| Glenn's Sevilla Journals 6-04-02 Today we would arrive in Sevilla and, as usual, we would need to find a place to stay. The Lonely Planet guide had been very good to us with choices of accomodations, places to eat, and places to see and play. The Lonely Planet provides choices by district and even makes notes about how "dodgy" certain areas may be. We don't mind paying a little more to stay nearer the center of town if the price is still reasonable and the place is generally clean.The train station had a booth to help travelers find hotels and/or hostels. We checked the booth and she called one of the places in the guide book, the Huespedes Dulces Suenos (or Sweet Dreams). The other listings were not available through the booth so we went off and made a few of our own phone calls. Some of the places were full for the night or cost a little more so we ended up at the Sweet Dreams hostal. While at the train station we stopped in at information and asked for our usual amount of information. This includes a map, hotel / pensione names and prices (if available), internet cafe listing, second hand bookstore listing, a bus / metro map (if available), and other information about special events taking place while we are in town. After gathering all of this information and getting assistance from the hotel booth we grabbed the next bus in to the town center. From here we walked down the street to where we would find the Sweet Dreams hostal, checked out the place, and for 30 Euro's for a double without bathroom, we accepted the room and moved in. The place even had climatizadio (or air conditioning) even though it cost 3 Euro's extra per night to use it. Once we were settled we showered (remembering that we hadn't showered since yesterday morning and had traveled all night) and took naps for some of the afternoon. Once we awoke from our naps we walked around the Barrio De Santa Cruz district (we were staying in this area as it was very near the major attractions including the Cathedral and the Alcazar). The other nice thing about this area is that it is in the older part of Sevilla with the cobblestone streets and narrow lanes where the streets wind around and intermingle with each other. The streets were definitely made for walking and are usually only wide enough for one car (literally) and one person on each sidewalk at a time. We find ourselves spending more time walking on the street until we hear a car come up from behind us. Don't worry!!! They know how to use their horns!!! We like to become familiar with our surroundings as soon as possible just for the comfort and convenience. We walked through the streets checking out restaurants and local bars for dinner later. We also found an internet cafe that we used to check emails. We also walked past the Cathedral (you can't miss it!!) and the Archbishop's Palace before finding our way back towards our room and dinner. We had found this little restaurant near the hotel where a young man was very pleasant in his manner of enticing you into the place. He seemed nice enough and since it was so early the first time we passed by (7:00 pm) we mentioned that we would wait until later for dinner. Once we returned he recognized us and promptly assisted us to a table for two upstairs. It was around 9:30 pm (which is still early for the Spanish) as we were the first to be seated upstairs. Luckily, not much later, the room was filled with many other tourists like ourselves. While at dinner we had the pleasure to start up a conversation with four young ladies all traveling together through Europe. Each of the young ladies had met through the internet and had only formally met when they arrived at the airport for this trip together. Three of them (Vicky, Susan, and Cathy) were from Taiwan and the fourth (Ting) was living in Palo Alto, CA. We chatted with them through most of dinner and even while relaxing after dinner. The young man (Jose) that had assisted us to our tables had even joined us in the fun we were having. Susan was getting a little tipsy by the end of the evening. Once we had completed dinner (around 11:30 pm) we took the young ladies back to our place to show them how clean it was. They were staying in the hostel just down the road and were not too happy with how dirty it was. They were not getting a much better price than we were and we were glad to hear because it was on our list of places to check out. After showing them our room we finished chatting and they headed back to their place while we stayed in for the night. |
| Some of the external architecture of the Cathedral in Sevilla. |
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