14 hours in Sevilla

i discovered that i've been keeping this as a draft since march. march!!! since i'm feeling oddly sentimental about europe now, i thought it would be nice to finally finish this and post it.

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after a four- or five-hour bus ride from granada, i arrived in sevilla with pia and jeline at about eight in the evening. i left at ten in the morning the very next day, staying a grand total of fourteen hours.

it was enough. enough at least to do the following:

• get lost in a square full of shops that sold flamenco shoes and wedding gowns
• somehow find our way to our totally unmarked, anonymous hostel
• lug thirty kilos of luggage up a narrow, steep flight of stairs
• meet the world's cutest, most harrassed and spaced-out all-around swiss-french muchacho (the guy at the front desk at oasis)
• be shocked that we were checking into mixed-gender dorm rooms
• join a free tapas tour with least a dozen other travelers
• snap pictures in front of the catedral
• get a minor crush on one of my tapas tour-mates
• stuff my face with sodium-packed tapas and sangria
• laugh uproariously and take photos upon seeing that the tapas bar was on a street called calle gago
• walk downtown to a bar called la carboneria for a free flamenco performance
• put away my camera as requested
• wonder why polka dots seem to be an integral part of a flamenco dancer's wardrobe
• watch flamenco
• fall in love
• marvel at the passion and intensity of flamenco all the way back to our hostel
• be not-so-secretly pleased that we were sharing our mixed-gender hostel room with my minor crush
• go online
• sleep
• wake up and get ready to go
• misplace my room key and pay a 5-euro fine
• have sardines and toast for breakfast while looking at la giralda in the distance
• walk briskly with my minor crush to take photos of the catedral and la giralda in the excellent morning sun
• part ways (he had to catch a bus to portugal, i had to catch a flight to barcelona)
• get totally lost on the way back to the hostel
• acquire a pair of leopard-print flats in the process
• decided "ah f*ck i'll miss my flight, f*ck the money, i'm taking a cab"
• have a twenty-minute conversation with the cabbie in atrocious but oddly serviceable spanish
• turn down a free cab ride to cordoba
• make a friend (if i ever need a cab in sevilla, i know who to call)

incidentally, i bought a taschen book on moorish architecture in andalusia, and i found out (among other fascinating things) that granada used to be called elvira. la lang.

i am soooo going back there someday.