The weekend of July 8th-10th I went down to Sevilla (apparently is Seville in English but did not know that until Tony rudely corrected me) to stay with Yiannis and Lolo and meet up with Kerry and Maura again. I planned on leaving work early that friday to get to Sevilla at 8 pm. But when I went to the bus station, the earliest I could get in was midnight. So I went back to apartment to “work from home” and finally 4 hours later than planned got on my bus. It was a tough decision taking the bus, because the train is 2 hours and 80€ while bus is 6 hours and 20€. I opted to save a lot more money and be uncomfortable.
Anyways so I got into Sevilla a little past midnight and Yiannis, Kerry and Maura all picked me up at the bus station. Apparently I missed out on Lolo’s month earthly birthday party earlier that night, which was kinda sad, and meant he wouldn’t be joining us that night. It was a whole 10 minute walk back to his apartment (I love how walkable everything is here!) and then headed out for the night. Yiannis took us to his favorite place, which of course was an american bar called “Tex Mex”. Sadly, they were not serving food anymore and despite there being a huge awesome banner that said “BEER PONG!” they were also not hosting beer pong. So instead we just each did a shot of jäger (weird, it’s become a drink of choice…) and headed to Triana which is the neighborhood Yiannis lives in. On our way Maura and I realized we were starving, and the only place opened at like 2:30 was the McExpress window and the 1€ menu. So we got like a million burger, chicken burgers and sets of fries. After than we finally made it to the other side of the river and there were lots of fun little bars to pop in and out of. We eventually got bored and headed home, where Yiannis and I were more than excited to watch some episodes of How I Met Your Mother. I am truly an addict. When Maura fell asleep during an episode we decided it was time for bed. Yiannis was the biggest gentleman in the world and gave me his own bed and the girls his dad’s bed, while he slept on the couch. I was super tired and almost crashed immediately but Yiannis came in to say good night to us all saying “Goodnight bitchez”. I grumbled goodnight and actually don’t remember if he made me say it or if I just did by choice but I ended with “Goodnight Mr. Pimp”. It was all in good fun and became a fairly entertaining inside joke (a new english term I taught Yiannis!).
Yiannis let us all sleep in the next day, which was super nice, and then we headed out to be tourists!

Maura, me and Kerry on the Purte de Triana (bridge of Tirana, actually named Puente Isabel II) on our way to the main parts of town.

This is the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza - the bull fighting stadium of Sevilla! It was really cool to hear Yiannis talk about the bull fighting. As he put it, the toreros are the Spanish equivalent of Brett Favre or Peyton Manning (Yiannis happens to be a huge NFL fan). Tourists frequent the events, but mostly it is locals. Many people buy season tickets and there is an annual poster that always has a list of which toreros will be win (like a better version of the ugly NFL schedule we had in our suite this year).

The Torro de Oro - Gold Tower. This gorgeous little fortress is right on the side of the main road. It served as a prison and also protected precious metals in the top of it.

La Catedral - The Sevilla Cathedral. Thanks to wikipedia I now know it is the largest gothic cathedral in the world, and the third largest church in the world. When it was built (16th century) it was the first to surpass the Hagia Sophia, which if you paid attention in middle school history that should mean something. It is one of the many buildings I have seen in Spain that was worked on or built by the muslims and then taken over by the Catholics. It makes for some AWESOME architecture.

The Giralda - the largest of the former minarets and now bell tower of the Cathedral. You can go to the top, which we did, using the 34 steep ramps that were in place so horses could also go to the top.
After la Catedral and wandering around the streets we started our route home. We stopped and got more of my favorite spanish drink Tinto de Verano. We also met up with Lolo and one of Kerry’s friends from a previous trip to Sevilla. I taught the group how to play slap cup and then after a couple unsuccessful tries we went to a flamenco bar with actual flamenco going on. It wasn’t the type of flamenco I really remembered because it was just a woman singing (not dressed up, and sitting) next to a man on his guitar. There was a stage for them in the bar, but instead they sat along the bench the rest of the bar sat along. So complete strangers just came and sat right next to them while they played. Kerry and Yiannis were really into it, but Maura and I decided we were fully cultured enough to enjoy it. It was really cool though just to see how much everyone in the bar was into it. No one was talking, just really enjoying in the singing and playing. I did really like it when the man played his guitar and sang at the same time. Male flamenco singing is really impressive. I suppose even if Maura and I didn’t fully “get it” it was still a cool and very necessary Spanish experience.
We finally made it home around 3 or something like that, but the other girls had to wake up at like 5:30 to get a cab for their super early train to Granada. There was some mild drama including Maura and Lolo but because of the extra bodies Kerry, Maura and I ended up all sharing the dad’s bed. In the Sevillan summer this proved to be a very sweaty experience, but got better for me when they left at whatever ridiculous hour. It was sad saying good bye to them because I had such a good time for two weekends, so hopefully I’ll be able to visit them both at school in washington at some point.
When Yiannis and I finally got up at 11 or 12, I still had a few hours to go see things. We took Lolo to the bus top and then headed to see some last sites. We saw the “green” city department, many buildings from the University, City Hall, the old super expensive 5-star hotel and other random things. But my favorite was, unsurprisingly, this one:

The Plaza de España (or as pronounced in Sevillan Spanish Platha d'epaña). It is a totally gorgeous building/plaza and although covered in Tourists there are also many official offices in it. Yiannis had to come here for university and license type things. Imagine if our DMVs looked like this...

Much like the monument in DC that has towers for all of the states, the Plaza de España has little pictures and maps for all of the provinces of Spain. There is also a zoomed in map of Sevilla and this is Yiannis showing off right where his apartment is. I don't know if you'll be able to tell but it's in a great location! (The oval by his back hand is The Plaza de España, his left foot is on the Cathedral and one of the yellow dots between his hand and the Plaza is the Torre de Oro.)

The last thing I had to get a picture of were the locks on the Puente de Triana. The bridge was SO covered in them that police had to come and clip them all off for fear of too much weight. But the idea is that couples come, write their names on a lock, lock it to the bridge and then throw the key in the water signifying their love is forever. It's a really cute idea and there are still a fair number of locks.
Sevilla is a very old and cute seeming city. It was fun just to walk around and listen to Yiannis spew random facts about every single building. Prada studied abroad his this last semester which I’m not sure I would want to do. It’s a little small but I’m sure that has its appeal too. Definitely worth a weekend trip though and it made it better to go stay with locals 🙂