Weekend in Sevilla

This weekend, we traveled to Sevilla with our ISA group.  We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning (at exactly 6:30 am) and got ready, ate breakfast and headed out the door by 7:20 to make it to the bus on time.  Our bus ride took 3 hours to get there so we arrived in Sevilla by 11.  When we got there we arrived at the Reales Alcazares, which is the Palace there that was built for Peter the 1st (the just or the cruel, however you perceive him) and the gardens that surround the palace.  It was really pretty, but I'm beginning to feel a lot of repeating in our tours.  Each palace is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but they were all built by the Muslim people and taken over by the Christians and then some Jewish influence were added to them.  Even though the tours have become a replay of the previous, the buildings were still pretty.  And, this time they had peacocks in the gardens, which was awesome.  Another thing that I really liked about this Palace that was different is many of the colors in the walls were still present and it gave it a lot more character.

After the palace we visited the Cathedral in Sevilla, which is the third biggest in the world.  It was absolutely breathtaking.  The ceilings were so high and the design of the building was so intricate that I couldn't even believe that it was so old and in such good condition.  Our guide told us that it took them around 100 years to complete the building.  They had a lot of neat things in the Cathedral, including a painting that had been previously stolen from the Cathedral, Christopher Columbus and his son's tombs, an organ that had over 2,000 pipes and a beautiful main alter piece.  There was also a bell tower of the Cathedral that is very tall and has a great view of the city.  We took the 37 floor hike up the tower to see the view.  I'm glad we did, even though I was out of breathe and sweaty when I reached the top.

Half of the 2,000 pipe organ

Christopher Columbus' Tomb

After the bell tower we had free time for the rest of our day. Ryann and I got some food, went to the room, showered and decided to go out to a club for the first time in Spain.  I thought that we should probably at least experience the night life in Spain one night while we were here.  We had a good night, but I'm not huge into the club/bar scene.  Ryann and I left early from the club (we are old ladies) but, it was still fun.

This morning we woke up and had a delicious breakfast at the hotel, packed our things up and headed to the bus to go to the Plaza de Espana and the Jardines de Maria Luisa.  The gardens used to be the private gardens of Queen Maria Luisa but she donated them to the city of Sevilla and they became a public garden.  The were beautiful and very peaceful.  Our first activity in the garden was a courtyard that was filled with doves/pigeons.  You could buy food and feed the pigeons but it wasn't a normal feeding.  The birds would sit all over your body.  Your head, your feet, your arms and your hands.  Anywhere they could they would grab on to.  Ryann and I were to chicken to go in but I finally plucked up some courage and one barely landed on my hand and then flew away.  It was still really cool even though I'm a baby :) 

I couldn't pass up snapping this shot of this family riding this awesome bike through the gardens. 

After that we went to the Plaza de Espana which was a beautiful building.  The coolest part for me about this building is that the filming of the second Star Wars movie was done in this Plaza.  It was beautiful.

We found a little sandwich shop and got lunch, headed back to our bus and made the long haul back to Malaga.  While Ryann and I were gone, another student moved into Carmen's house.  We were able to meet her today and she is very nice.  She's from Dublin, Ireland, which really excites me because Nick is going there and I am asking her a million questions about the city and what she thinks Nick should do while we were there.  The only hard thing is that Carmen asked us to try and speak as much Spanish to her as possible so she could learn the language better and we all just want to speak English to each other to get to know each other.  But, I'm trying to be better and speak to her in Spanish.  This weekend flew by and I'm going to be home before I know it.  I'm trying to enjoy every last second I have here in Spain but I am also anxiously awaiting my arrival home.  I'm about ready to fall asleep and check out early after a long weekend in Sevilla.  I can't believe that my days left here are already in single digits!

Vaya con Dios!