Spain—Days One and Two

Oct. 2007-- The whirlwind vacate we affectionately call “Spain” started with a 30+ hour flight from Boston to Malaga, including two missed connections and a reroute. But once we got there and got some well deserved sleep, we hit the ground running. Seriously—running. The maxim for the trip was: “We can always rest when we get home.” Or collapse, which is what happened.

With two adventurers in the family it is not hard to fathom how much we saw in six short days.

Every day included a new destination and a new set of spectacular vistas. The first night, a bull fight in Torremolinos on the Costa del Sol. We found the art of bullfighting beautifully choreographed but the brutal reality of the evening difficult to stomach. Four bulls died that day in the name of entertainment. What an experience to be a part of. We sat idly by drinking orange flavored sodas and eating caramelized popcorn while the artistic slaughter of four beasts—two of which were mild and uninterested—colorfully unfolded before our sensitive foreign eyes. Chalking it up as an experience we moved on to our next expedition—Seville.


DRIVING IN SPAIN

Driving around in our little boxy Mercedes proved to be a challenge since street signs are nearly impossible to decipher while moving quickly. I firmly believe that the signs were meant for helping those on foot or buggy—not a motorized rolling vehicle. Needless to say, it was the biggest challenge to navigate without getting the driver upset (I say while smiling through gritted teeth).

Once on foot, we were able to explore and discover the beauty of a tile rich city. The pathways, staircases and parks were exquisitely decorated with hand-painted colorful images on tile. The World’s Fair took place in Seville in 1929 for which the Plaza de España was created to showcase Spanish-Moorish architecture in a massive semi-circle. Every single town in Spain is represented through a grand tile montage. Simply spectacular.


THE LOST ITEM

The biggest scare, and most memorable part of our Seville tour was leaving my backpack purse in the bathroom of the largest Roman Catholic cathedral and Medieval Gothic religious building in the world—the Seville Cathedral (a.k.a. Catedral de Santa Maria de la Sede). After about 100 shutter snaps, an hour and a half, and halfway up the winding cathedral bell tower, I realized I did not have my bag—leading to a few unprecedented curse words.

Although the view was amazing, I couldn’t stand lingering more than a few moments. I needed to know if my bag was lost forever or if by some miracle it was turned in. We fled down the spiral ramp/staircase, raced across the cathedral sanctuary and breathing heavily checked the notorious stall of the women’s bathroom. No surprise there. The bag was not dangling from the hook where I left it. So we proceeded to the entrance to see if some honest bathroom-going female turned it in. And so she did. Everyone seemed to know exactly what I was looking for. The universal signing of “backpack purse” was obvious. The lady in the audio tour booth smiled and warned me to be more careful as I clutched my bag grinning with relief.

We continued our tour of the narrow, winding streets of Seville feeling blessed beyond measure.


THE CAMERA EPISODE

Mark and I love pictures—artsy, creative shots. We take time to zoom-in, angle, sharpen and take the perfect photo every time. So when we screw up and erase all of our day one and two pictures we get a little upset. Standing in line for the world’s worst boat tour proved to ruin our day in Seville when all 130 pictures were “reformatted” and wiped from our camera’s memory. So the only photos we have of Seville are the ones taken from the boat and the ones that I snuck in when Mark was not looking. Like the bull’s tail meal that we ate at the end of the day.

We drove back to Costa del Sol with mixed emotions.