Santiponce Photos
Cadiz Photos
Roman Ruins and the Monastery with Hours Even a Banker Would Envy
I decided to take a day trip to Santiponce, just north of Sevilla. A couple of kilometers from Santiponce lies Italica, a site containing Roman ruins. And on road to the ruins, there is a an old monastery that has been restored and according to the guidebook, must not be missed. I had read about Santiponce in the guidebook the day before, but when I looked at it again, I noticed that the monastery closed at 2PM. I had not woken up until 11:00 and it was now 12:15. Since it was only a 15 minute ride away, I decided I could still make it before 2:00 and I quickly hurried to the bus station. The electronic ticket machine at the station didn't have an English language option so I puzzled over it for a few minutes before coming to the conclusion that it only sold a single type of ticket, a "universal pass." None of the destinations advertised on the buses was anything close to where I wanted to go. I noticed an information building nearby and inside I found a helpful gentleman to told me that the buses to Santiponce were run by a private company out of a completely separate bus station about a 20 minute walk away.
I set off at a torrid pace, at the same time keeping an eye out for a place to grab a quick snack since I hadn't eaten anything yet. About half way to the station I came across a sandwich shop with slabs of various meats hanging on every wall. The man running the shop whipped up a smoked ham sandwich on focaccia with olive oil, easily the best ham sandwich I've ever had. I ate it as I walked and eventually came to a building with the name of the bus station on it, but when I went inside it appeared to be just shops and restaurants. I asked a woman where to buy bus tickets and she pointed across the street. The buses run every half hour and I had originally hoped to make the one at 1:00, but by this point it was already a few minutes past the hour. I decided that if I got on the 1:30 bus, I could still have 15 minutes at the monastery before it closed, which since it was a small place might be enough.
I headed to the building across the street and inside was presented with three lines, each with a company's name above it. But which one did I want? I found a video monitor displaying a list of the buses leaving soon and saw that the Santiponce listing had "Vargas" written next to it, which was one of my three line choices. The Vargas line was a single queue that was being serviced by three attendant windows.
1:15. Just after I got in line, I was followed by a young couple whose nationality I couldn't be sure of and since they spoke to each other in English, they may have been from different countries. They both had a nasal quality to the voice and their interations with each other were unusual. It's interesting to me the unique ways in which different couples interact and I wish I could describe this couple's interactions better, but all I can say it that they were odd and maybe a touch self absorbed. Suddenly two of the attendant windows closed and we were left with just one still open. This set off the European couple. "Fuck! Are you kidding me? They're closing two windows! I can't believe they're closing two windows!" This went on for several minutes.
1:20. It became apparent that it was very important that the couple catch a 1:30 bus and at the speed the line was moving, there was a chance they would miss it. Of course, I was trying to catch 1:30 bus too. After the woman at the front of the line had been talking to the attendant for about 30 seconds, she drew the ire of the guy from the couple, "What is she doing? She is taking forever!" 1:25. I made it to the front of the line and told the attendant that I wanted to buy a ticket to Santiponce. She pointed towards the buses and said something that I couldn't understand. I thought she was telling me where the bus was, but I needed a ticket, which is what I told her in my best broken Spanglish. She just repeated that same sequence of words that might as well have been Farsi as far as I was concerned. Suddenly, the man from the couple came forward, looked at me, and in a stressed out tone said, "You pay on the bus!" Oh.
1:27. There was a line of people getting on the bus and they all had little green cards that the driver was swiping in a machine as they got on. I didn't have a card. I tapped the shoulder of the person in front of me, pointed to her card and said "Donde?" (where?). She looked at me for a second and then said "Dinero." and pointed to the bus. I decided that she was trying to tell me that I could pay in cash. As I got on the bus I didn't see a place to put cash, just the card machine. I pointed to the machine and told the driver, "No tengo." (I don't have). He replied in an annoyed voice, "dinero." I pulled out a five Euro note and handed it to him and he became upset, yelling at me I didn't know what exactly. He then procedeed to pull out a coin and slam it down on the counter of the bus. I decided that I was supposed to pay in coins rather than bills. Since U.S. bills go all the way down to $1, I never ever use coins to pay and out of habit I do the same here in Europe which has led me to have a pocket full of jingling metal. As I pull out my treasure trove of coins he yells at me, "uno treinta" (1.30). Now having never paid with Euro coins in my life I had to stare at the pile for awhile before I can figure out how much each one was worth. Why is the 50 Euro cent coin bigger than the one Euro coin? I know the dime is smaller than the nickel, but that never made sense to me either. Anyway, I finally managed to pull out a one Euro coin and a 50 cent coin and hand it to him. Unfortunately this simply enraged the driver further. He was completely fed up with the foreigner who couldn't even make correct change. He grabbed my hand and sifted through the pile of coins himself, assuming that such an impressive collection must certainly contain exactly 1.30 Euros, but quickly saw that the smallest denomination I had was a 50 cent piece. He grunted, handed me 20 cents and waved me on.
