Day 11- Seville

We tried to wake up earlier this morning but it is hard when you go to bed late, plus the whole city seems to start late. Daniel asked me permission last night to get some boba tea with Sunshine. I heard them making plans to set up the alarm clock and they even looked for directions. Well, the place opened at 11:00am. We start to hear noise around 9:30am when people are probably starting to get ready to go to work. It took us a while to get out of the apartment because Gregory was trying to get a ride to go to Algeciras. After doing some research, we decided to buy bus tickets over the phone. This was very frustrating to Gregory who likes to do everything on the internet, me I have no problem with speaking to a real person on the phone and even more in my native language. We bought tickets from Sevilla to Algeciras for tomorrow morning, from there we plan to ride the ferry to Tanger, Morocco. We are so excited, but I felt like we needed to spend at least another day in this beautiful city. When we were finally ready to go, Daniel said he had a terrible headache. We told him to stay home, which was a bummer because he had researched the places where he wanted to go.

We walked to see Las Setas also known as Metropol Parasol which is a wooden structure located at La Encarnacion square, in the old quarter of Seville, Spain. It was designed by the German architect Jurgen Mayer and completed in April 2011.^[1] It has dimensions of 150 by 70 metres (490 by 230 ft) and an approximate height of 26 metres (85 ft)^[2] and claims to be the largest wooden structure in the world.^[3] Its appearance, location, delays and cost overruns in construction resulted in much public controversy. The building is popularly known as Las Setas de la Encarnación (Incarnation's mushrooms).
Underneath this impressive structure, there is a museum where you can see some Roman ruins.

Then we walked across the bridge of Isabell II, which takes you to Triana, another neighborhood in Seville. There, we visited the Castle of San Jorge which was actually a castle where they kept the prisoners of the Inquisition. The man at the ticket window laughed when I said: "that's the first thing is free here in Europe." It is true, I forgot you have to pay for the bread and even the butter they place in every restaurant. In a way I kind of like it because people aren't wasteful, but we miss our free bread with butter!
The museum was very nice and informative. Sunshine didn't know anything about the Inquisition and she was impressed. I'm glad it was free and I'm glad it brings awareness of the lack of tolerance back then.
On top of this castle, there is the market where you can find all kind of specialties like caramel blood, bull meat, bulls tail and many other types of meat that just didn't seem

 appealing to us, but was very impressive. We thought that because it was the market, the prices would be cheaper, but not really. Sunshine got what she wanted, California sushi roll for ten euros while Gregory and I decided to eat some tapas in another cute restaurant outside the market. We walked some more towards the "Torre del Oro".

I love walking through the cities, I really believe is the best way to get to know the city! We stopped in an information center to print the bus and ferry tickets for tomorrow and to ask for tickets to a bullfight or to see a flamenco show. The bullfight started at 9:30pm and the flamenco at 9:00pm, both too late for us considering that we are leaving early, plus I'm not excited about a bullfight. We walked some more, we got lost, even Gregorio with his google maps. We were so close to home and we kept going in circles until someone stopped to ask for directions. Who? Me of course! We finally made it home with the help of some friendly locals. I took a refreshing shower and went upstairs to the terrace with Gregory to relax for a while. Gregory was working, I left him there and decided to take the kiddos to get their well-deserved treat: boba tea. They were very impressed, even Sunshine said that the shop had more variety than her favorite place in California. After that, we went to the grocery store to get dinner. After dinner, Gregory and I went out for a walk and for drinks. Seville was awake and alive. We saw teenagers eating ice cream, tourists dining outside in every corner restaurant of tapas, people shopping. Life starts at night in Seville. We had our drinks in a really neat restaurant called: Cafe Pelayo. I'm not sure how I felt with all those bullheads staring at me but here in Seville, they sure feel proud of them! Our way back home, we stopped to hear a band "Giralda brass"and a lot of people were singing and clapping. We will miss this city. We made it home at midnight and of course, the kids were awake. We got ready for bed because tomorrow we leave for Morroco!