Seville, Spain--Day 277

First of all, Happy Birthday Moriah Claire Weiss! Born 4 a.m. November 2, 2004.

I am in Seville, Spain where I arrived yesterday after taking the bus from Lagos. My bus left at 1:45 and did not arrive into Seville until 8pm (7pm Portugal time) and I immediately went to my hotel, dropped off my stuff, and went in search of food. I had dinner and wandered a bit until I ran into an Election Party going on at an Irish Pub. I thought it would be fun to go in, so I did. You had to pay 6 Euros to get in (your admission price plus two "free" drinks) and that entitled you to stand in a crowded bar with hoards of American exchange students all of which either had a big blue "K" on their hand or a big blue "B" depending on who they were supporting. The girl in front of me in the line to get in declined to have her hand marked saying, "I prefer not to advertise my beliefs" which could mean that she was either a Nadar voter (you could base this on her hemp bag and dreads) or was secretly a Bush-supporter in disguise.

The polls hadn´t even closed at this point and the idea of staying at a pseudo frat party wasn´t my idea of a fun time. Plus I was standing near a guy with a big "B" on his hand who was arguing with this poor little French girl all about how his beliefs in Iraq's newly formed government. It was too much.

I left, went back to my hotel just before 1 a.m. and fell asleep hoping to wake up this morning with a new President. I see, however, that that isn´t quite the case.

So today I spent the day in Seville today instead of heading straight to the zoo since I had no idea what the train times were to get me to Jerez or where the train station was exactly. So I spent the morning doing my research—figuring out where the train station was and how to get there on the bus and what time I needed to go—and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Seville. I visited the gorgeous cathedral—the third largest cathedral in the world, the largest Gothic building in the world and the tomb of Christopher Columbus—as well as the Alcázar, the 9th-century palace.