Seville - Somewhat crunchy as well

continuing from part 1 - see below...

After relying on good old Let’s Go for our trip to Seville, we got degamed yet again. Apparently the researcher for the city hadn’t actually done much research, since they neglected to mention that the city had not one but two train stations, the second of which we arrived at. Luckily, Venu’s Spanish saved the day again, and we were able to get to our guesthouse.

Our guesthouse. Relying on LG again (silly, silly people), we decided on Pension Vergara, singled out with the coveted “thumbpick” (the best rating an establishment can earn) for its “elegant rooms…with lace bedspreads.” If your ideal hotel values frilly pink sheets before hot water and a bed longer than 4 feet, than Pension Vergara is definitely for you. It also didn’t really have heat, which was great. Whenever we returned to our room, we would huddle around the portable heater for warmth. In short, Pension Vergara = crunchy.

Sadly, Venu’s language skills couldn’t actually save us from missing out on one of the two only big attractions in Seville. We were planning on seeing the ( ), with its Moorish architecture and supposedly magnificent gardens. However, someone at LG Spain (damn you, cursed book!), decided that a closing time of 15:00 must mean 5pm. Degamed again.

So we wandered in the rain and saw the cathedral, which is the third largest in the world (after St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London) and pretty impressive. It’s free on Sundays, but I decided to overcompensate for not having learned a single thing about the Alhambra by getting a 3-euro audio guide. Big mistake. Those things are heavy, unwieldy, and most importantly, mind-numbingly boring. But the climb up the tower compensated a bit for that degaming – the sun came out for the only 5 minutes of the day to reveal the city…which was generally unimpressive, but still pretty cool looking from up in the air. We also caught a glimpse of the castle we were shut out of.

We wandered the city, only to find that almost every single store was closed. I mean, I know this is a Catholic country, but COME ON. At least we managed to stake out the 4 (count ‘em, 4) Zaras within a two block radius. Fantastic.

More rainy wandering led us to Seville’s bullring. Now, I’m sure this city is gorgeous in the sun, but grey rain doesn’t really suit it. We ducked into the bullring to mainly attempt to get shelter from the rain, and managed to catch a free tour. Now, I’m sure Seville’s natives hate the winter as much as the tourists do. How do I know this? Because our tour guide looked uniformly bored/uncomfortable the entire time. I’m sure an audio guide would have more emotion. And she resented us for having to give the tour in both Spanish and English, even though there were only 6 people on the tour, including us. Now, Venu and I were going to battle our way through the Spanish tour, but some Italian tourists insisted they wanted English. Fine. But then they completely sold us out, listening only to the Spanish one and making us look like the dumb Americans. Thanks, Italian people.

Monday morning dawned sunny and (fairly) warm, and we made the most of it by spending time inside the city center’s many Zaras. I bought sooo many clothes. And spent very little money. I love A) good exchange rates B) January sales. Venu, on the other hand, wasn’t really happy with the one small men’s store in the center – so unhappy that he practically jumped out of the airport bus when he saw a huge men’s Zara out in the suburbs. We finally arrived at the airport, frantically stuffed our twelve million Zara bags into Venu’s duffel bag, grabbed one last Coke Light (So good. Not at ALL like Diet Coke. Yummy.) for the road, and each got an “Adios” from the flight attendant on our way to the plane (the British woman ahead of us got a “Goodbye”). Score. And….goodbye, Spain.

And despite the largely negative tone of this email, I had the greatest time on this vacation. Sure, the weather was freezing and wet. Sure, we got absolutely no sleep. Sure, we missed half the attractions. But Venu and I are such good travel buddies, none of it mattered. We laughed it all off, drowned our sorrows in Zara, and good times were had by all. So, to recap, the highlights. Crunchy, “your card is damage,” “el palacio de los gatos,” degamed, frilly pink bedspreads, “Bueno Dia!!” and our best friend, Zara.

Basically, Spain is awesome.

= :)
(co-authored by Venu)

Glossary (in case you missed it the first time):
“crunchy” – Unsuitable, not up to standard. Synonyms: ghetto, sketchy, bootleg, wack.
“degamed” – a derivative of the acronym “GAME.” To be "degamed", therefore, is either 1) to attempt to gain a benefit and be rejected or, worse yet, 2) to be rejected or disadvantaged at random, purely due to bad luck. Synonyms: to get screwed over, to be played