Weekend Trip To Seville

So, apparently there was some form of national festival on Friday and this meant that we had the day off university, ESN had been advertising a trip to a pool party on the Friday but it wasn’t really something that we really wanted to do. Instead we decided to make the most of the long weekend and take ourselves on a trip of our own, we had all missed the ESN trip to Seville in September and so we decided to treat ourselves to a trip there. There were 8 of us in the end who decided that we were definitely going, Kath and Claire found a hostel online, we all had a look at the website and agreed that it looked great. Due to waiting a day to book the hostel the price went up a little bit, which was annoying but not the end of the world, we booked the 8 of us into a mixed dorm for 12. Booking online only required a deposit of 10% so it wasn’t going to cause a problem with splitting the cost and paying people back which is always a pain! We then tried to book train tickets, but without a Spanish card between Kath, Claire and I we weren’t able to, so we posted the link for train tickets on the group chat that we have on Facebook and Anissa offered to pay for the tickets on her Spanish card, to save us trying to do it at the Train Station.

We were catching the train from Cádiz station at 11am on the Friday, the night before there had been a pirate party at Sophie and Hannah’s house, and so a few people were feeling a little worse for wear and struggled to get up early in the morning for the train. I had packed the night before and made sure I checked out how to get from the station to the hostel, it was just over 2km so I looked up a bus route as I didn’t fancy carrying my bag all that way in 30 degree heat. Emma, Kath and I met up with Verity in Plaza de Mina, picking up Claire in Plaza de Espana and heading along the port towards the train station. It was good for me to finally find out where the train station is, I will need to visit it next week to get to the Airport to pick up my parents. We met Anissa outside the station and then headed in to the waiting area to see if there was anywhere to pick up some food for the train – a journey over lunch time was not our best idea, Sophie and Hannah soon arrived and once people had grabbed some food we headed onto the train to find our seats.

Once we were settled in those of us who needed it got some sleep, I read some more of Harry Potter and we chatted for the majority of the journey, making a list of things that we wanted to do before our time in Cádiz was over, it was a long list so we will be busy. We had a bit of an issue when the ticket conductor when he came round, we had booked ourselves tickets that were classed as under 26’s online, which we all are, but apparently we needed some sort of card to purchase tickets at this rate? Our Spanish all of a sudden became not so good, we got out whatever forms of ID we had and in the end the ticket conductor just told us to buy different tickets on the way home. We thanked him and immediately resolved amongst ourselves to remain ignorant brits on the way home as we had already booked and paid for our tickets, no way were we buying new ones! After around an hour and three quarters we arrived at a Seville station, apparently Seville has two stations as it was not the one that we were headed to, after a quick debate we resolved to stay on the train for another stop, this turned out to be the right choice and after a few more minutes we arrived at Seville Santa Justa station.

We hopped off the train and headed out to the bus stop, we found it after a couple of minutes, it was really rather hot and sunny, so I instantly re-applied my sun tan lotion and attempted to hide in the shade of the bus stop. Kath’s guide book said that busses cost €1,30 for each journey in Seville so we spent the wait sorting out change, when the bus finally arrived it was already pretty busy, we made sure we were near the front of the queue to secure ourselves a place. It was pretty hard to judge which stop we were getting off at as Google maps and the map in the bus stop had each told me different things and I never catch busses usually so am not used to them in the slightest. We got off at what we thought was the right stop (I’m still not sure if there was a closer one) and wandered down the road to where Google had told me the Hostel was, via a cash point. We passed some really cute markets before we came across the Oasis Backpackers Hostel and headed inside, it looked really lovely and we were chuffed to bits with our choice until the man at the reception looked curiously at us and said ‘from the number of you I guess you are at the wrong Oasis’. We were meant to be at the Oasis Palace Backpackers Hostel rather than this one, fortunately it was only two hundred or so meters away down a straight road, so we didn’t manage to get lost.

