Southern [Spain] Hospitality

Second flight (into Seville)?: Wildly uneventful...I was asleep before the plane finished boarding.

Had a luggage scare for a hot second at the airport. I was worried they'd lost my luggage Stephanie Carozza style...now that I have it, I kind of wish they had gone and lost it.

I CLEARLY overpacked...my taxi driver dropped me off with all my suitcases in the busiest little café-lined street he could find and everyone was talking about how much stuff I had and how I was ever going to get to where I needed to go. So laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, I piled my carry-on on top of the big suitcase and, after moving two feet, it fell off--typical.

All of a sudden I look up and see my taxi driver running towards me...he dropped me off at the wrong spot and ended up running back to give me proper directions (that was nice of him--he also didn't overcharge me on the taxi ride but it still would have been cool if he'd backed the car up and helped me with my stuff).

Seeing this whole interaction, a random guy comes over to help me with my suitcases. Turns out his name is Manuel and he works at a hotel nearby (I wish I could remember the name of it so I could thank him again) and he helped me lug my stuff to my hostel for the night. Gosh, it's great to be back!

(The person in my room at the hostel who was just screaming on his phone for 20 minutes and waking everyone up obviously didn't get the memo...)

Seatbelt Twins and Airplane Friends

And so the adventure begins!

I got to my seat on the plane and the woman next to me immediately asked if I could switch with her friend from whom she was separated. NBD, I'm traveling alone and it was a jam-packed flight--being moved to an aisle seat in the front of the plane would have been an upgrade from the middle of the middle. She didn't end up a hold of a flight attendant so she could find her friend and I could fight the flow of seat searchers. Needless to say, I stayed put.

Strapped myself in for the 6.5 hour flight, and it was clear I had made the right decision. The person who had sat in the seat previously was just my size (meaning there was no awkward seatbelt adjustment/elbowing of my neighbors to be had). THAT NEVER HAPPENS! (except on my later flight to Seville…my lucky day? YES)

I'm glad I didn't move because the man sitting on the other side of me was really nice and we talked for most of the trip. Really interesting guy; he's originally from Chile and has a job in the States that lets him travel all over the world. Finally found out his name at the end of the trip when he gave me his business card and told me to keep him posted on my teaching adventures. We parted and, luckily for him, he got to go catch up on his sleep in a hotel while I was condemned to attempt napping on a plastic airport bench with pointy armrests obstructing my ability to lay down (Tell me, who's the REAL winner here?--mine was free...?)

CRISIS: How did I want to spend my first Euro?

Simple: Helado y café from MickeyD's Euro Menu!! It would have been worth every centimo if it hadn't been removed from the menu...WHAT?! Coffee with a small cone's worth of soft serve ice cream filling the cup? Who WOULDN'T want to buy that?!

Note to Self: Must do more investigation on the matter in Seville...is it really a thing of the past? I sure hope not…