Carnaval in Sevilla

Hola todos, so I just got back from Sevilla last night, and it was a great trip. It was also the first trip that I've planned and gone on with a small group (in this case one other guy, Bobby) so I was really glad everything went pretty smoothly. We had been talking about traveling together for Carnaval ever since our original plans fell through, but we didn't actually decide to go for sure until last Monday. Even with only a week to plan, we were able to get bus tickets and a cheap hostel, so it was all good. We left at 11:30 on Friday night, and rode the bus until around 8 Saturday morning. We were thankfully able to find our hostel pretty easily, and we put our stuff in a side room until our room was cleaned. Right away we also met a girl from Chile who was staying at our hostel too. María Luisa was studying German in Germany, but had two months off for break so she was traveling around southern Spain, so we talked with her while eating breakfast on the roof of our hostel. After breakfast we went walking around the town, seeing different sites. Not long after we left, Kari, a girl from Texas who is studying at a private university in Valladolid, gave us a call because she was looking for something to do. We met up with her, and headed off to the castle in town. With our student IDs we were able to get in for free (I like free things) and we explored the castle(see the first picture). Behind the castle were these amazing gardens; they were so pretty and I think we could have spent a day just in the gardens themselves. After the gardens, we met up with two of Kari's friends, Brittney and Alex, and went and bought some ice cream and had that outside since it was so lovely out (around 70 degrees). We then walked around until we found a Corte Ingles, where we bought groceries for the rest of the weekend. Bobby and I headed back to our hostel, where we made and ate our supper. We also introduced María Luisa to the joys of peanut butter on toast. After supper the three of us went to a bar to watch a flamenco show (bottom picture). On the way we stopped at a plaza in town to watch a little bit of a show that was going on. There were a bunch of Disney characters singing and dancing around on a stage. The show was free, and it was really good. We also ended up sitting next to two Canadians.

The following day (after we actually got up) we went walking around town for a bit until a friend of Bobby (who is studying in Sevilla) called him, so we met up with her. She took us through the cathedral (the 3rd largest cathedral in the world!) and there was some service thing going on for Carnaval. Right by the cathedral is also where all the palm readers would stand. They would hold out this twig thing, and when you would reach out to take it they would hold your hand and read your palm. I didn't know what they were doing, so the first time I put out my hand to take the twig and the woman grabbed my hand. Before she could do anything some random guy yelled at her, so she let me go. After that I kept my distance, but they still tried again; one lady even tried to pull my hand from my pocket when I was walking past; crazy stuff. We then met up with a few of her friends (American and Spanish) and chilled in a park for awhile. Bobby and I left the group and went over to the Plaza España to take pictures. The Plaza España in Sevilla had actually been used in the filming of the newer star wars movies, as part of the planet Naboo, so for a star wars fan like me that was pretty cool. We went back to the hostel, and cooked some pasta with María Luisa, and then headed out for the evening. We found a place to chill, and Kari came out and met us there, and we ended up just hanging out for awhile before heading back and going to bed.

Monday we actually got up at a decent time (around 9), and had breakfast with María Luisa, and said goodbye to her because she had to go catch her bus. Bobby and I packed up everything in our room and checked out, and walked around the city for a little while before getting some lunch at McDonalds. We went to station after that and got on our bus. There was one stop where we had to wait for half an hour at a station, and they locked the buses so everyone had to get out. Well, when Bobby and I got back on the bus, we got to our seats only to realize we had gotten on the wrong bus, so we quickly got off through the back door and went over to the right bus. The bus driver gave us a weird look, I have no idea why. We got back to Valladolid around 11, and went out with some of Bobby's Spanish friends for a few hours. I'm looking forward to a shorter week of school this week, and next weekend we have another school excursion. Talk with you later!