Spain In Conclusion

When pondering where to start the beginning is a rarely as good a place as you might suspect it to be, but let’s jump in there regardless, which is to say pick up where the previous post finished and mention that Natalie Bell and I toured the Alcazar Palace gardens despite the pouring rain and they were lovely and orange-filled.

The unfortunate truth of international traveling is that sometimes you just want something familiar and inexpensive and you can’t help but go to McDonalds. Further unfortunate truth: sometimes someone will somehow kick your bag out from under your table and book it out of there without anyone noticing, as happened to Abby. Luckily her passport was safe in the locker at the hostel: her wallet, camera, phone, and iPod less so.

We went to two police stations to try to report the theft, both of which were closed. For siesta. Justice should not take a siesta!

Abby was able to email her mom to cancel her credit cards and when we catalogued the loss the only really irreplaceable thing turned out to be the pictures of the trip on her camera. Absolutely terrible experience but reaffirming of the ultimately minimal importance of material things.

That evening we met up with a friend of Abby’s who has lived in Sevilla for the past year. He took us to a local tapa bar where he claimed to be known –people are always claiming to be ‘known’ places-, but we were only able to doubt him until we walked in the front door and observed how enthusiastically he was greeted by the entire staff. Hilarious. No offense to the culinary skills of anyone who has ever cooked for me who is reading this, but I would not hesitate to describe the saltimbocca as the best thing I have ever eaten ever, followed closely by the pineapple goat cheese toast and orange marmalade pork. Spain knows its food.

Later Natalie took me to meet up with some of her friends for the bizarre Spanish tradition of drinking in the streets and too close to the river and subjecting oneself to the unbelievably disrespectful catcalls and comments of roving hoodlums. Unenjoyable.

Sunday morning we relaxed around the hostel a bit before catching the bus to the airport. Flight was without a hitch but the return to central London was anything but: the confirmation for the Stansted Express train tickets was linked to Abby’s stolen credit cards, which turned out not to matter as the train was down for emergency service anyway, so we took the hour long bus ride to Liverpool Station where the night bus did not deign to make either of the three supposed routes I waited for. Frozen, exhausted and miserable I decided that if ever there was a time to tap into emergency supplies this might be it and decided to take a cab home. The driver told me it should cost around twenty quid and apparently took pity on me and gave me the frozen-exhausted-miserable girl discount because even when the meter came to several pounds over that he only charged me a twenty.

For the grand finale of the trip, I blanked out on the door code to my building.
This morning I woke up at 8 a.m. London time, which in Spain would have been 9 when I’d become accustomed to waking up to the bells of the cathedral (Suzanne Vega much?) and hopped up to get to the Professional Beauty trade show which involved multiple tube transfers and some dodgy business with the light rail system. My first legit trade convention -with a badge and everything!- involved a strange fluctuation of roles from assistant to the PR director to dishwasher to retail associate to VIP tender and back. Interesting experience.

Finally finally to bed.