on friday, lauren and i bought our bus tickets to sevilla and got our hotel stuff all worked out. we weren't able to get tickets to isla mágica because the internet wasn't working, which turned out to be divine intervention because when we saw it in person, it was dinky. i was picturing magic mountain proportions, and it definitely wasn't even close, more like the size of the portland rose festival...ok, maybe twice as big as that, but that's it. anywho, later that night, our class had planned to go to a tetería, teahouse, to sample different teas, but when we met up, we decided on tapas and drinks. we barhopped for a little bit and then i went home, since i had to be up by 6am the next morning to catch the 8am bus to sevilla. [ok, i don't know if it was really barhopping the way other people barhop, we just went to 3 different places to try different tapas.]

saturday morning, i dragged my tired self out of bed and met up with lauren to catch the bus to the bus station. the trip was about 3 hours and they showed john q in spanish. i had to try and not cry, as i was on a bus full of people, but i pretty much failed. it was pretty darn sad - the movie...and i suppose me too. we arrived in sevilla around 11am and caught a bus to our hotel, where we checked in and made a game plan. we decided to do the big double-decker red bus city tour, which took us around to la plaza de españa, a government building [i think], la catedral de sevilla, el real alcázar, la plaza de toros, la torre de oro, over some bridges, and around isla mágica. this is where we were glad the ticket buying process didn't work out as we were very much disappointed upon seeing it. we got on and off the bus to look at the different areas as we wanted and spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the center of sevilla and shopping. that pretty much took up the entire day. we stopped a couple of times to have bocadillos [baguette type sandwiches] and ice cream. one of the many things i love about spain is that there are heladerías [ice cream places] on every corner, like starbucks in the US, but better because it's ice cream. we went back to the hotel briefly to sit and rest because we were exhausted from walking around all day in the hot sun. we went back out again for tapas and drinks and as we were walking home, there was a shifty looking character who had walked past us, and then decided to turn around and walk in our direction. needless to say, we walked much faster and turned onto a highly populated street. mr. shifty then went another direction. i liked sevilla, a lot, but i feel so much safer in granada. granada just doesn't feel as sketchy as sevilla.

the next morning, sunday, we slept in, checked out, stored out bags with the hotel, and went to visit for free the insides of la catedral [free because it was sunday] and el real alcázar [always free for students]. both were fabulous. after that, we went to la plaza de toros because they do short 20 minute tours and take you to see the bullring and let you sit in the stands and explore a little bit, but we were too late. they had finished giving tours for the day because there was a bullfight that evening. so we had to make do with just looking at the gift shop and taking pictures of the outside of the building. we hopped back onto the tour bus one last time before we went to some pizza. after that, we got our stuff from the hotel and caught a bus to the bus station. once we got off the bus, we got a little lost and had to be pointed in the right direction for the actual station. we thought we were going to miss the last bus back to granada, but lucky for us, our bus was late. on the way back, they showed pirates of the caribbean. it was fun to watch in spanish. we arrived in granada at about 10:30pm and the only thing i wanted to do was shower and sleep. that's how tired we were - our whole bodies hurt, from head to toe. we had burnt scalps and blistered feet, but it was so worth it. lots of pictures were taken, so there shall be lots to see, mostly of places, not so much people. i need to start taking more pictures of people.