Day 91 - Seville - October 13, 2013

Day 91 - Seville - October 13, 2013

In my utter devastation over the Dodgers loss last night I forgot to mention Saturday night in Seville. It is a party that begins in the early evening in the streets and cafes and moves into the clubs around midnight. The one thing you notice immediately is the tremendous number of young people between eighteen and twenty five that are out, dressed to the nines and looking for to party. Then I remembered, Seville has a few colleges and at least one university. And it makes sense. 

Then there are the families with kids. On Saturdays and fiestas even the toddlers are out with their families until after midnight. It shocked me at first, years ago, but now I'm used to it and the kids don't seem any the worse for it. In fact one of the things I adore about Spanish culture is the way families do things together and age groups mix. If there is a fiesta there are toddlers, kids, teenagers, young adults, moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas dancing, singing, eating, drinking, laughing and chatting. And this same scene plays out to a lesser extent every evening in the designated plaza or park. It is truly a joy to observe. Our society's activities are so age segregated they rarely mix. I don't believe the Spanish use a lot of baby sitters. It looks like everyone just comes along. 

Anyway, last night the streets, restaurants, cafes and bars were packed. Everyone was having fun. 

This morning the town woke up slow. Me too. I got up had breakfast and fiddled around getting things packed up to go to Madrid tomorrow. By the time most of you wake up tomorrow I will be in Madrid. After breakfast I just wandered up one street and down the other watching people go to church or go for coffee and pastries. I got out of the tourist section and just walked regular streets. At some point I ended up at a Hoppy Bus stop and hopped on. I spent a pleasant hour on the upper deck in the sunshine just watching Seville go by. At one point we were stopped on the major street along the river when a motorcycle procession went by with a police escort. At first I thought it was a funeral, but there were all kinds of bikes from Scooters to big motorcycles and no one

was dressed like it was a funeral. It wasn't political. I never did figure out what it was about, but the police had the whole south side of the street blocked so it was just bikes, no cars. We passed the cars later on backed up for a couple of miles tooting their horns. lol

After the Hoppy Bus I went through the old Jewish area, did some shopping, had some tapas and then wandered some more. I wandered right up to a helado place and got myself a cup of Chocolate Brownie. Then I came back to the hotel to shower and get rested for my final flamenco show. 

The final Flamenco show ranked adobe of the best, if not the best. What a wonderful way to end my stay in Seville. I

sat next to a couple from South Dakota who had like a three or four year old boy with them. They were very nice. They had been to Barcelona, Granada and Seville. They leaving tomorrow to go to Madrid then Lisbon. All in two weeks. 

I sat in front of some very annoying women from London. One kept kicking me. They all talked incessantly. And one of them was just really peeved because the ticket agent at the bus station didn't speak one word of English. He was in Spain after all, where the language is Spanish. What I thought was worthy of notice is that she was in Spain and doesn't speak one word of Spanish. You don't have to speak Spanish to be in Spain, but  getting upset with someone doing his job in the language if the country he works in is a little weird. 

Well next comes Madrid. Then comes home!!!!