Day One - Picking Oranges

The check-in went fine alhamdulillah; none of the drama you usually see on cheap airline TV programmes, and after a bit, we sat ourselves down in the plane (most of us getting window seats) and awaited take-off. As the plane sped along the runway and made its ascent, I thought I saw smoke coming out of the engine nearest to me, and I thought we were going to crash, but as we were safely in the air, I realised that it was probably just some low-floating cloud. Phew.


With Ryanair, there is no food served on board unless you pay extra on the flight, so I spent the whole journey trying to sleep; it doesn't matter what kind of strangers are sitting next to me, I will have my sleep! But I didn't get any, and we landed 3 hours later in Seville. Our luggage didn't take long to arrive on the belt, but once I saw mine, I noticed something different about it; one of the straps had been ripped off along with part of the bag. In the end we found the Rynair customer services and they asked for my passport to take my details down and then gave me a piece of paper I had to fax off to Ireland along with the receipt of the bag. I thought I'd fax it to my mum and she could do the rest as the receipt was somewhere at home, so I called her. Great luck so far! But it gets better. We boarded the bus after finally establishing what the price was with the driver, and I looked out of the window onto the sprawling city that was Seville, finding Ice Age 3 and Harry Potter posters quite amusing for some reason.


We walked to the coach station from the bus stop, with my half-functioning rucksack, and noticing a beautiful park with fountains and palm trees next door. At the coach station I queued up to buy the tickets while the others got changed and brushed their teeth (yes, in the coach station!). I was just expecting to save a place in the queue for the others who'd come later and all chip in with the Spanish they knew (which let's face it, isn't much :S) to try and get tickets, but that was when I said my first proper sentence in Spanish to a Spanish person, "How much are 7 tickets to Granada?" I felt very proud of myself indeed!

We were about to check in our luggage at the coach station so we could explore the city a bit, until two police officers stopped us and asked us for our passports, when I realised, I didn´t have mine! Where could it have been?! I then remembered, Ryanair. Luckily I had a photocopy I showed the police, and I had a missed call from what I presumed was them, and after discovering I only had 45 minutes to get back to the airport and retrieve it, I took a taxi with two of us, and in the end got it back. Alhamdulillah. I could've been far away in Granada without a passport if it hadn't been for those policemen!


After considering eating at a very expenive restaurant, instead we took a heavily discounted tour bus around Seville. The open-air top was amazing; seeing the beauty of the city from above (ish) with the wind blowing in our faces, occasionally trying to grab oranges growing on the many lush Seville trees, listening through headphones at the recorded tour-guide messages as we went from landmark to landmark. We stopped off near the centre of the city, where the streets were all cobbled and pristine. It looked like a perfect city, apart from everybody walking around practically naked (and probably without suncream on too!). But that did kinda spoil the atmosphere. We ate at a restaurant near the bull ring, and the first thing you noticed when you walked in were the humongous bulls' heads mounted on the wall; about 8 of them, with pictures all around of these 'courageous' bull-fighters killing these poor animals.


I felt quite disgusted, but we ate grilled fish and chips, paid the fairly high sum, and left to explore some more, including the cathedral and the giralda, which with the massive tower, used to be the biggest mosque in Seville, now just a tourist attraction adorned with christian crosses everywhere.


Other events included me patting a horse and getting hair everywhere, washing in a random fountain, and taking loads of pictures, before one of us noticed that one of the horses had a 'fifth leg' ¬_¬ We went down a nice-looking tunnel, and found ourselves in such a peaceful arena kind of place (with of course a fountain), and where in the end we decided to pray.


But the last place we went to in Seville was probably the best. We were wondering if we'd have enough time to visit it before the coach left, and we decided we did. It looked magnificent from the outside, but inside the 'Palace de-España' was much more breathtaking! Up the steps we find ourselves facing a MASSIVE courtyard (and I mean massive, bigger than a football stadium), with an equally impressive gigantic fountain in the middle over the bridge; looking magical with its spray being spread across the courtyard by the moving wind.


We obviously got wet as we had planned, which really cooled us down from the blistering summer heat. It felt amazing. Afterwards we walked through the nice park (with more fountains) back to the coach station where we got on the coach for the 3 hour journey to Granada; with the view of the beautiful vast sunflower fields unable to lull me to sleep for some reason. A hollywood film dubbed in Spanish wasn't what I was in the mood for, and while everyone else was sound asleep, I just stared out of the window into the distance.


Arriving at Granada at the dark of the night, it felt so far enchanting, with the feeling of it being one big Edgware Road (minus alot of the arabs) quelled when we approached the main square; festival lights decorating overhead, and the cobbled streets beautifully reflecting everything. After alot of searching and asking around, we found the hostel we booked: Al-Maktoub, which was surprisingly homely, although I don´t know why such an un-arab normal place would've got such a name. From the outside it doesn't look like much of a hostel, but once inside we were shown around and bagsied our beds (with me getting the top of one of the triple bunks!), before leaving our stuff so we could explore the city a bit, but not before we checked Facebook on the hostel's free internet downstairs!


We initially considered eating at a Turkish 'halal' place (which apparently has the Guiness World Record for the largest doner meat thing), but instead we chose a nice little shawerma place across the road, and it was so nice we considered eating there for breakfast the next day ¬_¬ The night-time atmosphere at the 'Plaza de nueve' was so chilled out and calming, and while the others went off for shisha, three of us went up towards Alhambra, where we were due to visit properly the next day, but just to get a feel of it at night. Up the quiet hill road and through a large gate, the stream of water flowing downhill sounded so serene amidst the quiet of the night, and the emptiness of the whole place added to the magic. The graffiti on the walls on the way there (and all of Granada for that matter) was quite cool too, and I made sure I documented them! Then, the bells chimed for 2am, and we made our way back to the hostel for finally, a full night´s sleep. We thought.

This day was hectic, and it was only the first!