Cadiz, Andalucía, Spain

                 Last time I left off about my backpacking trip through out Europe I was in Sevilla, Spain.  While in Sevilla I was staying at my friends apartment, which I used as a home base so I could travel to different cities in Andalucia (the southern region of Spain).  My days there would consist of: waking up really early in the morning, my friend would take to the train station, I would take a train to one of the cities she had told me I had to go see, find the tourism both, plan out what I wanted to see, walk around for the majority of the day, then head back home (Sevilla), and walk around some more until my friend could pick me up so I could go to bed, and do the whole thing over again the next day.  

                The first city on the list was Cadiz, a city right on the Mediterranean.  The newer part of Cadiz reminded me of Miami and I wasn't really interested in so I spent most of my day in the older part.  The older part of Cadiz is really small with tiny winding brick streets, that I walked around on while getting lost on purpose.  The whole time I was there I felt like I was on a set of a movie or in Disney world.
                One of the main attractions are the beach and a old fort (Castillo de Santa Catalina) that is located right next to each other, so I worked my way there to check them out.  The front was nice but it was very similar to the ones I had see before all throughout the Caribbean in the Americas (probably because the Spanish were the ones who build those too) so it really didn't interest me.  But what was cool about the fort was that they used it as a gallery space, which they had beautiful works in, that I got to look at.

                 
                I was really excited about this trip to Europe because I really wanted to see Roman ruins, sculpture, and art; later I would get sick of them because there's that stuff every where you go and it lose its wow factor. Except for Roman, the scale there is just amazing.        

                   After a long day in Cadiz, I got back to Sevilla, and had to wait a bit to meet up with my friend.  So that gave me some time to capture some more images.

     
        I had always heard about all the Vespas in Europe and they where always showing up on the  TV show "American Pickers".  Before leaving the states I told my self I wanted to get nice shot of one while I was on this trip.  So when I seen the great light on this Vespas I knew this was the shot.
 

The mixture of European and Arib in Sevilla, Andalucía

            I had talked to Chus the night before and she said that she would be glad to host me, show me around Sevilla, and tell me what other cities in Andalucía I should visit; in other words she was going to be my tour guild.  So that morning I hoped on the train and head to Sevilla.  I was using the Eurail pass so thought that all my train rides were included with the pass and I didn't have to pay anything, I was wrong.  The fine print said that on certain trains and countries you have to pay a reservation fee and I didn't know; these reservation fees would end up haunting me threw out my trip.  So what else could I do, I had to get to Sevilla, the fee was 8 euros, so I payed it.

            After the longest train ride I have ever taken, five and a half hours, I arrived to Sevilla.  The first thing that shocked me was the heat; a ton of people had told me that the south of Spain was really hot but I didn't realize how much until I got of that train.  Like in every good story there are obstacles and mine was how was I going contacting Chus to let her know I had arrived.  I had my laptop but there wasn't any free wifi, I had no cell phone, the pay phone didn't seem to work, and the people were very rude and would not lead me there phones to make a call.  So after an hour and a half of trying different things to contact Chus, I got a pay phone to work and I got a hold of her.  She told me she had been waiting for me all day and that she would pick me up in 15 minutes.  She picked me up I met her family, ate amazing food, and went to a bar to watch Spain win the euro cup 2012.  After the win we went to a small park that was packed with people sing and cheer because of the victory.  "YO SOY ESPANOL, ESPANOL, ESPANOL!!!!" 

         The next day Chus took me on her moped the central of Sevilla so I could explore while she was at work.  The second thing that really shocked me was the architecture; it all looked like something out of the movie, Aladdin or the video game, Assassin's Creed.  I didn't know but the south of Spain was occupied by the Persian and Ottoman empire, so there are tons of Arib influences in the architecture.

      The mixture of European and Arib aesthetic in the architecture is stunning and the building that best demonstrates this mixture is the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See; also know as Seville Cathedral.  This Cathedral used to be a Muslim mosque and after the Spaniards took back the south they kept the minaret, turned it into a bell tower, but a gothic cathedral around it, and that is what is there now.    

          I have seen and learned about relics, but I have never been shocked by them until this trip in Europe, just about very church in Europe has relics.  You would walk into these rooms that had a little bone incased is huge cases made out of gold and jewels.  Since I'm, from Colombia one of the jokes I would tell my Spaniard friends was why should I have to pay to get in all these cathedrals when most of the gold in there came from Colombia and South America.  But they knew I was kidding and I know that the money you pay is to help maintain these space for future generations.

          Since we're talking about the Europeans coming to the  Americas let me share the little detail I didn't know about what was located inside the Seville Cathedral.  Inside they have the tomb and some of the remains of Christopher Columbus.  I'm not a big fan of Columbus but it was neat to see the tomb of a man that change the word.  Below are two image of the tomb.  

         After a long day of walking in 100 plus heat I met up with Chus and she took me to see more of the city.  She took me to see a building that is love by some and hated by others, the Metropol Parasol building.  This building love by some because they like the new age architecture and hated by others because they say it ruins the feel of the city putting something new in when there so many historical building around.  I think it's a cool looking building but I can see the clash there is between it and the surrounding architecture.

         The last thing we did was go out to eat.  There is a street in Sevilla that is know for these little fishes that they leave in a seasoning over night and then fry them the next day.  I hate fish, but since I was here, and Josep had raved about these fishes I had to try them.  They were very good and you couldn't tell it was fish; if you were blind folded and ask to guess what you were eating you would not know it was fish.  Another thing that I loved was tinto de verano; which is a summer drink and it's red wine with carbonated lemonade, something like Sprite or Fanta.   After eating we headed back to Chus' apartment to rest because my next few days where going to be a ton of traveling around Andalucía.