Ola

First stop in Spain was Seville, home to the Sevilla Football Club. Got a glimpse of Barcelona while there on transit but quickly had to jet off to Seville. Flying in from Amsterdam was such a change. It was freezing in Amsterdam but when we got to Barcelona, it was so hot and humid!

Seville is a quaint little town with heaps of history and traditional Spanish architecture. The buildings also have a strong Moorish influence which is evident in the interior of many buildings. I loved how the houses all had an indoor garden/ courtyard type thing smack bang in the centre of the house. The biggest thing we had to get used to was the siestas in the afternoon. Everything was closed between 2pm and 5pm! It seemed like people dont really work in Seville. Even the Australian Consulate only operates between 10am and 12 noon everyday! After 5, the life begins. All the restaurants, bars and cafes start buzzing during this time. It was simply amazing. Swing Sister and I enjoyed our first Sangria at a local cafe and quickly got hooked onto it. It became something we drank at every meal, even breakfast. The tapas in Spain was devine. Although, I must say Spanish tapas in Malaysia comes quite close to the real thing.

Spain is famous for its Iberian Ham or better known to the locals as jamon. Every tapas bar had legs and legs of jamon hanging from the ceilings. And it was so yummy! If Ball Breaker was on this trip with us, she would've died. Most of the dishes on the menus in Spain were pork. One of my favourites in Seville was the Salmorejo. It's a cold tomato soup with ham in it, much like the Gazpacho. Thinking of it now makes my mouth water...

We stayed at a boutique hotel called Hotel Petit Palace in the Santa Cruz quarter. This is the best part of Seville and the hotel was beautiful. I highly recommend trying out the Petit Palace chain of hotels if you are ever in Spain.

Mr S, Swing Sister and myself experienced an original Flamenco dance performance at a local bar. It was the most emotional performance I've ever witnessed. The flamenco dancer looked like she was going to kill someone. Scary stuff. But even scarier was the guy that tried to pick Swing Sister up. I dont even know what he was. He spoke German, French and Spanish but he was neither Spanish, French or German. He looked like an Arab actually. Poor Mr S, had to pretend he was our brother the whole time. After the emotional show, we went to a club called Cathedral. Thankfully, Arab didnt follow us there. As usual, I'm always the DJ's number one groupie. Getting to know the DJ and the bar manager was a great thing. Swing Sister did her thing and got us a whole heap of drink cards. Good work Swing Sister!

We did do quite a bit of the touristy thing and visited Seville's oldest and largest Cathedral. We also visited the Alcazar Palace. Our trip to Seville mainly covered alot of eating, drinking and walking. By the time we left Seville for Barcelona, we were all kinda sick of tapas and was craving chicken rice or sushi or something Asian. I always knew that you could take me out of Asia but can never take the Asian out of me. What a loser I am.