We finally arrived at the right hostel equally as impressed with its appearance and we checked in, we had to provide a proof of ID each to check in, most of us had our passports with us but they accepted driving licences too. We had to put down a €5 deposit on each of the room keys before heading up to our room, it was on the first floor, so most of us didn’t need to use the lift. The dormitory had bunk beds and was spacious for a hostel; there were two bathrooms with showers which was nice and everything was fitted out with new looking furniture that was of quite a high quality. We dumped our stuff in the room; a poor lad was trying to take a nap in one of the other bunk beds but I think we disturbed him a little. There were very big lockers underneath the beds for storing our things in, they had a hook to lock the locker with a padlock, these were on sale from the reception for €3, and I resolved to buy my own as they would be useful in the future.

After getting rid of our bags we headed off to find ourselves some lunch, I had done some Google research on Seville and found that it had a KFC, so I knew where I wanted to go. We found a main road, Calle de los Reyes Catolicos, with plenty of places to eat on it and split up, Claire, Verity, Kath and I headed for KFC, others headed for Burger King and elsewhere. I was unfamiliar with the menu in KFC in Spain so it took me a while to choose, but I was just chuffed to be having KFC again. After lunch we met up again and headed towards the street where there were a lot of shops that we were familiar with, shopping time it was. I ended up spending €60 in H+M, resulting in another cash point trip, after exhausting ourselves shopping, Claire, Kath and I headed back to the hostel and up to the rooftop pool. After seeing some people appearing with a tray of cocktails we decided that we fancied a bit of that and so I headed to the bar, it was happy hour so cocktails were two for €6. By the time the sun went down I had finished 4 mojitos and 2 tequila sunrises, very much in the happy hour spirit. The pool was not huge but plenty sufficient, there were sun loungers available as well as chairs, the view was nice over the rooftops, we could see the spires of the cathedral. A woman came round offering us the chance to go to a free flamenco show with other people from the hostel and a bar crawl. We also spotted a sign for a day trip to Cádiz on the Saturday which made us chuckle. I had a quick Skype to mum using the hostel’s free WiFi to let her know what a wonderful time I was having whilst she was sitting at home where it is cold and rainy before we headed out for dinner.

There was an information desk on the first floor of the hostel so we headed there to ask where was best to go for dinner. The woman provided us with a map and marked several places on it that she would recommend. We headed to the nearest one, by now it was 9.30pm unfortunately this meant that the first three of the restaurants that we headed too that had been recommended to us were completely full, we had no chance of getting in. By this point we were more than famished so settled for the next restaurant with space that we could find.

We settled for ‘Casa Diego’, the menu seemed fairly priced and so we ordered some drinks, and once they arrived we ordered some food. When the food arrived it wasn’t what we ordered so we sent it back. This seemed to anger the waiter, who was the only one working – and by working I mean standing at a table drinking a beer until he could no longer ignore the customers, then rushing around dumping orders on tables and running off again. He then started bringing the right food over, all of it seemed like it had been cooked in one big oily frying pan. Luckily for me my food was edible, if oily, Hannah was not so lucky, her pork was completely raw in the middle, so she abandoned her dinner and told the waiter she wasn’t paying for it, this didn’t impress him either. Emma and Sophie’s patatas bravas weren’t much better, just pieces of potato drowned in mayo and brown sauce, no one complained that the third plate that we had ordered didn’t arrive, instead we told the waiter to remove it from the bill. This didn’t please him either so we just paid and left as soon as we could, promising ourselves that we would be out earlier the next day so that we could eat somewhere nice. On the way back to the hostel we stopped at an Ice Cream shop so that some people could get themselves some ice cream to eat as we wandered back. We pretty much headed straight to bed as we wanted to get up early the next day to take advantage of the free breakfast provided by the hostel and to ensure that we did plenty of sightseeing.

Waking up at 9.30am was just as difficult as ever, I skipped breakfast in order to gain a few more minutes in bed, the toast, cereal and pancakes that the hostel were offering weren’t enough to tear me away from sleep. After most of us were showered and dressed we headed out to get a Starbucks whilst Anissa was still showering and getting ready, we then went to some markets just around the corner to the hostel so that we weren’t all just waiting in the room, at 11.30am Anissa told us to continue on with the tour bus as planned as she had a couple of things to do before she could join us and didn’t want to hold us up. There were two main tour bus companies that operate in Seville so far as we saw, one Tour Seville, which was a green bus and the other was the City Sightseeing Company with the large red busses. We negotiated prices with both and Tour Seville came out on top, offering us tickets for €14 each that we could use for both days, this seemed fair enough to us so we hopped on the bus.

