World Travel Guide Online

English Macrophages and Sevillian
London, England/Seville, Spain

The bus pulls away from the station. With a bit of remorse I give a mental wave in our departure, thankful that we are in one piece. But what commences is the hottest, smelliest, longest bus ride in history. It is around hour three out of thirteen that the AC/fresh air conductor (crucial to bus travel, if you don’t know) breaks and we are reduced to playing the game Name That Smell. At hour nine, A/C finally starts working again and a conjunctive sigh of relief to be heard through all of Leeds is heard. It is in the midst of my adopted garfield-esque suctioned hand-on window on the bus that I see the headline on the front page of the Times: “Self destructive nosedive takes Dollar to record low against the Euro”.

We leave for Spain tomorrow.

So, upon our arrival in London smelling like a couple of ripe fruits, we embark on trying to find a place to stay on a Friday with last minute notice. EVERYTHING is booked. We finally find a place in Zone 4, Golder’s Green.

Golder’s Green at ten p.m. is little more than a skeleton of its daily commercial self, so of the available eateries at this hour 90% were closed, 5% didn’t take cards, 100% ATMs were broken, 4% were too expensive, and 1% didn’t serve food anymore. KFC (yes, we contemplated it) didn’t take cards and neither did McDonalds. We encountered a corner Israeli deli/convenient store that sold olives, hummus and an assortment of unrecognizable meats and vegetables. Ellen demonstrated her brilliance and foresight by grabbing her beer first. I pondered over whether or not ham would go well with chick peas or not, store owner closes gate to the beer cooler and Ellen worries about which bomb I will choose to blow up the joint when I realize what is happening. Some people may define people of my nature as “alcoholic”, but I don’t. I know what I need to cope with in situations such as these. Its name is Grolsch.

Upon recognition of the aforementioned event, I proceed to sob, not quietly, with my left hand clasped on the lock. Bastard behind counter pretends to ignore me and takes latent delight in my anguish, evidently venting his frustation built upon the unnamed masses before me. I curse and spit the whole way home, Ellen taking enormous efforts to calm my unruly manner. In the hostel, we realize neither of us possess a bottle opener and I go to bed on my tearstained, dirty pillow, our Norse, naked, middle-aged roommate reeking of stale old food.

We wake to an above average breakfast, move our stuff to a friend of a friend’s house in Stockwell and visit Portobello Market. Some good finds, too bad i don’t have enough money to splurge. I do, however, happen to purchase a wool scarf and hat that I find superb and manage to haggle the owner to a still exorbitant agreement.

Thriftiness is my mantra in making the decision to spend the night in Luton airport to catch our flight at 6:30 am the next morning. As sleep on the hardest floor in the history of man can be, I awake groggy and nervous for check-in. “Boarding is at 6:30 am”, the lady informs me. “Cool. ” I say.

I proceed to stroll into this nice little record store that carries some decent titles, stave off the temptation to purchase the new Elbow record, and suddenly realize it is 6:25. “Oh,” I say to myself. “I better get moving, I am boarding in five minutes.”

With a mile long queue projecting out of the departure area, I failed to remember security lines in the past 6000 miles of travel thus far. I scan my Easyjet ticket, eyes resting on the phrase “Be at gate 30 minutes early for boarding. If you are late, we will leave you.” Coffee in hand, I immediately flip out, spilling coffee all over the terminal floor making a large�”WHOOSH” sound in the process. Embarressedly I scurry to find napkins to clean up the mess (because my mother raised me correctly and I don’t want to go on perpetuating the myth about Americans abroad) and abandon the pool of precious, expanding liquid mid-way when I remember that this is England and they don’t have napkins. Anywhere.

Reapproaching my space in line beside the pool of coffee with 200 pairs of eyes upon me, I tearfully wave down the “Passenger Assistance Personnel” guy plead what in the hell do I do.
“I tell you what you do,” he says reproachfully, smacking his gums and eyes narrowing, “You have to stay in line. Maybe they will come get you. Maybe not.”

Back in line, with cheeks burning and Brits encircling me like a rapacious macrophage engulfing a foreign invader, I mumble a prayer that Ellen has the guts enough to STOP THAT PLANE when she realizes I am not on it. At whatever the cost. I make it through security at 6:40, tear through the terminal and beg a security man to tell me what gate it is because it is so late it’s not even posted anymore. He directs me to gate 14. Sheepskin coat reeking of maple syrup, scarf and fleece blanket flying behind me, I arrive at the gate with ten people left to board. Ellen is nowhere in sight. Three minutes later, she arrives panting behind me. Dumbass American broads abroad. Left hat I bought yesterday in terminal.

We land in Malaga. The Costa De Sol. Blue skies and sun, the first I’ve seen in weeks. I start using my Spanish and tend to believe that I’m doing well. While Andalucia is lovely in a sense, it reeks of tourist trap. Projects are 90% of the city and there is bit of the pastel, shallow, cheesiness that sums up Miami.

We take a bus to the Bus Station, purchase tickets to Seville. The trip is jocund, driving through beautiful countryside, reminding me of Texas a little, with random scattered buildings, landmarks here and there in the middle of nowhere. Signs I saw: Hotel Queso, Piscinas Restaurant Los Angeles (lit: Pools Restaurant Los Angeles), and a charming little strip club that I would have loved to visit entitled Los Angeles de Charlie.

View from atop Catedral Garibaldi over Seville

Arrive in Seville and acquire a room at a hostel near the Plaza De Toros. It’s small but we have our own bathroom. Thank God. I shower for the first time in 3 days and eat sushi. Seville is an amazing city with the Catedral y Girabaldi as one of its centerpieces. Originally a mosque in 1084, it was eventually converted into a cathedral-putting St. Paul’s to complete shame. Ate bread, wine, coffee, gazpacho and cazon for lunch in a café. Seville is a city of gardens, mossy fountains, tall sculptures in roundabouts, colors, lemon trees, tradition, beauty, architecture with purpose, mosaics and cryptic cobbled streets. Its elder populace is tempered with a youthful force that manages it’s touristy areas with class, style and proportional contrast.

I find an accomodating peacefulness in this city, that it could be my Spanish home away from home. In the eyes of its citizens, there is a bit of welcoming recognition that makes for complete ease and the possibility that no matter what I need, someone will be there to help me.