Day 1 Seville

Seville was hot hot hot!! Although after visiting a few places in Spain, I like Seville the best. The highlight is of course the Seville Cathedral, built over the site of the Almohad Mosque. Some parts of the mosque is still preserved such as the Moorish entrance and the Giralda (a minaret converted into a bell tower). It´s the 3rd biggest cathedral after St Peter's in the Vatican city and St Paul's in London. Apparently when the people built it, they said "we shall have a church of such a kind that those who see it built will think we were mad" . I guess it's only human nature to want o build the biggest, tallest, longest something. Reminds me of the tower of babylon, wanting to build the tallest tower so it will reach the heavens.
The next stop was el Real Alcazar de Seville, which I liked best. The Alcazar is actually the royal residence of many monarchs since it was built in 913 and is still used by the Spanish king when he visits Seville. The gardens are like an oasis, you feel as though you´ve been transported back to some Arabian nights tale. Too bad my camera batteries died just then!! Well, I just had to absord everything and print it into memory. Dont really want to bore everyone with the history and architecture of the monuments because I have a feeling I might be repeating words such as 'beautiful', 'magnificient' and 'breath-taking' alot due to my somewhat limited vocab :)
At night I went to the Andalusian School of Arts and Performance in barrio de Santa Cruz for a flamenco performance. The performance was absolutely stunning, I think my mouth was wide opened in amazement throughout the show. Just looking at how fast they tap their feet made mine ache. And the singer was so full of emotion. I had no idea what he was singing about but you can get the feel that it´s one of sadness and he´s mourning for a lost lover or something. Yeah it made my hair stand! It was truly truly amazing.
Anyway I have to say that when I reached Seville, I totally forgot to get directions to my hostel. Haha, so I just got on the fisrt bus that stopped, used some of my broken spanish with the bus driver who had no idea what I was saying. He let me in anyway and then I got off at the last stop. Hmm...so where to go from here? It was a Sunday afternoon, so the streets were very much empty. I just walked and walked, all the while praying that I´m walking in the right direction because I really thought I might faint under the heat and my heavy rugsack. And then, out of no where I found the street my hostel was located in!!! In the back of my head I heard the choir of angels singing 'Hallelujah...hallelujah hallelujah' :) So no map, no direction and I found it...now who said I have a bad sense of direction huh? But seriously, thank God.