We decided to go all the way round on the bus first to see everything and then decide what it was we wanted to visit most. There were no seats on the top deck to start with but as the next stop was by the Plaza de Torros most of the bus emptied out so we headed upstairs. There were plenty of nice views of Seville, even if the commentary from the headphones didn’t quite match up at times. The tour got a little boring on the other side of the river as there wasn’t much to see and unfortunately one of the roads we were meant to use was closed, which meant us taking a detour around it so the commentary was completely irrelevant. We were meant to be looking at some science park and the remainder of the 1992 world exposition but instead there were some fields and what appeared to be a car boot sale. We also passed the world’s least exciting looking theme park (excluding the rapids which looked refreshing).

 The tour took around an hour and a half after which we had a good idea what we wanted to visit, many of the main places we wanted to visit such as the cathedral and the Plaza de Espana weren’t actually visible from the bus so these were at the top of the list. We got a message from Anissa saying that she was ready to meet us and as we were near the end of the tour we told her to meet us in the square by the hostel and get on the bus. There was a brief moment of panic when we arrived and couldn’t spot her, but she got on the bus and came up to find us. We went back round the Plaza de Torros and got off the bus to eat at one of the riverside cafe’s that we had seen, taking some pictures of the Plaza de Torros on the way. We settled for El Patio Sevillano, which had a menu of the day for €9 which included a starter, main and pudding. Most of us opted for that and it was nice enough, just what you would expect for the price really. We wandered further along the road and stopped at a little shop for some post cards before heading back up towards Plaza Nueva, some of us were feeling a bit sleepy so headed back to the hostel whilst the others did a little shopping. We decided that we would visit the cathedral on Sunday as entrance would be free and have a look around the Plaza de Espana as well. On reflection, doing some more sightseeing rather than heading back to the hostel for a siesta may have been a good idea.

I woke up from my nap around 7.30pm and we all decided that we would get Dominos and KFC for dinner and eat it in the hostel, to keep costs down and ensure the quality of the food before pre-drinking and going out. Some of the Erasmus students in Seville that we knew from back home had recommended us some places to go out. The food was delicious as predicted, and much more in keeping with a traditional night in Birmingham. We had bought three bottles of vodka to split between the eight of us and at around 11.30pm we started getting ready to go out and pre-drinking in the room, the couple that also shared the room with us came back for a snuggle in bed, we asked them if they wanted us to drink elsewhere so they could sleep but they said no. This was quite surprising considering that we were banging out some pretty cheesy 90’s tunes along with some Disney classics. It was beautiful. At 1am after the couple had locked themselves in the bathroom for some alone time we decided to vacate the room anyway and drink in the lounge area of the hostel, there were a couple of other groups doing the same, one guy invited us to join his bar crawl which we declined, preferring to do our own thing. Shortly a man from the hostel came to clear us all out so we dumped the vodka back in the room and headed outside.

The nearest bars were only a 5 minute walk away so we headed there, by the time we were anywhere near a bar several people needed the toilet so we quickly headed in to the nearest one. Those of us who didn’t need the loo waited outside and quickly realised that we had all just invaded a gay bar, we got a fair few funny looks being foreign and clearly just taking advantage of the toilet facilities, shame we couldn’t stick around for the strip tease that was advertised everywhere, instead we headed on to the next bar. We were clearly not having much luck as the doorman to this bar told us that it was by invite only, whether this was true or just because he didn’t like the look of us we are not sure, but either way we decided to head across the river to calle Betis which had been told was good for bars. They hadn’t lied, there were plenty of bars to choose from, we got some cocktails at a bar as it was still too early to go in search of a club, it was really nice to have a drink and look at the river, Seville was pretty at night and it reminded me of Brindley Place back in Birmingham. We left the bars at around 3.30am and Emma, Claire and I decided to head back to the hostel, each of us was not feeling well for various reasons and staying out longer wasn’t making us feel better, no matter how much we drank. The other girls headed on eventually ending up in Caramelo, which they all said was a good night.

