seville in merry spain
god i love spain, it is the best - there is an amazing nocturnal culture here, and they pretty much do everything about 4 hours later than the rest of europe - which isn't exactly the best when you're arriving in seville at 6 in the morning after an allnighter on the bus and all you want is some breakfast... other than that the sleep-in, siesta and late/all night party organisation of their society is great for me. the famous 'lost post' of our night out in salamanca will be somewhat accounted for in this post because we had a similar night out here in seville (although there was no bar playing radiohead and it was a little more expensive so salamanca is still no.1 in my books).
a long day of catching some winks in a starbucks in the early hours of the morning while waiting for our room to clear *they're good for something!* was followed by some hardcore sightseeing as we only have 2 full days. incidentally there is a fiesta on this weekend so we were lucky enough to pick up a cheap room at all, and our midnight shift receptionist, jose, was most eager to look after us so that was a nice start. visited the cathedral which is apparently the largest gothic stlye cathedral in the world and has the tomb of chris columbus in one end. the most interesting part is the fact that the cathedral, before the gothic style flying buttresses and upper levels of the church were added, was a muslim mosque. for those without any spanish history the moors (beasts with two backs that they are) occupied spain for many years but in the 12th and 13th century, so i recall from the leaflet that i left in the cathedral, the christians came in with their swords and took over. as a result the cathedral in seville is a pleasant blurring of architecture and a sad reminder of waring societies. there is a lot of muslim architecture here; but the finest example of which we will be seeing in grenada when we arrive there later on tonight. teh alcazar here, however, is a fine example of this stlye and was, of all things, used as the court in which many of the decisions concerning the explorations of the america's in collaboration with the portuguese and other such pre-modern historic decisions were made.
utterly exhausted by 6pm we managed a nice 4hour siesta in our floral laundry-tiled (great for cleaning up those unwanted spills and for doing your washing next to your bed) room. it goes without saying that we were feeling pretty trashy when we woke up but were soon out the door and on the way out to quench our thirsts and feed our hungry bellies with the very enticing prospect of a red wine, granedine and coke special and, of course, tapas. we knew we were in the right part of town when we started passing spaniards with plastic bags full of bottleshop alcohol and softdrink. it is common practice to stand on the side of the road in your favourite end of town and drink allongside hundreds of other like-minded people outside bars packed with those who can afford the 2euro litres of afformentioned wine/coke mix. there is a specific name for that drink but i can't remember it for the life of me so we just point because invariably there is someone sipping on one. the plastic cups that they serve you with are about the size of your head and half of that is free poured with house wine. there is no such thing as a shot-glass here, and the same goes with outdoor drinking rules and personally i think it's a fantastic idea. i didn't witness any violence whatsoever; it is sad that our extenuously rigid laws in australia prohibit this kind of atmosphere. i blame hundreds of years of aggressive ex-convicts.
in sum: go to spain
ps. it's also good to note when they change their daylight saving clocks here; i thought it was tonight but it seems we inadvertantly got up an hour early thismorning... not sure what we're going to do while we wait that extra hour for our bus this evening. might have to hit some coke and you know what (hint it's red).
a long day of catching some winks in a starbucks in the early hours of the morning while waiting for our room to clear *they're good for something!* was followed by some hardcore sightseeing as we only have 2 full days. incidentally there is a fiesta on this weekend so we were lucky enough to pick up a cheap room at all, and our midnight shift receptionist, jose, was most eager to look after us so that was a nice start. visited the cathedral which is apparently the largest gothic stlye cathedral in the world and has the tomb of chris columbus in one end. the most interesting part is the fact that the cathedral, before the gothic style flying buttresses and upper levels of the church were added, was a muslim mosque. for those without any spanish history the moors (beasts with two backs that they are) occupied spain for many years but in the 12th and 13th century, so i recall from the leaflet that i left in the cathedral, the christians came in with their swords and took over. as a result the cathedral in seville is a pleasant blurring of architecture and a sad reminder of waring societies. there is a lot of muslim architecture here; but the finest example of which we will be seeing in grenada when we arrive there later on tonight. teh alcazar here, however, is a fine example of this stlye and was, of all things, used as the court in which many of the decisions concerning the explorations of the america's in collaboration with the portuguese and other such pre-modern historic decisions were made.
utterly exhausted by 6pm we managed a nice 4hour siesta in our floral laundry-tiled (great for cleaning up those unwanted spills and for doing your washing next to your bed) room. it goes without saying that we were feeling pretty trashy when we woke up but were soon out the door and on the way out to quench our thirsts and feed our hungry bellies with the very enticing prospect of a red wine, granedine and coke special and, of course, tapas. we knew we were in the right part of town when we started passing spaniards with plastic bags full of bottleshop alcohol and softdrink. it is common practice to stand on the side of the road in your favourite end of town and drink allongside hundreds of other like-minded people outside bars packed with those who can afford the 2euro litres of afformentioned wine/coke mix. there is a specific name for that drink but i can't remember it for the life of me so we just point because invariably there is someone sipping on one. the plastic cups that they serve you with are about the size of your head and half of that is free poured with house wine. there is no such thing as a shot-glass here, and the same goes with outdoor drinking rules and personally i think it's a fantastic idea. i didn't witness any violence whatsoever; it is sad that our extenuously rigid laws in australia prohibit this kind of atmosphere. i blame hundreds of years of aggressive ex-convicts.
in sum: go to spain
ps. it's also good to note when they change their daylight saving clocks here; i thought it was tonight but it seems we inadvertantly got up an hour early thismorning... not sure what we're going to do while we wait that extra hour for our bus this evening. might have to hit some coke and you know what (hint it's red).
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