Adios Sevilla, really, this time, for real....

Okay, I'm up too early because I need to leave here at 9 a.m. to be at the train station for my 9:45 train to Madrid and then Toledo and I was afraid of oversleeping and missing it (like that would really be possible). I thought my last post about Seville would be my last, because what else would I have to write about? I was planning in returning my bike, coming home and watching Entourage on my computer (I'm in season 3 and it looks like I still have 2 or 3 seasons more).

Well, I returned my bike and then walked home, but I forgot that walking turns up things that you don't always see on a bike, especially when the bike paths here run a circular route around the old city.

I dropped off the bike and walked past the former train station at Plaza de Armas, right across from the bus terminal. I've seen the building before. I passed it on the way to get my bike back in early September, and wondered what it was. Then I found out when I was looking for a place to find a money belt on the internet that there was a shopping center there, but after having gone to the shopping center in Nervion and finding it mostly to be a cineplex with a few stores, I didn't think it was worth a visit. But as I walked past this building I've seen many times, I noticed more, and went inside.

It's actually pretty cool. As soon as you enter, you can tell it was a train station, with the big vaulted train station type roof, an old ticket booth, etc. But it's the outside of the building I really like and wish I'd had my camera. It is built in what I guess they call mujedar style, which is 19th century Islamic influenced architecture. It's really a beautiful building and also a cool place to go. There is a McDonald's there (I have come to appreciate Mc.D's for restrooms and food when it is not normal eating hours in Seville), a supermarket and quite a few shops, cafes, and even a disco. 'Too bad I hadn't known this sooner', I thought, and then I thought, 'no it isn't'. It was a nice little discovery on my last night.

From there I went towards Corte Ingles because I needed a new lock for my luggage. When I went to Rome they took the lock off my bag at some point after I checked it. Why? I don't know, but this has happened before and it pisses me off that they don't at least put the lock in my bag. Now I had to buy a new one, because I am planning on leaving my backpack in Madrid station rather than bring it to Toledo. I have another bag with everything I will need for those two days.

I walked from the old train station, through little streets with lots of Spaniards walking to and fro - a grandmother taking two cute little girls in identical dresses home, people going, or coming from, shopping. I passed the museum of fine art and thought about going in, but decided not to, since I will have the Prado in Madrid, which will have all of the art I'll need to see on this trip. There was a nice square in front of the museum with trees and places to sit and a fountain and I thought that this was the kind of place I was wishing the Alameda de Hercules was when I sitting there earlier yesterday in the sun with a few scraggly trees hardly providing any shade and the ugly yellow bricks and the flies. As I continued walking, I was thinking that perhaps instead of staying in this cheap place here in Seville that had me kind of living like a poor immigrant, maybe it would have been better to spend a little more and be with Spaniards, more in the heart of things, but not in the heart of the tourist areas, like this area I was passing through that I did not know the name of.

After Corte Ingles where I found a set of two locks that annoyingly don't share the same key (how am I supposed to keep all of these little keys straight?), I walked down the little pedestrian streets looking for something to eat. I was imagining some churros with chocolate. I passed a store I had seen before that was now a abuzz with activity. I went in. They had all kinds of biscuits on display. People were filling little cans with biscuits or baskets with caramels or nougat. A woman gave me a chocolate filled biscuit to try. I noticed they had biscuits with essence of orange flower, this mysterious 'oil of orange flower' my Moroccan cookbook calls for in so many of the desert recipes. I asked the woman who gave me the cookie where I could find it and we chatted for a while, until I got a few caramels and nougats and left.

I was thinking that there seemed to be so much of Seville that I missed, living out in my funky neighborhood with the prostitutes and the slightly tenementy building across the street housing the Africans. I took one last stroll down the pedestrian streets to Plaza Nueva and then took another street back. There were quite a few people out. Soon, I started to notice there were several children crying. One young toddler in a stroller was screaming, another boy was crying as his father walked with him in his arms. People were blowing cigarette smoke in my face and I was beginning to get tired of dodging bikes that were being ridden on the pedestrian street (usually I avoided them or walked my bike if it was crowded) and people who apparently could not walk a straight line. I was beginning to feel the stress of being in a crowded place and wanted to return home.

It was then that I realized I had been in exactly the right place and had done all the right things in Seville. Other than getting a little worked up over the noise (when I turned on music and closed my window it all went away)I didn't have to deal with the stress of big crowds. I was actually thinking that Seville was not very heavily populated, but I realize now that my image of the place has been affected by my experience of living here in a slightly marginal neighborhood and getting around on a bike and not participating in most of the rituals, from tapeando, to eating dinner at 10:30 p..m (when I am usually winding down and ready for bed). I was thinking that my experience may have been in some ways similar to that of immigrants elsewhere - my neighborhood one of those places where things are allowed to happen that would not be permitted in a more 'mainstream' neighborhood and the constant crying of children across the street being perhaps a product of the stress of those mostly single women who work all day and don't have the luxury of childcare or even to be able to stay home and take care of their children themselves. So while this is not a way that I would choose to live my life forever, it was nice to be able to have a taste of this life, away from the normal pulse of Sevillian life and off slightly on the margins.

Now I am just wondering what kinds of neighborhoods will await me in Madrid and Barcelona.