Sevilla pt 2
After leaving the Cathedral, I wandered the streets around it for a little while. I stopped into Starbucks and made my contribution to the local economy. Once I got my hot chocolate, I sat outside and watched people walk by. People-watching is an interesting thing to do and I don’t do it enough. It’s fun to watch people interact with each other.
My next stop wasn’t planned. I pretty much stumbled on it. It’s only a block away from the Cathedral and it is called the Alcazar. Here is another site. The first picture is the entrance I went in.
I think this is a popular field trip stop. There were a number large groups of students being given tours. It was only 5 Euros for a tour and an extra 3 to get a little device that would explain to me in English what I was looking at. I spent about an hour here. It really is beautiful. The gardens were the best. The second link above has a picture of the gardens.
I left the Alcazar and started my way back to where I was dropped off. By this time I’d been awake close to 24 hours straight and it was starting to wear me down. I walked through the university on the way back and through a nice park. I was surprised at the number of parks in the area. I ended up looking for De Plaza De Espana.
This was much better than I thought it might be. It really is beautiful. It is also the 2nd time I was hit up by a gypsy woman. Heck, even after telling her I wasn’t interested, she wouldn’t let go of my hand. So I let her finish her thing about wishing me joy and good fortune ( I understood that much) and told her I wasn’t going to give her any money. Come on. Spain, as is most of Europe, is pretty much socialist. It shouldn’t be *that* hard to find a job. Sure, at least she’s trying to do something but even the squeegie guy in NY City gives you a worthwhile service.
Other than how pretty the Plaza was, the main thing I noticed is the large number of flies in this area. Not sure why. The place didn’t smell bad. Of course, maybe they’d been following me around all day and they finally caught up to me here. More likely, the wind had carried them down from France.
I was pretty hungry so I stopped at a small café called La Hosteria. It was a nice little café with indoor and outdoor seating on a corner. The Spanish waitress wouldn’t slow down when talking so I had a hard time ordering. I basically understood carne y tomato (beef and tomato) and said yes. I figured “What the heck, it’s probably something new.” It was good. It is roast beef served in a warm tomato sauce. It is served with bread, for dipping in the sauce. I cleaned that plate up. The people around me were staring at me, probably wondering why I was holding the plate up to my face licking up the last bit of sauce and making slurping noises. With this wonderful tomato sauce on my nose, chin and eyebrow I looked at them and said “Esta bueno! (It is good!)
OK, that last part is false. I didn’t have any sauce on my eyebrow. I’m not a pig.
Before they brought me my meal, I heard the two gals at the table next to me speaking English so I asked them where they were from. I was thinking it’s always nice to meet someone from your own country while wandering a foreign land. One was from Colorado and the other was from Arizona, I think. They asked where I was from and I told them Ohio. Then they turned away and didn’t say another word to me. I don’t think it had anything to do with where they were from. If they were from Michigan, I could understand considering the prison shower room beating the Bucks put on the Wolverines this past weekend. I was just surprised at how rude they were. Or maybe I’ve just become really creepy and don’t know it.
A guy at another table came over and said he overheard me talking. He was American and said his name was Stephen. He sat down and we ate together. He asked a lot of questions about what I was doing there. I gave him the basic idea but couldn’t reveal too much. It’s not that anything I do is Top Secret but we’ve been trained not to give out too much information because the bad guys can piece together enough general information to make it useful to them. We finished eating and said our goodbyes.
The sheet of paper I’d brought with me showed me the pickup times for the shuttle and where to be. I had to be in front of the Cruzcampo Beer Factory by 1500 (3 PM, for my military ignorant friends). It was almost 1400 (2 PM). I wanted to be there in plenty of time so I hailed a cab and told him where I wanted to go.
I’ve come to believe that it is probably a pretty useless move to try to speak to locals in Spanish, attempting to use the proper accent as well. I can speak decent Spanish. I can ask all the questions I need and can understand a fair amount of what is being said…*if* the other person doesn’t speak too fast. Well, the Spanish aren’t any different from Mexicans or any others from Central America speaking Spanish. They speak it at about 850 words a minute. My listening comprehension in Spanish is about…20 words a minute.
