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Travelogue: Spain and Portugal
Sevilla: Getting There
The next morning, we got up fairly early. We needed to go back to El Corte Ingles to see about cancelling the tickets for our elaborate Portuguese itinerary. Luckily, we able to do this without much trouble, and got a refund for all but 15% of the fares. Our next stop before heading to the train station was breakfast, at the waffle place we had spied across from the Hotel Europa.
We both raised an eyebrow when we saw the proprietor of the shop put the waffles we ordered into the microwave to reheat. Bread often does not fare well in the microwave, but our waffles turned out to be yummy. We were also pretty skeptical that the tiny plastic spades we were handed with with the waffle would be any help at all, but they ended up working just fine. The waffles had a texture different from the ones we are used to. They were crumbly and bready, almost like biscuit dough cooked in a waffle iron, andd the outsides were covered with sweet, caramelized sugar. Dan got his with whipped cream, and I got mine with chocolate, which was the opposite of our usual inclinations.
We cheked out of the Hotel Europa, and headed to the train station to catch the high-speed AVE (Alto Velocidad Española) train to Sevilla. This is a very pleasant way to travel. The seating is comfortable, and the ride is smooth; it's hard to believe these trains travel as fast as 220 km/hour.
We spent most of the ride, as far as Cordoba anyway, talking with an American seated across the aisle from us. His name was Jason, and he was halfway through his term of service in the Peace Corp in Moldova. He gave us a rather discouraging report on the way foreign aid vaporizes once it gets into the hands of the local government beauracracy. He was on vacation with his parents in Spain, and though the country was not at the top of his list, he was happy to go anywhere with them "as long as there would be toilets that flush." He was looking forward to the trip he had planned at the end of his term, a long train voyage through Russia, Siberia, and Vietnam that sounded pretty cool.
A street scene in Sevilla, taken on our first evening wandering the city
We arrived in Sevilla around 2:00pm and began our customary round of calls to the hotels listed in our books. We didn't have much luck, so we went back into the station to pick up a map at the TI, and then to visit the hotel information booth. The woman who helped us spoke fluent English, and was very helpful. She was able to get us a reservation for two nights at the Hotel Marian, a decent-but-not-fancy hotel, and then two nights at the Casa del Maestro, which promised to be slightly more upscale. This experience was a good lesson for us. We'd been avoiding these booths, assuming they'd be hard-sell type places hawking overpriced and touristy hotels. Though I'm sure this woman was making some commission on our reservations, she had more of the demeanor of a concierge and seemed very knowledgeable about the local hotels.
We caught a cab outside the station to get us to the Hotel Marian. It was located in a slightly run down working-class neighborhood, not too far from the station. Dan felt a little bit uncomfortable, but it seemed fine to me. It seemed no dingier to me than downtown Madrid, but had the advantage of being at least partly residential. The street the hotel was on initially seemed tiny, but we soon discovered that it passed as nearly a main thoroughfare in the old city section of Sevilla. At any rate, the hotel seemed to be perfectly reasonable, and most importantly, it had air conditioning! Our room was on the ground level, which had marble floors that were very squeaky under Dan's shoes. After we got our bags settled and freshened ourselves up a bit, we decided to take a look around and get oriented.
