1/8/05

Out of Tarifa and into Sevilla. We passed thru Cadiz. Man, am I glad we didn´t go there as we had planned. It didn´t look as nice as I had imagined and not anymore warm than most Spanish towns. We got to tSevilla without incident. We parked the car and wandered thru the Maria Luisa Park to get to the Tourish Info Office, however it was closed, sort of, when we got there. Abandoned would be a better word actually. The building was open, but covered in dust and pamphlets and maps and magazines and mail just laying about. The bathroom was even open. It was the weirdest thing. So we continued to walk further into downtown Sevilla. A nice girl from Oregon saw how lost we looked and graciously gave us directions to the Tourist Office and all the other places we were looking for. Thank god for her! From there we haphazzardly found our hostel for the night, Hostal Picasso. When we walked in the funniest thing happened. The center of the reception has an open ceiling up to the roof. There are plants hanging all up and down this skylight area. When we walked in the maid was watering all the plants so it looked and felt like it was raining inside the building. It was funny. There was FREE parking next to the hostal but only one free space. So while the guys went back to where we parked the car to move it next to our hostal I stayed and guarded the open spot. There was another old guy standing there guarding the parking spots. Apparently he is the parking manager, unofficially of course as most things are in the south of Spain and Italy, and said we must pay him money to be the parking spots guardian. We gave him a euro just to satisfy him. We went to see the Sevilla Cathedral and the adjoining Giralda Tower which was very close to our hostal. It is immense and overpowering! Christopher Columbus is buried there as a side note. Pretty impressive grave too. Originally a muslim mosque, the Christians overtook Sevilla eventually and decided they needed to build something bigger and better and Gothic so they went right ahead and did it. The Cathedral is in fact in the Guiness Book of World records for the Church with the most square Meters (23,500 sq meters). You can climb the 22 plus flights to the top of the Tower. Quite a view. I was taking photos like every 5 steps. By then we were all pretty hungry so we found food and lots of post Christmas sales at the stores. I got a super cute girly pink top for only 2.90euro!!! I was so proud.