On the ride to the beer factory, I asked him much an apartment in Sevilla typically runs. It was broken Spanish but close enough that he understood what I was asking. He then spends the next 10 minutes of the ride speaking 850 words a minute about something. I heard the following words: perro, dinero, gatto, zapato, pezon, luhca, refrigerador, donde, alfombra, homicida, professor, vino…though not necessarily in that order. So, from what I could understand and piece together he said: “The dog and cat were fighting over where to put the refrigerator on the carpet. The dog got mad and attacked my nipple so I was forced to use my shoe to murder a teacher. I then drank wine.” I didn’t ask anymore questions.
He stopped in front of the factory and I got out as quickly as possible while throwing a handful of Euros into his car. The shuttle would pick up in front of the Bar Antonio at 1500 (3 PM). It was about 1415(2:15 PM) so I started waiting. I really didn’t want to miss this shuttle since the next one didn’t show until 2300 (11 PM). I had also been awake for about 26 hours straight at this point. That combined with walking about 8 miles in a few hours had tired me out a bit. I really did not want to wait until 2300 (11 PM). I mean REALLY did not want to. So I waited. It wasn’t that bad. A lot of good-looking Spanish women walked by so it wasn’t exactly time wasted.
So I waited…and waited…and waited. It was now 1520 (3:20 PM). Now I was pretty worried. All of those doubts were running through my head. “Is this the right place?” “Did I miss it?” “What’s the best way to call the base to find out?” “What if they weren’t expecting some stupid looking, short and t-shirt wearing guy with tomato sauce on his chin and nose to be waiting here?”
So then I started to rationalize. “Oh, maybe God is testing me. He wants me to show trust in Him. OK. I’ll trust Him.” I then found myself looking even further up the road to see if I could see the shuttle. How’s that for trust? I’m such an idiot.
I then thought, “C’mon God. You could have at least sent by a shuttle or bus that *looked* like mine just to tease me a bit.” I kid you not, no more than 5 minutes had passed and I saw my shuttle. It was getting closer. It changed lanes to go from the left lane to the middle one. It changed lanes again to go from the middle to the right lane. Right where it needed to be to pick me up. It got closer and closer…and then farther and farther as it passed me right by.
Thinking once again (however incorrectly) that I had figured out the cosmic relationship between man and God, I then thought “C’mon God. You could at least send the *real* shuttle to stop right in front of me in the next 60 seconds.” I think you know where that went
At 1530 (3:30 PM) I walked across the street to the Bar Antonio and asked to use the phone. As I was about to attempt to dial the base, the bartender looked at me and asked “Moron?” Now, this meant one of two things, both of which were right. Yes, I was a moron (MO-ron). But he was asking if I was from Moron (mo-RON, long O sound) Air Base. I nodded yes and he put up four fingers on his left hand and said quatro. I said “Quatro?” He nodded yes.
It turns out my paperwork was wrong, I guess. But I was happy. So I ordered up a Cruzcampo beer (they were made right across the street), tipped the bartender heavily. I asked him his name and he said “Joaquin.” That’s two Joaquin’s I’d met in one day who were very helpful. I pulled out my camera, had him stand next to me at the bar and had the other bartender take our picture. He got a chuckle out of that. I waited and drank my beer. It was ok but much lighter than American beer.
A lady walked in and the bartender and pointed at her and said “Moron.” Since she was wearing a wedding band (they wear them on the right hand here), I figured he wasn’t calling her a moron, thinking we’d be a perfect match. He meant she was also going to Moron Air Base. So I basically turned into her shadow and never let her get out of my sight.
The shuttle finally showed up at 1600 (4 PM) and I got on and napped a bit on the way back. We got back to the base about 1700 (5 PM) and were dropped off at the chow hall. I went straight home and fell into bed.
That’s two times in the past week I’ve been up for more than 24 hours straight and it wasn’t really bad at all. I guess I was just wired from getting to see so many new things. Thursday night, I’ll be pulling another all-nighter in Sevilla. A guy I work with and I are going down at about 4 PM to an American hangout for Thanksgiving. There are a lot of exchange students here so I guess we’ll be hanging out with them. After that, we’ll be experiencing the Sevilla nightlife that is rumored to last until about 6 or 7 AM. Then we’ll take the 10 AM shuttle back to base.
Just an epilogue about the other night when I got home and fell into bed. The reason I went to Sevilla that day is I had that night off to recover. At 10 PM, MSgt Harris knocks on my door to wake me up saying I did have to work that night, even though the schedule didn’t show it. At least I got 5 hours. That’s not too bad.
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