Sevilla: La Alcazar Real y Flamenco

New day, new person in the room. Nicholas left yesterday afternoon and an Austrian guy took his spot on top of Brent’s squeaky bed. Over a typical breakfast of toast with jelly or Nutella and black coffee, we chatted with two Australian women who had recently moved to the UK. Common with most hostel conversations, we exchanged travel tips and a little background about ourselves. Amy is anxiously awaiting responses from several med schools she applied to. She managed to check her email a few days back to read her acceptance letter for a school in Perth before the hostel computer broke down last night.

Brent and I grabbed our daypack and headed out for another day of wandering around until we came upon yet another exquisite site. Our amazing International Student ID Card paid for itself again as we walked in free of charge, to La Alcazar Real. This quickly turned into “just one more picture” site again as we snaked our way through the astounding intricacies of this ---- year old architecture. The vibrant myriad of colors made this edifice a unique treasure to experience. Green stained glass, orange walls, and bold blue and black tiles were placed carefully in each mosaic façade. The palace floors were lined with white and grey marble tiles and little steps in to every new room.

Hungry tummies finally pulled as away from the Palace and we soon found ourselves nestled in a cozy, local café munching on a tapa of tortilla Espanola, and a ½ racion of calamares frites. It’s miraculous how a restaurant could run out of agua de grifo (tap water), but this one did—at least when tourists requested it. We enjoyed the atmosphere the ventured out onto the streets once again, quickly finding our way to a bustling, air-conditioned, panaderia. We ran into Aimee and Natalie who were leisurely sipping on iced coffee with friends they had met on their pub crawl last night. Brent and I shared a mouthful of chocolately-vanillaey-sugarey happiness and continued on our way.

Later that evening, we went to a Flamenco show by the river and had a great time watching this authentic dance from the second row of the audience. The dancers look incredibly intense when they dance but at the end of each routine, they never seize to break into a huge smile, content with their performance. I saw a show 2 years ago and was astonished by how loud the dance gets. The performers stomp around on stage so loudly that it would scare me to sit in the first row!

We walked the bridge over Guadalquivir River and snapped a few night shots of the river and El Torre del Oro before making our way back for the evening. It’s amazing how alive the city becomes, once the sun has gone down and the temperature has dropped. Tomorrow is the train to Granada for a quick trip to see the Alhambra!