Seville

Seville is beautiful architecturally. After our bus transfer from Jaen, we decided to rent a car instead of getting a taxi in to town, for some more flexible exploration (plus the size of the bike bags). The girl who checked us into the hotel was surprised we drove here. I suspect others who had GPS update delay and low tolerance for small streets don't elect to drive. You know how you can tell the street is narrow? When we have to fold in the mirrors on a little VW Golf to make it through. I wish I could have taken a picture, but at that point we couldn't get out of the car without breaking out the front window (hatchback was packed with bikes).

Seville is serviced direct from London. This means there's lots of English spoken... like the Queen's English. It also means there's a lot of Brits. I suspect we're seeing people go to weddings, as there's a bunch of women all dolled up, with "fascinators" in their hair - those ridiculous hats. I'd more properly call them "distractors", as in "I know my face looks like I have the lineage of a british bulldog, and my figure says I've drank 2,000 pints of beer this year, but here, look at this thing on my head and try not to notice anything below my hairline".

Seville's architecture is spectacular, but it's touristy. There's awful street performers, and too many of them. If you can play a guitar, foot drum, and sing, that's great. That displays some talent. Especially if you can do a few languages of pop songs and sound like you know what the words actually mean. If you're looking stoned and blowing giant bubbles, sitting under a baby carriage and sucking a pacifier so it looks like your adult head is on a baby, or dancing with some sticks, you need to think about how many drugs you use and where you'll be in 5 years. Then there's those who don't even bother street performing. I don't have actual evidence, but to me it looked like kids with parents were doing pickpocket operations in the squares. The kids chase each other and "obliviously" crash into people while chasing each other with kids toys in hands, but looked to me like they were using the distraction to grab stuff then take it back to their parents (or exploiters).

We gorged on tapas and rioja. We were in a place with lots of old Spanish people and giant bull's heads on the wall. It was festive and happy.

We were recommended to stay at Hotelcasa1800.com place - the two service girls on staff were so incredibly nice, like beyond what you'd expect in a hotel industry even. And it's such a nice place, and we had a nice little room with a courtyard. It's probably 100m from the big main cathedral, but tucked away. It's as old as Canada (politically of course, not geologically). Win!

I got up at 3:45 to walk and get our car from parking. Mostly drunk British teens out and about. After paying for parking, I couldn't get to the hotel, as the one ways are blocked with city workers spraying the streets. Shoot. Put it back, got a taxi to jam our stuff in, and we doubled up in the front seat. Scuffed the car on the way out of that parking spot on a street, a little Golf wasn't able to make the angle that two corners of cars presented. Airport was quiet, except for people sleeping on benches. Looked mostly like Brits who didn't chose to afford hotels and slept looking pretty derelict on airport benches. A couple teenage girls in front of me were picking muffins, pound cake, oh yeah, and throw a Mars bar in at the checkout before 6am for breakfast. Good luck not being a blob by the time you're 25. Poor choices.

I'd guess Seville is at least partially on the Colombia/Venezuela --> West African "countries" --> Europe drug trade route given the level of sketchyness around. It's no Ibiza, but it's no Jaen either (which seemed to have olive farmers and the services they need).

Seville is nice, I'm glad I came. I'd prefer more rural areas where "less is happening" than cities served direcly by RyanAir and the detritus they bring.