Bus left around 12.00pm and a pleasant journey to Seville in South-central Spain. Glimpsed a flock of pink flamingos out the window. The guide played Oceans Eleven on the TV and George Clooney and Brad Pit made the three hours go very fast. Most of the Moroccan girls on the bus with us.
In Seville, Racheal and I paid a bit more to have a double-room with large bathroom, simply because we had so much stuff between us and needed the room to sort it all out before getting it to the Post Office. Five flights of stairs up though! Also to avoid all the Princesses who I was getting sick of.
Dumped our stuff and rushed straight back out again to go to the Cathedral which had free entrance on Sundays only. Whohoo! Very impressive gothic cathedral, 3rd largest in the world next to St. Peters and St. Pauls. I cunnningly tagged along to a Japanese tour and learnt all about Christopher Columbus' (supposed) tomb, (they'll know for sure some time next year when the get the DNA analysis done), as well as the enormous pipe organs, an huge baptism bowl made from alabaster marble and the 6 meter high painting of St. Christopher and an angel which hung above it and the fascinating story behind it. Turns out that if you stand at a certain angle to catch the light you can make out a rough line around the saint where he had been cut out and stolen by thieves. The portion was tracked down in New York somewhere, returned and the painting restored.
We then climped the 38 flight Giralda Tower next to the cathedral for some beautiful views over Seville. It wasn't as bad as you think as there were no steps, just slopes, so like walking uphill.
Back at the hostel and straight into the BATH - pure heaven. Scrubbed so clean I changed colour several times and was finally free of the remainder of the Moroccan dust. Felt a m a z i n g ! Deep-conditioned my hair, re-did my toe-nails (to ditch or not to ditch??), and spent a good five hours becoming human again.
Now, we'd been told by our Busabout guide, that the Red Door cafe, with cheap drinks and free Flamenco dancing was 'just down the street'. To cut a long story short, three hours, a trip back to the hostel for directions, one taxi-ride across town and much sense-of-humour failure later, we eventually arrived at this place with no name. It did have large red doors however and was located in the middle of no-where down some dark and life-less side streets. Completely unsure if we were in the correct place, but by this time in need of some stiff drinks, we decided to stay put. No sign of anyone from Busabout at all. Either our guide was talking bologny or I was just a complete space cadet when it comes to directions. I suspect both.
Drank some local 'Tinto deVerado' (red wine with lemonade - not bad actually), and sat in the outdoor courtyard for a while people-watching and listening to live Spanish music. We moved inside and watched the girls on the tiny stage perform some very sexy Flamenco to a man singing folk-songs and playing guitar. Flamenco is a big deal in Seville, where it originated from.
Got talking to an Andre Agassi look-a-like guy at the bar who spoke only broken English and me with my seven words of Spanish. He was a hairdresser and promised to come by our hostel to cut our hair the day after next.
The three of us moved on to a huge outdoor club and all of a sudden it was 4.30am. Got a taxi back home - a great evening out!
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