Hola from Seville!

Not speaking a word of the local lingo is a bit of a challenge, but luckily more people spoke Ingelish than we had imagined and we managed to survive and indeed thrive – succeeding in purchasing from the very local, non-touristy market where we were staying such delicacies as churros con chocolat; jamon y pan y queso; cerveza sin alcohol, pedro ximenez (don’t hold me to the spellings of any of the above – hope to get the general gist) and a delicious restaurant just 3 doors down from us which served a fusion of kind of Spanish/ Moroccan – so yummy we went back 2 nights and would have returned for a third except we felt obliged to try something new. Jason did most of the food negotiations and did an excellent job ( I kept slipping into French as my autopilot default). However that began only after we had been there a day and had gathered some courage, hastened by our nervous first dining experience where we went for the apparent safety of a pizza café – which served the world’s WORST pizza. The tragedy was we actually ate there again another night later on, but only because the girls were becoming monsterously hysterical with hunger and apparently no Spanish establishment serves food before 10pm (!!) and we promised the girls pizza in a desperate moment after having tried every bar/café in a 2 mile radius. And so we arrived and then had to wait half an hour until 8.30 when the chef finally deigned to open the kitchen and cook a pitiful insult to good pizza!

After a while that aspect of Spain drove us nuts – fine if you’re a swingin’ young thang to nibble tapas all afternoon in siesta-mode (which seems to last about 4-5 hours!), only to roll out to dinner after 9 pm, but a bludi nightmare when you’re dragging 2 starving 3 year olds around. Our vain hope that in renting an apartment we would be able to cook dinner some nights, sadly collided with our total disinterest in cooking dinner whilst on holiday in a place renowned for yummy (if late) dining! (although frankly why we bothered taking them anywhere other than pizza places was a waste of time as all they would eat anyway was bread and the Spanish biscuit/crackers that they serve everywhere – with predictable digestive problems ensuing!!).

God I’m rabbitting on about food again. We loved Seville and Cordoba, where we went for a day trip. We loved the Moorish/North African architecture - amazingly intricate filligree plasterwork, ornate tiles, soaring arch ways and marble columns (somehow clean and simple and yet ornately luxurious at the same time) - mixed amongst the renaissance and baroque over the toppness of Spanish architecture. And when I say over the top, I refer and not in any exaggeration to the Spanish churches and Cathedrals, which are really quite INSANELY dizzying in the amount of gold/frills/suffering/curlicues/heavy wood carvings and flourishes that the feverished imagination of overpaid architects and designers could come up with. Like Malta with its shrine statutes built into every street corner, Seville has a tiled azulejo image of the Virgin or Jesus or some saint on someone’s wall on every third street and church bells ring out from one or another church nearby every half hour (the girls were particularly impressed by the church bells and made us stop to watch them all) – quite a nice comforting sound really. (I liked the wrought iron Spanish crosses on the exterior walls of some churches).

Of course no visit to Seville is complete without….Flamenco and Bullfights. We did not (on account of the girls) brave traipsing around the flamenco bars at midnight to chance upon some spontaneous “authentic” flamenco dancing and instead went to the museum of dance which was putting on a special performance – glad we went – the main female dancer was amazing – a passionate Force of nature! I wanted to be her. The girls were equally entranced. Every time she went off for a costume change and rest Gizane was most worried to know if “the princess” was returning, and when indeed she did, in a brand new dress, she gasped out loud “Oh Yes!”. Needless to say we were dragged thereafter into every tourist shop selling flamenco dresses and eventually succumbed. We visited the bullring but fighting season was over – luckily for the bulls!

Enduring memory of Seville – avenues and avenues of orange trees. Amazing for a busy city to have wonderfully fruiting orange trees lining every street. When we caught up with Kelly (Gatchell) and Andrew she said it was lovely when they are all in blossom and their fragrance wafts all around the town.

The only thing I was happy to say goodbye to Seville for was the damned cobbled streets so narrow that we were lucky to fit together walking side by side with the strollers, thinking what cute little pedestrian walk ways, until a car thunders around the corner and hardly waits long enough for you to jump onto the non-existant or crumbling-away-to-nothing footpath! Lunatic drivers in streets obviously designed for one skinny horse at a time. So far only the footrests have broken off the strollers (although the girls Fell off a few times as the wheels jammed into yet another hole in the incredibly bumpy road!).