Seville: 23 June, 2007

I'm pretty sure if you wanted to compare Seville to any town in the USA, that town would have to be Phoenix, Arizona. I can't remember having ever sweat as much as I did in Seville, in any other place in the world except Phoenix and surrounding areas. I looked at a thermometer that was on a light up board, and it was something like 33 degrees Celcius. I have no idea exactly how hot that is in Farenheit, but I can tell you that its a lot hotter than San Antonio. I'd made the ungodly choice of wearing a black t-shirt to go walking about town, and 30 seconds after stepping off that bus I was regretting it immensely. Never again will I wear a black t-shirt in Seville; providing I ever actually go there again. I really doubt I will ever go back. That town was much too hot for my liking. I may be from Texas, but I hate hot weather. It makes you sweaty, sticky, and smelly. I don't really have a problem so much with being smelly, but sweaty and sticky, now that an entirely different matter. I love cold weather. For me, winter is the greatest time of year.

Seville, it was like someone had just burped in your face. It smelled bad, and it was really hot. It felt like my friend Travis had just burped in my face. I know what you're thinking, "How does this kid know what it feels like to be burped on in the face?", you obviously don't know anything about the very weird people I hang out with. We get our laughs from making each other as uncomfortable as possible... and cracking jokes about the dumbest things.

Sorry for ranting, I'll get back on topic now. When we arrived in Seville, the whole town had that Arizona ghost town feel. There was no one walking around the streets, it was dusty and hot, and it was entirely too quiet. All you needed was some tumbleweeds blowing across the street and the sound track to "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" and you'd like you were in the scene of an old Western movie - providing you pretended there were no cars parked on the side of the road.

Torremolinos: 22 June, 2007

When we got to the dreary looking building that looked like some sort of Eastern European, Post-communist apartment block, we off-loaded all of our stuff we began to have doubts about this place. The beach was nice, and the air smelled like it should in any coastal city - salty. We walked into the first big room and waited to be handed our keys and meal cards. The whole scene had the same feeling as that of walking into a mental hospital. The floors were old dirty tile, the walls were this ugly off-whiteish paint, and the lights were very dim. The whole building smelled old, like a nursing home, except it didn't make me want to vomit.

We were handed our keys and we each walked to our respective rooms. My first impression of my room was "Hey, this isn't too bad. It has a nice view." This impression lasted all of another 5 seconds until I looked around a wall and saw my bed. Actually, I need to clarify, it wasn't really a bed. It was more like a fold out couch, but instead of being folded out, it was folded up. The couch didn't fold out into a bed like the couches back in the USA do, it folded upwards into a bunk bed. Upon seeing my bed, I believe the first words out of my mouth were "You have got to be s****ing me!" I tossed my bags on the floor next to this beast of Spanish engineering and climbed onto the top bunk. The mattress was hard and uncomfortable, the pillow was so soft that my head risked being swallowed hole if I lay onto it. This wasn't too bad, I guess, but the worst part of this bunk was that it wasn't made for a 6foot 1inch tall body. I pulled myself as far to the front end as I could, but my feet still stuck off the edge. In hind sight, I suppose it could have been worse. The bed could have had a footboard and I could have had to curl up my legs in order to fit, but there wasn't a footboard so I was able to allow my feet to dangle off the edge.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I guess this round went to the dreary looking building that I'd be calling home for the next two nights.