Wayne in Spain

So, here are a couple very belated pictures of my mini vacation in Spain. I spent about 3 days in Rota and on one of those days we took a train to Sevilla. I was amazed at how easy it was to get there, although of course the language barrier did throw some roadblocks at us. Rota is a little coastal town and did not seem to be a big tourist draw. We walked downtown and checked out some of the stores and did some people watching but that was about it. Everything is REALLY expensive. The exchange rate was about $1.60 to 1 Euro, and everything cost as much as I would expect it to back home, only in Euros. Or worse. For example, I went out to dinner one night and 9 of us ate. Our tab was almost 200 Euro, or $300...ouch! It wasn't even a really expensive looking restaurant.



I told Lindsay about how weird the streets seemed. They were all very narrow, and mopeds were everywhere. Most streets also did not have space between buildings, most of which were two story...everything was just built together. Sometimes you could see an open courtyard through a door.

The day in Sevilla was amazing! As I said, it was simple to get there. Call a taxi, have them take us to the train station, say something about Sevilla at the ticket counter, get on the train heading the right direction, and get off in Sevilla. There were all kinds of things to see there. We decided to walk from the train station to the area where most of the cool stuff was. It took about an hour to get there by foot, but it was worth it. You just don't get the real flavor of a place by sitting in a cab all the time. The Plaza de Espana was some kind of old government building and has been mostly restored. It was incredible...here are a couple pictures of it.

After the Plaza we walked to the Cathedral (can't remember the name). Words cannot even begin to describe how beautiful it was inside. Each wing had little mini-chapels with incredible paintings, murals, gold work, and wood carvings. The main "pulpit" had hundreds of little paintings and gold statues depicting different stories of the Bible deeds of the saints going probably 75 feet high. The choir room stood in front of that, and the organ itself had been worked into the wood carvings that covered the entire room. Each choir seat had a different face carved into the seat handle, and there were hundreds of little carvings and embellishments everywhere. Absolutely astounding. I don't know how long the cathedral took to build, but most of it was done in the 1400s timeframe. It felt really weird to be in something that old.

We found the bullfighting ring next, but it was closed. Too bad, but we were about walked out and starving. We found another restaurant that looked promising and this time our tab was well over 200 Euros. Ouch again, but it was my only chance to experience it so I tried not to worry too much about it.

On the way back to the train station we found a Starbucks and the University and even met some American exchange students. The taxi ride back to the station was the most scared I have ever been in a car. I knew for sure we weren't going to make it, but somehow we did. Got back to Rota about 10pm and called it a day. Had a great time, and I would take Lindsay back in a second if the chance comes up.