I had a few moments of regret in Rome on my decision to use Seville as my base. I thought, "this could have been my home" for the two months or so that I am here. But now that I am back in Seville, I do not regret my decision at all. It was apparent as soon as I entered the baggage claim area of the airport - no men with dogs shouting "ok, ok, ok, signore", no crowds, no mass of confusion, just a quiet baggage claim area and just our one flight waiting for bags.
The only problem was, my bag didn't arrive. Or so it seemed. When I checked in, behind another couple on the same flight, their bags were on the belt. I went to lift mine up and place it on the edge of the belt and the clerk yelled at me in Italian. I put my bag back down on the floor. When she saw my passport, she told me what she had said in English. I understood her. Basically she was making a mountain out of a mole hill. She told me that is why bags get lost because people put them on with other bags and then they go off without being tagged. Like the "ok, ok, ok, signore", when I thought one "ok" would have gotten the message across, in this case, I thought just a "please wait" would have done the trick. All of the yelling I was expecting to see in Rome was apparently only happening in the airport.
So I waited for my bag and it wasn't there. Everyone was gone and the belt had stopped. There were a few unclaimed bags on the belt. I went to the Iberia counter and told them my bag didn't arrive. A young woman was taking my information while a young man went to check. Just as she was about to hand me my claim ticket, he came walking over with it. As he handed it to me he said, "you just needed a little patience". I didn't respond. I mean, the belt had stopped moving and there was no one else there. Was I supposed to camp out there?
I walked out into the relative calm of the outside of the airport (compared to Rome which was a madhouse) and waited in line for the airport bus. Of course a few idiots were smoking in line. As we boarded, for some reason, some people did not go to the rear of the bus where there were seats, but instead stood in the aisles, making for very difficult maneuvering with luggage. I think after 6 days of dealing with smokers, tour groups, and singing teenagers on buses, I had had my fill of people. I was looking forward to getting back to the quiet of my apartment and doing laundry.
It didn't take long for us to get to Santa Justa train station, where I just missed the C2 bus. I waited for another one, and again, even though the driver told people to move back, they didn't. There was a whole open area at the rear of the bus (it was like a triple bus) but everyone was crowded in the front. Argh!
Soon I was at my stop. I walked to the Alameda de Hercules and stopped at a restaurant for lunch. They had a daily menu which included one tapa, one plate and a drink. I ordered taquitos de pollo (chicken taquitos) with green curry sauce and a chicken "wok" (stir fry). The wok came first and was pretty good. Then came the "taquitos" - turns out taquitos are not what I thought. I was expecting little spring roll type things like what you can get at Trader Joe's, filled with chicken in green curry. Instead, I got three pieces of chicken with green curry (which for some reason was brown) on top of it. I chuckled at my mistake - here I thought I knew what I was doing. I had a lot of chicken!
I wheeled my luggage home where an older prostitute was making her rounds. The young African women who stand talking in the middle of the street in the morning were apparently done for the day. This women always looks like she has had too much coffee, and she is usually smoking a cigarette. She's slightly older, maybe in her 40's-50's, but in decent shape and she walks around on the cobblestones in high heels, which I think must be really hard.
It was nice to be home. I unpacked, threw my sweaty, stinky clothes in the washing machine and caught up on some of the Daily Show episodes I missed last week. The sound I heard on the night before I left that sounded like a cat in heat turns out to be a baby across the street. I know cats are not in heat for that long and they don't sing during the day, so this was definitely a baby that sounded like a cat in heat.
When my laundry was done, I went up to the roof to hang it out to dry. It's nice having some comforts of home - a room bigger than a closet, a refrigerator that is cold, a place to cook, and the ability to do laundry. Sure Seville is not Rome and Spain is not Italy, but it is affordable and compared to Rome, quite laid back, and for that I am happy I am here.
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