Madrid, Seville and Barcelona

OK, so I have to be honest, Spain is a blur for me. This is what I get for waiting for so long to blog about the places. I could go look back at my journal but that would take some time and then I'd spend at solid hour reading and writing and reading and thinking and searching for reasons, missing the seasons, the autumn, the spring, the summer, the snow... You get the picture. It's much safer to sally onward without the journal. And honestly, now that I'm sitting comfortably on a bench by the Thames on a sunny day in London, I have little desire to travel back to a place where I sweat through my clothes on a daily basis and began every conversation with an awkward attempt at breaking the language barrier.

Not that Spain wasn't wonderful. After a few comfortable days in Barcelona pretending this was just a normal summer (sleeping in, watching TV, bumming around in my pajamas and occasionally venturing out into the city for nourishment), we travelled on to Madrid to visit Christine's friend Meredith who I had met once or twice. Meredith retrieved us from the train station, let us stay in her apartment and acted as a tour guide around the city. It's interesting and wonderful at the same time seeing a place through someone else's eyes, not having to figure out every detail on your own, being guided through streets another person knows familiarly. We walked by the Imperial Palace, the Puerta del Sol, through gardens and around streets. Madrid is primarily a city in which people live, its sights a lovely break from the incessant babble of tourists that had been Rome. From trying sangrea to playing British Trivial Pursuit to eating tappas and visiting a piano bar, Madrid was a wonderful time to be had with friends, another nice entry in the saga of the attempt at a regular summer.






Then we went on Seville, a city I have to admit I'm in love with, though I can't quite explain why. It was a bit difficult finding our hostel, but Meredith came with us again and guided us around the city. We walked down by the cathedral and over by the university, exploring a place that I vaguely knew from visiting my senior year of high school. It might just be the nostalgia that I love, but walking again through the cathedral and over to the Torro del Oro sealed the city in a happy memory. That and the random things that make me smile, like Seville organges hanging from trees in squares to finding Amistad street on a trip over to the train station.

Of course, the best thing about Seville was that Pam was there. She arrived the day after we did, running with her duffle bag to hug me in the train station under the huge departures/arrivals board. It's wonderful to actually see good friends, to have them around to share the hours of your time, to have a fresh ear to talk to, a familiar change in dynamics. It was a great moment, having all three mermaids united, laughing over strings of incomprehensible inside jokes.





So together we walked around the city, waited on train tickets and enjoyed the end of our time in Seville. We took a train back to Barcelona and again made our way around town, Pam taking time to shop with Christine and wander to La Sagrada Famillia and down to the seashore with me. I took a morning to myself to walk around the Gothic quarter, enjoying the feeling of being transported back to another place and time before rejoining the group for dinner.

Thus Spain passed pleasantly by, if you can call hours spent in ridiculous heat pleasant. I can. I saw churches and earned myself weeks of reading- Spanish cathedrals have distinct choirs and peculiarities in style whose interpretations are much more manageable now that I've grown accustomed to the space in this particular kind of church. Christine spent time with friends, absorbing the Spanish culture and venturing around. Pam glued us all together and helped the time pass easily by. A cheerful Spanish blur.

Honestly, you can't deny the cuteness of this picture.