The Sevilla Story: You never quite know what you'll find...

Last night we wanted to do something low key. We decided to find a bar close to our homes, and we found one that was only 5 minutes from mine. It's called Tea & Coffee, not a Spanish name, but the place was packed with locals. Ash and I got there first and were trying to find a place to sit down. We found an open chair and then another one next to a group of guys. She asked if she could us the chair, and then they invited us to sit with them. They ended up being professors from some university around here, but very young professors. There was one guy from mexico, one from peru, one from Spain, and a guy and his wife from Colombia. The first thing they asked us was "Do you shop at Walmart?" It took us a while to figure out that they were saying Walmart, since that was such a random question! The mexican guy was an industrial engineer too, que loco! He teaches some technical class, one taught marketing, and another taught speech. At one point the Spanish guy was telling us he wanted to move to Toronto. I told him there was nothing in Canada but hockey, which he doesn't even like. He agreed there was nothing in Canada but Toronto, and the only thing they had was the CN tower. So why would a Spaniard ever want to move to Canada? Beats me. It was fun to sit there with them, drink beer, and talk mostly in Spanish.

Ash, Rachel, Lanae, and Me

Us with our new friends

Then this morning Ash and I went to the Archivo de Indias. It's a museum about the exploration of the "new" world. The building it was housed in was very old, and very interesting. We watched a little video on it. Sevilla used to be a big trade city because of the river here and this building was used for lots of trade. When the trading was moved to Cadiz, a city on the sea, the building was left behind and so they put all the archives there. The building itself is from somewhere around the 1750's, but definitely does not look like it. We saw lots of retratos (portraits) of all the Spanish generals, and different documents from all the American conquests. It was interesting to see and learn about.

Flags of Andalucía and Spain

Archivo de Indias

Intense treasure chest

After we weren't sure what to do, since we still had some time before lunch. We walked out of the museum and saw a very nicely dressed young couple. The lady had a hat on, and Ash's family told her before that they wear hats to weddings. The day before one of of ISA directors told us if you have a chance try and sneak into a wedding at the cathedral because it's amazing. So we followed them. They went behind the cathedral, and there were a bunch of other people all dressed up. Inside the cathedral we could see all these girls dressed up in more traditional attire. We weren't exactly sure what was going on, but we stood and watched the goings on for a little bit.

Fancy hat-- Ash is really good at creeper pics

Girls are dressed up for something

We walked back towards home through Santa Cruz, which is an old neighborhood with narrow streets. There were lots of cute bars and little shops. We took our time wandering through it. It turned out to be a very nice day. The sun finally came out, and it got a little warm. Then I got back for lunch and had minestrone type soup with an egg it in. After lunch I relaxed a little and then meet up with Ash, Rachel, and Lanae. We took a while to find a cute bar for wine, but we found one. We sipped wine and talked for a while, while enjoying the many bulls decorating the place.

I Love Tapas!

Cute Ceramic Store

Paintings in Santa Cruz

There are little yellow flowers growing on the roof

Crocheting

crocheting

flowers

bulls

bull

Ash with her wine

We finished up, and walked home. I decided since it was such a nice day, I should go for a run. And go on a run, I did. I started off going towards plaza de España, then I went through to huge park there, climbed up the top of this little waterfall hill, went by the river, and finished by going through the neighborhood right near my home. I went for a whole hour and probably around 5.5 miles! It felt so good and it's fun when there is so much to see. I made sure to take my phone with me, so I could snap a few pics along the way.