Madrid to Sevilla and Sevilla Days 1 and 2

Day 5 Madrid to Sevilla

Idon't have Internet access.  I’ll type everything up on a Word document and transfer to a flashdrive which I’ll keep in my purse so that when we pass an Internet place, I can just download it to the computer and copy and paste it to the blog. We have tones of pictures which I started to catalogue today, but there were far too many for me to finish.

Woke up and had McCafe cheesecake and coffee. Finished packing while Matt waited for us in our room. Checked out at 10:30. The walk to the taxi was very short (two doors down) and a taxi came right away to take us to the train station (12 euros). At the train station, we had a real breakfast: bocadillos (and I had a beer). We bought our tickets at 11:40 and the train left at 12:00. It was tight, but not according to Matt. There was a luggage section right behind our seats and they showed a movie (title? Tea Leone, Ricky Gervais, --about a man who dies for 7 minutes, sees dead people who all ask him to do something that was left unfinished so they can see the light and go “home”).

It was a nice train ride—about 2 ½ hours and had one stop before Sevilla, Cordoba, which Matt wants us to see on a day trip. The train had a nice café car, so Bob got water and coke for me.

When we arrived at the train station, we took a taxi to Matt’s apartment. It is a very nice place and plenty big for him , actually. All of the décor and storage is IKEA (including the bed linens). We stayed long enough to see the apartment and then we went out for a bite to eat. Matt took us on a walking tour to show us the Alameda near his place, filled with bars, tapas places, restaurants, newsstands, gelato places, etc. Looks like we won’t have to walk far to find a place to eat when we visit Matt. He also showed us a good ATM machine, a good Internet place, a place we can finally get stamps for the many postcards I wrote and haven’t sent yet, and pointed the way (we were tired) to where the laundromat and other Internet places were.

We looked around for a place to eat and Matt showed us a place that he said is known to be very good but he hadn’t eaten there yet, so we went in to make sure there was a table. Patrons stand at the bar in most tapas places and, usually, it is 10% more to sit at a table and get table service (whether inside or out). We had to wait for a table, so at the bar we had beer, red wine, and olives. A small bowl of olives in Spanish tapas bars is much akin to a basket of chips in Mexican restaurants. We are very lucky to have Matt with us because we don’t know bacalao (cod) from jamon (ham). Here in Sevilla, the stores and restaurants have strange hours. Some are open between 2 and 4 in the afternoon, and some aren’t. This was a Sunday, so the bar and restaurant closed at 5:00 PM and we arrived at 3:30 PM, so after our wait, we were limited in what we could order from the kitchen. We ate very well despite the time limitation. Pork loin with a sherry sauce, pork loin with blue cheese sauce (which bob couldn’t eat because he said it smelled like my other’s wound—so he guessed that the cheese contained staphylococcus as a ripener), but he didn’t say this until the next day, so I licked the plate clean. Smelled good to me and tasted even better. Beef short ribs with a honey sauce, fried eggplant with a honey sauce. We had deep-fried sardines (Matt and I only, of course). Bread and breadsticks in all shapes comes with the meal. We had beer, vino tinto (red wine), and I also had sangria—red and excellent!

We were all very tired (Matt too) so Bob and I came home and read for quite a while before we all went to bed.

Day 2 Sevilla

 Bob and I slept late.

After showers, we went out, had coffee and a pastry at one of the coffee shops at San Lorenzo square and walked to around window shopping. When we came to El Corte Ingles, a major department store, we decided to get something for dinner on Tuesday (it was too late to prepare dinner today). What an interesting place! I marveled at the desserts in jars, plastic containers, right in the dairy section. We both went crazy over all of the types of olive oil, beans, olives, cheeses, meats (especially jamon) that were available—as well as the many Spanish red wines (including some of our favorites found at Trader Joes). Since Matt’s apartment had a nice sized refrigerator, only a two-burner stove, and no oven, and since we had to carry the groceries back to his apartment (which isn’t miles and miles away, but a good walk for us fat old people) we decided that a cassoulet (more like a bean stew would be nice) to cook for him and leave him the leftovers to freeze. So we walked out with chorizo, chicken legs and thighs, canned beans (one contained blood pudding but we didn’t realize that until Matt pointed it out later on in the evening, so I guess we’ll leave that for him), olive oil, flan, nice greens, espresso, and espresso, coffee, and vino tinto. On our walk back to our place, we found ourselves a bit lost. Thank goodness Matt had given us a really good Sevilla street map, and we discovered that we were just a block from our place.

Matt had to do a few things after his day at the archive so we had a bit of down time before he would be back to his apartment. Both of us relaxed, read, and straightened up. When he caught up with us, we walked to the large square up the street from his apartment to eat at one of his favorite tapas bars. Since the day was so nice, we decided to eat outdoors. We had beer, wine and a number of delicious tapas: we had olives with onions , deep fried marinated shark (Matt and me), pork loin sandwich with French fries, veal in a garlic sauce with French fries, patates Sevilla (more like an egg potato salad in olive oil, vinegar and parsley), hearts with onions and a rich sauce (Matt and me). Very delicious and very inexpensive.

Matt thought the night was too young, so we took a cab to the Centro and saw the Cathedral, the Alcazar, and many tourist shops selling Flamenco items (Matt wouldn’t let me buy even a 10 euro dress for Ana!). We walked around quite a while, saw Sevilla’s version of light rail which isn’t quite finished yet (true for their Metro system also), a few really nice tapas places that we are sure to revisit for eating purposes, and I finally got a gelato (mango). We also saw the building where Matt works. Wow! It was very nice and he is close to many places to eat, drink, and have coffee and pastries. I’m sure he doesn’t frequent these places as he is very thin. Bob, Veronica, and I are worried that he hasn’t eaten much (especially protein) as his hair isn’t much longer than when he left, and he is very thin. So Bob and I will go shopping again and leave him some meat to fry up for himself.

It was 8:00 when we returned to our place and Matt did wanted to turn in a little earlier (Bob is always ready for that—we think it’s his medication, and on this trip with all the walking we’ve been doing—so am I). We read about two hours and lights were out at 10.

Day 3 Sevilla

Matt  called us to see if we had made plans yet (we were still asleep). Tomorrow we must set an alarm.

We had to organize our stuff, my knee was killing me, and it would take a while to cook dinner, so we dropped by Matt's apartment to cook him something--we'd go out again later. We have definite plans for tomorrow (especially after we make sure to set an alarm) and will take a cab to the Centro again, go into the Cathedral, eat lunch there, walk around, and probably get tickets for the hop-on, hop-off tour bus for the next day.

Matt really wants us to go to Cordoba, but I’m becoming too dependent on his Spanish to go alone. What has happened to my sense of adventure? I turned 60 and have no control over my own body anymore—I’m fat, and my knee and back are bad. Have to work on changing that when we go home and becoming more active. Bob said that we should have a day for working on the house, a day for gardening, a day for crafts, a day for computer work, etc. and I’m all for that!

Bob cooked the cassoulet and right now we’re both just waiting for Matt to come home. Maybe we’ll walk to an Internet place so I can download these blog posts and check my email after dinner. Then we'll go back to our place.