Day 10 - Seville

It rained during the night last night. It woke me and I wasn't sure if I was hearing water on in the bathroom or if it was rain. So Guy got up to look and it was raining. This morning the sun was popping in and out of clouds and again it is very windy, which makes the air feel cooler. My sweaters have come in useful and I would have packed more long sleeve items, but the weather channel had the 10 day forecast a bit hotter than it really ended up being. Guy got ready and headed out for pastries while I did my hair. This time I got a photo of the fabulous goodies and we split the pastries so we could try everything. De-lish. I'm laughing to myself because in "real life" my breakfast usually consists of a 90 calorie granola bar, some water, and if I've been a good girl, a Chai Latte at work. ;)

We headed out today in no rush because today is just a leisure shopping day and since we are packed so tightly we aren't buying much. However, you can't come to Spain and not bring back a few goodies! I think that is some kind of sin, or bad luck, or something!  LOL. I did find a really cute pair of shoes, but for some reason I'm showing some unnatural form of restraint. Maybe something I ate last night. :) So we hit the shops we saw the other day going to the Mushroom. Some were really expensive and some were quite reasonable. We also headed to the area's department store. It was several floors of shopping with some of the usual mall brands such as Lancôme, Ralph Lauren, etc. I did hit the sale racks looking for a sweater that I could actually put on now, ha ha, but didn't really find anything. I hit all the floors and at the top (probably about 5 levels up) there was a gourmet foods area. I looked around and knew Guy would want to see it. So I went all the way back down and got him as he was already waiting at the meeting point. We went up and really explored all the goodies. Olive oils, wines, candy, a little butcher shop, and several little food areas including a gourmet hamburger area where you chose the gourmet patty and they'd cook it for you. They had different things mixed in the meat, making them all unique. One even had a smiley face on it - not sure what that was about. So we contemplated eating there as the rooftop terrace was quite swanky, but we decided to move on because who in Spain eats lunch at the mall? Would have made for a good blog story, tho! We may go back up and pick up a few goodies later, but we didn't want to carry too much around because we didn't think about bringing the backpack with us.

Side note: I'm typing this in the courtyard of our hotel and because it is High Tea, we are again sipping some warm drinks to knock the chill off. What I've failed to mention before is that at both of the 1800 hotels, they play the same music. It is a combination of an elevator type zen-jazz - if that is possible. Most of them are American songs with no words, just transformed. So if you were wondering if the Christmas song Silent Night could be transformed into zen-jazz, the answer is yes.

After walking around most of the shops, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch called the Dona Francisquita - we think. The reason we were not sure is because we where handed three menus, all with different names at the top. After mild confusion, tho packed with people, we decided this was probably not our choice for our big meal of the day. So we ordered some tapas and cokes. Our tapas were potatoes with cheese and bacon and a cheese and olive oil plate. The cheese was a harder cheese more like a Parmesan and was strong in taste but very good. However, it required some bread as an accompaniment. We were going to order this fabulous looking 3 chocolate dessert but it started sprinkling and Guy had goosebumps from the breezy air, so we headed back to the hotel until the dark cloud passed. A good chance to grab a warm drink, rest up, and blog. Checking Trip Advisor, this restaurant didn't do very well. I read the funny stories and was glad we only snacked there. It has no website, so it won't be listed on the right side-bar of the blog.

Ok...so Guy said he read somewhere that Christopher Columbus is buried right next door to us in the Seville Cathedral. Well...that is a pretty big deal! So after Googling it, apparently it is quite the mystery. A CNN article said DNA is showing that the body in Seville is indeed that of CC, but those in the Dominican Republic are saying the same about some bones there! The remains in Seville have a DNA match to his brother, Diego and his son, Hernando. It was said CC wanted to be buried in the Americas but after his death there were no cathedrals worthy of holding his remains. His bones have been moved around a lot since his death, so it is possible his remains may be in both places! Poor fella, but after telling Guy we needed to run over there and take a look (we were inside the Cathedral last night, but not apparently the part where CC is) he said it closed at 5pm. It is 5:13. *insert sad face here* but we'll check to see if they open again later tonight. If not, opportunity missed. And to add fuel the already controversial fire, the CNN article said that CC may have not been Italian! Blasphemy!

A bit of a rain cloud has kept us at the hotel. Guy is napping and I'm chatting with my sis via Viber. It's a free iPhone to iPhone app that we can talk, text and send pics for free so long as I'm in a wifi spot. It's been working beautifully. ;) Plus Facebook, work emails, and Instagram have filled my time nicely. However, I think it is time to wake Guy up for the rest of our shopping...I can't go out without him...because I will honest to goodness get lost in this city! #alwaystogether #nodirectionalskills

We headed out to do one last bit of shopping in Spain and we hit the dept. store again and the little guy's shop we found earlier today for some local olive oil. There is NO WAY our bags are going to close tomorrow for the bus trip to Portugal. Sigh....we'll figure it out and at least we'll be getting a car tomorrow and can load it all up. ;) We really haven't bought a whole lot, but when your bags are tight from the get go, there isn't much wiggle room for gifts. After this we headed back to the hotel to drop everything off before dinner. It is just before 9pm, so we still were able to hit all our shops before they closed. Even tho it rained today, it isn't humid at all. AND what I haven't mentioned before is the horrible dust that is always blowing around. Sometimes you'll see a mini dust storm coming toward you. There is no where to go to escape it. So you fell pretty cruddy at the end of the day.

Dinner was at the La Azotea on Santa Cruz. There are three of these restaurants in Seville and we went to the one just steps away from our hotel. Trip Advisor highly recommended them. When we got there, the tables were full and it was a bit too chilly to sit outside, so we sat at a side bar across from the main bar. We ordered and our food came out amazingly fast! First was rice paper with cheese and shrimp. It had a tomato sauce on top that sort of tasted like my sauce I make with cream. The inside was a cream cheese type of deliciousness with a shrimp. Had we known how good these were we would have ordered the bigger plate. Guy ordered the Cod and I order the house special eggs with veggies. It was basically an omelette with ham on top. This "ham" we have seen all over town. It is sliced off a giant pig leg that sits out on the counter and they shave it off like the Italians do their prosciutto. However the Italians do cut off the hoof. Not really appetizing to look at, but it certainly was delicious. I have pictures of all the food and a photo of the pig leg with the hoof on. :) He explained the desserts and I wasn't really sure of everything he said, but I heard the word chocolate and went for it. He said it would take about 10 minutes. This is code for "it is going to be REALLY good"! And it was. Like lava cake from home, but less cake and more lava. It was paired with vanilla ice cream and an orange puree. Amazing Amazing Amazing. La Azotea gets a big thumbs up.

Back at the hotel we are trying to organize our bags but will finish up in the morning.  I'm out in the courtyard alone for some quiet to finish up the blog. The guy at the desk saw me and brought me over a bottle of water and a glass. This is a great hotel - hospitality, cleanliness, helpfulness, location - everything! The guy that brought me water just offered to ride to the parking garage with a couple that just arrived late from France. They were worn out from the trip and he is going to go with them since it is dark. Pretty awesome! We have an early 7am wake up call, so we'll try to get to bed early. We are on a sleep in late and stay up late schedule right now, but we can always nap on the bus! Sorry for typos or things that don't make sense. In a little more of a rush today. So tomorrow...Portugal, here we come!