1:35. Once we got going, I got up and tried to ask the driver if he can drop me off at the monastery since it's on the way. He looked at me with a funny expression and then said something I didn't understand. I think he was trying to tell me that we would see the monastery before we got to the ruins. I tried to ask him again and he just got angry and started yelling at me. I decided the dialog was pointless and sat back down.
1:50. The bus arrived at the destination and I got off. As I was looking around to try and orient myself, the bus drove off and I realized that not everybody had gotten off. In fact, hardly anyone had gotten off. Apparently there were multiple stops and I had no idea if I had gotten off at the right one. Just as I was about to ask a woman for directions, I saw a sign that said "Italica & Monasterio" and had an arrow. Well at least now I knew what direction to walk.
2:02. I had been following the road indicated by the sign at the bus stop, but hadn't seen any other indications since then. I nocticed that on the opposite side of the street there was a sign similar in size to the one I had original seen, but it was facing the other direction. I crossed the street to take a look and it said that the monastery was in the direction I had come from. Damn. I had missed it somehow and it was closed by now.
I kept walking and eventually found the ruins. At the ticket gate the man asked me where I was from and when I said the U.S., he replied "Oh, U.S." with a suddenly bored look on his face. The ruins were interesting, but like any ruins, required a bit of an imagination to appreciate. I found the monastery on the way back and it was indeed closed. I started reading the sign out front and noticed that it said the monastery would reopen at 5:30, just an hour and a half from then. Perfect, so I would get to see it after all. Just at that moment I heard a woman speaking to me from across the street. "Manana. Manana." (tomorrow) I replied, "Tomorrow?" hoping she would switch to English, but instead she just spoke more Spanish to me that I didn't understand followed by "Manana." After she left I looked closer at the sign and saw that the monastery is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. This was Tuesday. Manana indeed.
Cadiz
I also took a day trip to Cadiz, a city on the southwest coast of Spain that is the oldest city in western Europe. An hour and a half bus ride from Sevilla, it was a great day trip, 75F and sunny with a sea breeze. Cadiz has a Mooroccan feel, which is unsurprising given their proximity. It is also where carryout fried fish was invented, so for lunch that's what I was looking for. After searching for awhile I coudln't find any restaurants serving it, so I decided on a fish sandwich instead. I walked into a shop in an alley and ordered one. After a couple of tries, I realized that the lady behind the counter was telling me to come back in ten minutes. I was proud of myself that I had been able to order flawlessly and had been able to figure out that she was telling me to come back in a few minutes. Ten minutes later, she had finished preparing exactly what I had actually ordered, not a sandwich but rather a quarter kilo slab of very fresh and completely raw fish. Lo siento, senora. Lo siento.
I dropped off my stuff and headed to the bullring. I took the shortest route through the backstreets based on my map and quickly regretted it. The backsteets of Sevilla are so narrow and winding that even a homing pidgeon could not navigate them. After 45 minutes of walking I was completely and totally lost. I went over to man on the side of the street and said "Donde estoy?" (where am I?) and pointed to my map. He looked at the map and quickly replied "No aqui" and waved to indicated that I had wandered so far that I was no longer on my map. After another half hour I was able to make it back to my hostel. Luckily I still had an hour before the bullfight was scheduled to start. This time I decided to stick with the main roads even if it meant walking a bit farther. When I got to the bullring I was told that the only seats available were sun seats, meaning that they are not shaded from the sun. Since I had been walking around in the sun all day, I decided that I'd had enough of that and instead went over to talk to a scalper. We ended up having to call over someone who spoke both English and Spanish, but after negotiating, I paid one Euro over the offical price and I was in.
I had seen videos of bullfights before, but it's much more exciting live and in person. There were some very close calls including one of the matadors being charged and tumbling over the bull head first, narrowly avoiding a gorging by getting in between the horns. Early on, a girl and her friends had to be escorted out by medical staff. It was unclear what had happened to her. There were a total of six bulls killed, two for each of the three matadors. I was sitting one row up from gate where the bulls were dragged out after each fight. In fact, it's the same gate that I entered and left the stadium through. When I got back to the hostel I started talking to a girl in from L.A. and she mentioned that she had been at the bullfight. When I said that I had been there as well, she said "Did you see us leave? My friend fainted and had to be escorted out by medics."