Sleeping in a bunk bed whilst drunk was interesting, I was convinced that someone had fallen out in the middle of the night, but it was just the guy from the couple who had tried (and failed) to jump down from the top bunk, landing in a heap on the floor, I just rolled over and went back to sleep. All too soon it was check out time, I woke up half an hour before so just about had time to get my things together and we all made it to check out by 11.30am. We stored our bags in the left luggage room rather than walking around all day with them (our train wasn’t until 5.45pm), we would collect them later as the bus stop to the train station was right next to the hostel. We headed back out to the tour bus stop to take us round the Plaza de Espana, some chose to walk there instead for the fresh air and exercise, in the end due to the stops that the tour bus was making they beat us there.

We stumbled across the ‘festival de los naciones’ in El Prado next to the Plaza de Espana, and spent a while looking at the stalls there, most countries were represented, there were foods and other products from lots of different countries. We met up with the girls who walked and decided to split up again, Claire, Kath and I would go and visit the Plaza de Espana before heading to meet another Birmingham Student who was studying in Seville and the rest stayed a while longer in the festival before heading off for more sightseeing. The Plaza de Espana was really stunning, we immediately wanted to go on a little boat ride around it, it was very cheap, only €5 for a 4 person boat for 35 minutes, however the queue was very long so we opted for getting a weird pedal-powered cart instead, at only €8 between us it wasn’t expensive either and meant we were able to explore the rest of the park in front of the Plaza. It was a little small for the three of us but we managed to squeeze in and we were off, unfortunately we forgot that the Spanish drive on the opposite side of the road, so confused a few horse and carts going around roundabouts the wrong way! The pedal thing was really fun and a great way to see the rest of the park, even if it was tiring for those peddaling. We bumped into the others, attracting their attention with our bicycle bell, they were just arriving as we were leaving so we confirmed that we would meet at the Hostel again at 4.30pm to catch the bus.

We then headed for a scenic walk along the back of the university (an old tobacco factory) stopping off at a café for some food, menu of the day again, this time only €7 including a drink, wish there were more places like this in Seville! There were plenty of cafés to choose from, suiting any tastes, and a musician came and played music near to all of the tables which was entertaining. After lunch we headed down to the nearest Starbucks where we were meant to meet the Erasmus girl from Birmingham in Seville, when she arrived we were glad to find that other universities were just as hard to settle in to! Another girl from Birmingham also came to chat to us, but unfortunately we were running short of time so had to dash back to the hostel to grab our bags and get on the bus back to the station. We made it to the station in plenty of time and the platform for the train wasn’t announced until 2 minutes before its supposed departure time, so we were sure that we were going to be a little late. We settled into our seats, put our incorrect tickets out on the tables and had a nap, or at least pretended to when the ticket inspector came around to check the tickets. She did not disturb our slumber and so it was a fairly uneventful journey back, around my fake nap I managed to read a few more chapters of Harry Potter and realise that I had misplaced my house keys. After a text to my flat mates who were still in Cádiz, they rang me to let me know that they were in the flat and I had left my keys there at the start of the weekend – ooops!

Arriving a bit groggy at the station we all headed back home again, agreeing that it had been a successful weekend and that we should do it again sometime. Also wondering what there was in our flats that we could eat for dinner, I was struggling to think of what I had in the freezer, luckily when I made it home there was some bread and cheese so I just had a quick sandwich. I filled my flatmates in on the weekend in Seville and they told me what they had been up to – a trip to Jerez, something else to add to the to do list! Then my mum popped up on Skype with my nan who had been visiting for Sunday dinner back in England. It was lovely to chat to them both as I don’t speak to my nan much from Cádiz, as calls are expensive and she isn’t computer savvy enough to use Skype without my mum’s help (not that my mum is overly good with technology!). We had a good catch up and after that I showered and went to bed, ready for university the next day. If only Year Abroad was all about the weekends away rather than the classes – now that would be much more fun!

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