer and the guitarist and the singer all played off each other, rising and falling to match speed and tempo and making the music and dance meld together in a sort of mind blowing way. I highly recommend seeing in if you are ever in Spain.

Pictures will never do it justice, but here is a picture of the dance.
Afterwards we walked out and found the bell tower all lit up.... we then walked around and tr

We again settled on El Aquador, the place that we had stopped the previous day. We lucked out and had an amazing waiter Anfernee who explained the whole menu to us and even gave Allison a special salad. I ended up getting Bull Tail, which Anfernee said was sort of a national dish of the area, or Spain. It actually ended up being really really good. amazingly tender and great.

(Note, his name was not Anfernee... but I figured he needed a name since he was so cool.)
We also got Sangria, which was amazing! Way better than boxed Sangria!


A picture of me and my bull tail meal!

And that was pretty much the day. We headed up, packed up, slept and prepared for our trip to Malaga.