To prepare for my Semana Santa / Spring Break vacation, I booked two nights at a hostel in Seville and two nights at a hostel in Punta Umbria, Huelva. Other than that, I didn't plan anything. On Monday afternoon, I headed to the bus station thinking I could catch the 1:00pm bus to Seville. I got up to the lady at the ticket counter at 12:47pm and asked for the next bus to Seville (side note: when interacting with anyone in Spain sitting behind a ticket window you have about a 90% chance that they will be rude and/or hate their life). She told me 3:00pm....my roommate warned me this would happen. I was trying to get to the city in Spain with the most famous Semana Santa celebration in the country without booking in advance. I figured I might as well buy my return ticket from Huelva to Madrid since I was at the window with 2 hours and 10 minutes to spare. I also didn't want to risk getting stuck in Huelva on Friday morning.Even thought I was at the station over two hours before my bus was schedule to leave, I still managed to almost miss it. What can I say? I have a talent for being late. I had to run to the bus terminal (#49 where the sign at the ticket window had said it would be), only to discover it was at #12. I ran to the bus, where the driver was waiting for me, and managed to get into my seat by 2:59pm. Lucky for me, I was seated next to an old Chinese man who was already asleep, with his mouth wide open and his legs stretched as far apart as possible. I kept trying to get comfortable and not inhale too much of his body odor, but he wouldn't budge. Then, the leaning started. He was leaning so far over that I was sitting on only half of my chair. I was letting out audible sounds of frustration in an attempt to wake him up because I didn't want to actually have to touch the guy. Finally a young Spanish guy behind me said, "Is my leg bothering you?" I hadn't even noticed that he had stretched his leg under my chair. I think he just wanted to help. He told me to try putting the arm rest down, but the old guy was too far over for that. Then, using a lot more effort than you would think necessary, he pushed the old guy for me, all the while asking, "Joder...Is this guy even alive?" The arm rest barrier was a success, more or less, for the rest of the trip.
I got to Seville and started walking in the direction of the hostel, or at least what I thought was the direction of the hostel, from what I had gathered from studying Google maps the night before. Once I hit the old quarters, I saw the Semana Santa processions and nazarenos (or as we call them in the U.S....people dressed in KKK outfits). It was a lot more shocking and unnerving than I thought it would be. A lot of them were young kids walking around using their iPhones! I checked in at the hostel, where I got the usual response of "Wow! You're Spanish is reallly good and you're not even from the west coast?!"
The first thing I noticed about Seville was that it smelled amazing. On Tuesday, I kept looking around for magnolia trees because that's what I thought the smell was. It took me a few hours to realize it was the orange trees blossoming. It was rainy and humid the whole time I was there, so I didn't go to all the sights. I didn't even open my guide book. I walked around the city and got back to the hostel, where I met a lot of strange people and a few very cool ones. We all hung out on the rooftop terrace for four hours, and then the storm started. We squeezed in under the gazebo and stayed there because that was clearly the smartest place to be in a thunder and lightning storm. It was strange to be huddled with 10 strangers under a gazebo, sitting around a table speaking 4 or 5 different languages simultaneously, but those kinds of things always happen here. The storm was so close that there were only 3 seconds between the thunder and lightning. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, you say? No.
The second thing I noticed about Seville was that it's full of foreigners! I know that Seville has the most popular study abroad program at UNC, so I don't know why I didn't brace myself to be around obnoxious English speakers for two days. I do also realize that I went at one of the most touristy times of the year. I went into a cafe on Tuesday for my standard cafe con leche and tostada (best breakfast ever) and the waitress asked me if I was going to come back. I told her I wouldn't be back because I live in Madrid, and she told me that she had thought I was a student since so many come to Seville. When I told her I was surprised by the amount of foreign students she replied, "Yeah, you probably wouldn't have come if you knew, right?" I love sharing moments of mutual annoyance with Spaniards.
So that's the story of how I went to Seville, which has 340 days of sun every year and the most famous Semana Santa celebrations in the country, and didn't see any of it. What I did see was beautiful, and the people I met were amazingly cool. Honestly, the trip served as a turning point in my life where things started looking up after four months of mierda, so I've already romanticized it in my mind. A much-needed second trip is already on the books for next year.
