ir y volver
in addition to its vivid history and flamenco dancers, sevilla will be forever home to a few personal memorial items of mine... mainly my mismatched sandals, compliments of la tomatina (they carried me well through streets and alleys, across borders and to monkeys, and only got a few dozen strange looks), my beat up and broken bottle of febreeze (at least i´m leaving soon, so it won´t be a devastating loss) and the contraband towel from the russian mafia hotel... i´ll never forget the time we spent together on that beach in nerja.
sevilla is to me what paris should have been (no offense, katy)... beautiful architecture, cobblestone streets, cafés and accordian players, and of course a cigarette hanging off every other person´s lip. i´m comfortable here, having fallen back in to my single traveler routine of walkingwalkingwalking everywhere, stopping randomly to take pictures or hang back, using my internal direction rather than a map, and attempting whatever language pieces i know when needed. i´ve even adopted the soft lithsp that permeates the whole of spain to different degrees... a practiced and confident "grah'thz'ahs" makes it way out of my mouth on a regular basis. it was easy to let my other travel companions take the lead before, with their knowledge of español and not feeling embarrassed to be seen with a giant map in front of their face. their absence caused a temporary panic when i was dropped off at a distant bus station in a town i had no orientation to. but now i walk with ease, head up in search of cool shade and unique sites. i´ve spent a lot of time in churches already... i think i was more catholic in a past life, as i am always strangely drawn to churches in my travels, but also they are stone and therefore cool inside. and that´s useful, in this 90º+ weather.
i head back to madrid tonight, an end to a long journey. i´m playing the money game right now, wincing at the price of the train ticket i just bought to get back there... i had a lot of unexpected expenses on this adventure, and i´ll be reluctant to add it all up at the end. but what are savings for, if not to be spent on something you enjoy? so with that, i bid you a gracious ciao, and i´m off to linger like a local, if just for a little while longer.
current mood: quisiera un café, por favor