World Wanderings

It seems the best time to write these blogs are on the train between cities. I've just left Seville and now I'm on my way to Barcelona. I originally planned to take a night train, since it's a long ride, but unfortunatly the only reservation I could make was for €100, despite the fact that I have a eurorail pass. Which I now have more issues with. So now I'm traveling all day today (€7 reservation instead) in a hot, overcrowded train, where I don't really know the language.

I guess the pass is just working out the way that I was expecting it to. From what ideas reservations would be few and far between, and cheap. Instead I've had to reserve nearly all the trains I've been on, sans one. Paying a rather hedging reservation fee on one. I had bought one with the idea in mind that I would be able to just hop onto any train at any time and travel as I saw fit. Instead it's just been a pain. We'll see if it actually saves me any money in the end. Although at this rate I'm going to need to travel on a lot of trains.

More lessons learned for future travels.

Sitting on this train its funny to notice how many people seem to have figuring out thief tickets and which seat they are in. And despite the fact that the rows of seats are numerical, people will check every rows set of numbers, leaning over those who are already seated. It's almost as though they expected everyone on the train to have already taken their seats. It's an interesting people watching experience.

Seville was a quieter city for me than normal. I only saw a few sights in the three days i was there. This could be attributed to several reasons, one of which was the fact that there didn't appear to be many large attractions, and also the temperature on average was about 100. Didn't really motivate me to go out and about and wonder around the city. The last two days I was there I was done by mid afternoon, I would just relax back at the air conditioned hostel and wait a while before I went out to venture into the heat again.

I did meet up with a friend from Syracuse, which it was nice to see a familiar face. Spent a few evenings hanging out, drawin her into the hostel culture. It's interesting, I would have never thought of it before, but you can get so much more value for a hostel than you can at a hotel. Especially when by yourself. You can book a single or double room for around 50 typically, and then you have a space to yourself, a kitchen, and open lounges where you meet all sorts of interesting people. Whereas a hotel room is just a room, no kitchen, and if you are by yourself, no easy way to meet a bevy of fun people.

Well as for Seville, it was a nice city, but it was a city. It didn't have the charm of Granada or Toledo. There were still a good part of the city that consisted of Amal winding alleyways, which I found easier to navigate by just going in the direction of your destination instead of trying to navigate streets by name. The street name signs (like most of Europe I've seen so far) seem half hazardly placed, and never on the corner that you need them on. Thus making it a difficult propositin to navigate a city by street name directions.

I did see the cathedral of Seville, which is the 5th largest in Spain (if I remember my facts correctly). It was pretty huge. And filled, again, with high vaulted cielings, and ornate decoration. I don't think i'll get old of visiting these. They are such massive, wonderous buildings that if they do anything, they inspire true sense of awe. I'm constantly amazed by how elaboratley constructed and decorated they are. So many generations and lifetimes of work went into the creation of these places of worship. I couldn't imgine going to a service each week in one of these cathedrals (which most all are still I use, that I've visited).

My time in seville also included a visit to the palace that was there. It was massive, an odd mix of moorsih architecture (which was georgious again) and new renaissance architecture in the added sections. Not exactly two styles that I would pair up. But still fun to wonder through. The palace also included a very large walled in garden. Which took a while to walk through. It did include the obligitory shrubbery maze, which wasn't as challanging to get through as I was hopeing.

Nights where spent out with my friend from Syracuse, and buds from the hostel. There was one amazing bar that had a selection of 350 different beers from around the world. So I got a chance to have some really good beers, and eat some really delicious tapas as well. Let's just say that fried eggplant and honey go together really really well.

I got what was probably the best comment I could have gotten while traveling, from the receptionist at the hostel. "You're one of the nice Americans" she said to me, after apologizing for interupting her smoking break to have her call over and help book my hostel in Barcelona. It wasn't much, but it was a nice comment to hear. Although it made me wonder what the other variety were like, and how many of them were giving our country a bad reputation. All to easy to do, it seems.

There have been some great receptionists along the way. The ones at this hostel were no exception. They were great, seeing how I had them switch my room after a night of little sleep due to a disrepectful crowd of guys who decided to turn on all the lights and have loud conversaions for periods of time between 3am and 6am. It was my first bad experience sleeping in a hostel out of 30+ days on the go. Not incredibly bad odds I guess. But ethe staff helped swrich rooms, then the next day, after the debacle with the night train, I had to book right back in, not a had hour after checking out. They were very helpful, and it makes a huge difference when you have happy, helpful staff.

I seem to be coming down with something, so hopefully I can rest on the train today, so I'm ready to explore Barcelona tomorrow! I'm super excited for the city.