It was a pretty tiring day. Since I am training for a half marathon I got up early to go running; my friend Ella who is training for the full marathon came with me. Since Seville is quite small, the lady at the front desk of the hostel suggested that we run around the city center. Seville has a nice system of bike paths, and the run was enjoyable until I got really bad cramps; I guess I'm not quite used to running outside yet. We ended up completing a little less than half of the loop and turning back because we were worried about getting lost (and I didn't feel well).
Upon out return, we went back to the cathedral an entered. I have seen quite a few cathedrals, and this one was one of my favorites. I guess most of the larger cathedrals take my breath away when I enter--it's not that I am surprised, since I usually expect stained glass, alters, arches, buttresses, but seeing it still shocks me each time. Perhaps the memory of how pretty it is still can't prepare me for actully seeing it again. We climbed up the tower, which interestingly did not VCR stairs, rather it was a series or perhaps 30 ramps that wrapped around the inside of the tower. From above, the view of the city, particularly the orange trees, looked like something out of a painting of a different time period--horse drawn carriages below (for the tourists, i know) and birds perched on the cathedral spires, it was like a fairy tale :)
After leaving the cathedral we went to the Fortress, which was just okay on the outside, but stunning inside. I'm not sure what type of architecture it is (Islamic?), but the detail was so intricate. Unfortunately we missed the free walking tour, so we didn't get a lot of history. That day my feet were hurting so I wore my running sneakers, which looked terrible with my outfit...anyhow, I managed to hide my feet in photos.
Plaza d'Espana was another palace like building, with a moat and tiles depicting all the cities of Spain. We contemplated renting boats for the moat, but got lazy. This would have been a great place to sit and read a book. Clearly quite romantic too, since this young couple was displaying their affection very publicly on one of the tiled benches.
The day left us exhausted and somewhat exciting for our rest on the bus, but it turned out that the ticket man issued our tickets wrong--we had purchased ticket for "tomorrow" yesterday, but he had issued them for yesterday. Since it was the same man, he knew thy he had made a mistake, but then started yelling at us for not double checking the date yesterday; the bus was empty, it would have been easy to let us on, but both the driver and the ticket man decided o be jerks and made us purchase another bus ticket to board on the next bus--so we each lost 10 euros an two hours of time.
Nevertheless, we arrived on Cordoba at midnight, and a policeman advise that we take a cab since it was not safe to walk at night; since he went with us to the cab station, the people couldn't screw us over with the prices. Just to make sure, I asked if the prices they listed were in total or per person, and they laughed and said "of course in total, this isn't Tokyo." Weird comment, but oh well. Everyone seems to think I'm Japanese, since I guess they get a lot of Japanese tourists.
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