Day 8 - Seville

While I was getting ready this morning, Guy walked to get us some pastries from this fabulous bakery we spied out last night. I told him anything chocolate. He came back with 4 delicious looking options and the chocolate covered creme filled pastry was the closest he could come to my favorite from Mark's bakery. ;) I told Guy later I couldn't believe I forgot to take a picture of them because they were wrapped up so cute. He told me to take a picture of my stomach. I don't want to ruin any appetites, so we'll let that one go. As we walked out of the hotel there was quite the demonstration going on. We asked the lady at the desk what they were protesting and she said something about they were city workers, something about a big company, and she said "who knows what they are upset about today". The police followed them and later in the morning we came across them again, all at the palace gates. They even closed off the roads to let them do their thing. It was loud, but pretty innocent. We figured they let them do that peacefully instead of trying to stop them and it getting ugly. Apparently this was a frequent thing. While at the gates I took some video of them. As soon as I quit videoing, a giant fire cracker went off. It was really loud, but the police were everywhere and they didn't even flinch. So again, probably a regular thing.

Today is also laundry day. We walked to the Laundromat and there were two ladies inside. One spoke a little bit of English, so she told us we needed to put our laundry in the machine and they'd put it in the dryers for us. We hoped to get it all in one machine, but we had too much. So for 20 euros we'll be back on track with our laundry and may need to do only a piece or two in Portugal. She told us to either come back at 6pm or they close at 6pm, we aren't sure. After I put the clothes in, she dumped a big scoop of powder in and began the process. So I'm not sure if they are washing in hot or cold...all I know is they are washing. They only had two washers and two dryers that we saw out front, so lucky for us the other one was just finishing so we could get everything going at once. It looked like they were a dry cleaner as well, as lots of suits in plastic were hanging in the back. As we left (and had pre-paid) Guy asked if they took our name or anything. They did not, so hopefully our stuff is there when we return.

So while we were waiting on our clothes, we purchased tickets for the red (not green) Hop on Hop off bus and we hopped on! The ride was an hour and 20 minutes. It was a beautiful day, so again we sat on upper deck of the bus that was open. We entered a portion of Seville called Triana and one of the first things you saw was a statue of a young man that sailed with Columbus and was the first one on the ship to spot land and yelled "Land Ahoy". I thought "ahoy" was just something pirates said to their mateys- or maybe the real word got lost in translation. :) Anyhow, the boy was from that town. As the tour continued I snapped several photos and we had a nice time enjoying the sights of Seville. The streets are way too tiny toward the center of town for the big ole buses to go through, but we are easily hitting all that on foot. Two stops from the end, we happened to come by the bus station and purchasing our bus tickets to Faro, Portugal was on our list to do today! So we hopped off and went inside. It was a bit confusing because there were about 10 windows and they looked like different companies. So we talked to two different ladies and the second lady said all the windows were all the same. We chose to leave on the 9:30am bus and they look like comfy large motor coaches, so this will be just another exciting part of the adventure! She told us which platform to go to and we went over to scope it out. We saw it right away, so we should be good to go!

We walked down the road a bit and ended up at the river again, where we had walked yesterday. We were getting hungry and we knew we wanted to hit one of the restaurants we saw last night that had calamari. We found it right away - the Restaurant Almirante Almirantazgo. It took us a bit of time to get waited on, but it was worth it. You could either get the food as a Tapa, or as a large plate. We just went with the tapas. We ordered three items, eggplant with goat cheese and tortillas, calamari, and seafood paella. I really do think that presentation makes food taste better and by looking at the eggplant and goat cheese - it was a piece of art - I knew it had to be fabulous....and it WAS!  Possibly my favorite thing so far on the trip. At first I thought it may be some kind of eggplant pate, but instead I think it was more like eggplant hummus. I licked it clean! Next came the calamari, then the paella. It was all delicious. Afterwards we tried out a new ice cream shop. I knew when she was dipping mine that I was going to be disappointed. It wasn't creamy, but instead it was crumbly. So if ice cream could be dry...this is what it tasted like. I took several bites, it was making a mess, so it met the trash can. Wasn't worth wasting the calories on - even when you are on vacation and aren't counting them.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped in a few shops and bought some T-shirts. We came back to the room and by now it is time to get the laundry. So Guy ventured off by himself while I sat and blogged from the inside courtyard. I was out on our back patio, but because it is in the shade and it is extremely windy today, I got a bit chilly and came in. The Internet is faster inside anyway. It took him no time and he was back carrying a large bag - obviously not folded. He said when he got there the lady handed him a bag and made him unload. When he arrived they were warm, but had obviously been sitting there for a bit due to all the wrinkles (we have no iron in the room). So I folded them and pressed them with my hands. Hey, no body knows us...to the Spanish we are just another pair of wrinkly tourists. Ha Ha. It looks like everything made it back except one sock didn't have a partner. It is probably in one of the bags. 

We are thinking about taking a side trip because we think after tomorrow we will have covered the basics of Seville. Guy spoke to one of the ladies at the desk and she gave him several options. She said the easiest is to hop on the train to Cordoba and visit it. We did contemplate that when we were making our initial trip plans, but as we stopped at the Cordoba train station on the way in to Seville, it didn't seem like it was very appealing. However, it is apparently like Seville and the quaint areas are in the center, which we couldn't have seen from the train. So we are going to see what we get covered tomorrow and go from there. It is nice to have options. Our next destination from Seville is Portugal and our hotel is on the ocean. Those will be our relaxing beach days and our feet are looking forward to sand instead of cobblestones.

We freshened up and got ready for dinner, but it was 8:45 before we left the hotel. We are finally eating dinner at the same time as the locals! We wanted to go to the L'Oca Giuliva (Italian) for dinner and knew it was right around the corner from the hotel, but we stopped at the desk to ask which way to turn. They guy pointed out the door and we started laughing as it was right across the street. We went over to see about a table but they were full and we could either eat outside (too cold and breezy) or come back at 10pm. Since we slept in today and had a late lunch, we opted for the 10pm reservation. So for the next hour and 15 minutes we strolled around the back streets and I shopped the shops, picking up some earrings. We got a bit "lost" but came upon some really beautiful courtyards, one with a beautiful little garden and fountain - they had a few shops and restaurants surrounding them and were tucked away from the main stream of traffic. They didn't have near the customers as the main streets and we wondered how they stayed open. We came upon a grocery store and I popped in for some orange juice and more ham flavored ruffles for our bus trip to Portugal. We took our purchases back to the room because we still had about 15 minutes and they weren't ready for us yet. Promptly at 10pm we walked back over and our lovely table was ready! We ordered Caprese salad to share and I had a dish that was stuffed pasta with ricotta cheese and spinach with a bit of tomato sauce on top and Guy had spaghetti carbonara. There were three servers and they all played a role in the meal. One sat us and got our drinks, one took our food order, and the other brought our food out. The place was crazy busy even at 11pm and we wondered how the little 3 year old next to us was even still awake. We ordered Tiramisu for dessert to round out our fabulous dinner experience. The food was excellent but nothing over-the-top, however, the atmosphere of the darling restaurant and the service made it exceptional. Trip Advisor was once again on the money.

One last thing. When you look at today's photos and you see a photo of a random guy, it was because I was sitting at dinner and I told guy to look over his shoulder and tell me who the guy in the striped shirt looked like.  Just as I was getting ready to tell him it was someone local from home, he turned to me and said "He looks like Mike Ward!".  Yep!