Considering the adventures we've been having the past couple of days, our 4th day in Spain consisted of "waking up naturally with no alarms".. And finally after what felt like weeks (probably is), I woke up at normal human hours like 9AM around there.. AAAAAAHHHH! Lega man!
The agenda of the day was just to shop, have lunch and just lounge around see where the day takes us.
First stop of the day was of course, ZARA. To be fair, it wasn't like I needed to shop for myself much (surprisingly ZARA Spain wasn't having their sale, so it didn't much different whether I buy it in UK or in Spain) but Anis wanted a pair of heels that she claimed could only be found in Spain. So I literally made a point to find nearest ZARA within whatever area I was in just to look for her shoes. Found her shoes, but unfortunately wasn't in her size and I felt so bad cause I texted her saying I found it!! Only to realise it wasn't her size -.-
But still, Aisya & ZARA, we have a special bond, so of course I still found some stuff for myself despite how many times I've walked in the store before this hehehe.
Also next to the ZARA near our hotel was Amorino, so you know I don't say no to ice cream....
ZARA & ice cream, always... ;)
Next up was to have lunch at this tapas restaurant that Rich recommended - Espacio Eslava or as Zoe said,
Zoe: What's the name of the place again?
Me: Esss something
Zoe: Ess..pacito?
Me: HAHAHAHAHA! That's the song! And its Despacito!
Just because we're in Spain....... Which surprisingly wasn't playing Despacito as much as the rest of the world, lol.
Along the route we found some of these hidden gems:
I saw this guy dragging his no-wheels luggage on a skateboard and I just had to make a slight detour to stalk him and take his photo.. I mean come on, that's just a look of a person of pure #survivor x)
When we got to the tapas place, we beat the lunch crowd just by a few minutes because by the time we were ready to order people were already in queue for tables..
Zoe: This seems to be like a running theme around this trip where we beat the queue just by minutes!
Thank God man!
These cute Spanish girls and their father (the mother joined them a bit later) who I swear is a true gentleman. He was just so nice to his kids and even us! He gave an extra stool that was supposed to be for his wife for us to put or bags cause our table didn't have a "foot rest" like theirs did so if we were to put or stuff on the table it'd crowd the small table.. Of course he then had to go find an extra stool for his wife when she arrived and even then he didn't want to take the stool he gave us even though we were about done eating and was just waiting for Zoe's coffee and the bill. God bless him and his family!
I can't remember what was the name of this tapas but I still hate smoked salmon but the sauce was nice
Some croquettes and shrimp "balls". The croquettes were hands down the best croquettes I've ever had.
Some award-winning mushroom cake and poached egg. I still like the croquette more #lowmaintenance So I ended up ordering another portion of it, hehehe!
Overall it was a really good lunch, thank God for Rich randomly messaging me to try this place out.
Apparently a true test of a good foamed cappuccino is if it can withstand holding a spoon up without sinking.. This one passed!
After lunch we made our way to another part of Seville (across the Golden Tower) because I read online that they had a Disney Exhibition - out of all things you can find in Seville....
The exhibition was really cool, as it was featuring Disney's work based on legends, myths, fairytales, folklores, fables etc.
Before entering the exhibition, we made a quick stop at the gift shop - I mean this is as close as I'll get to Disneyland here okay, I have to check it out..
Besides a poop-emoji keychain, that Zoe and I got for each other, I found this little gem!
HOW COOL IS THE CLUTCH?!?!?!?!
The price however was not cool! It was EUR90!!! I took this picture to send to Zayana for her opinion cause only she would understand my Disney obsession..
Me: Tell me I'm going crazy... I want to spend 90 Euros on a Maleficent clutch.. Stop me
Zayana: What does it look like? (sends her the picture with the Maleficent's side) 90 doesn't seem bad..... Imagine with and all black outfit
It's like the woman read my mind!!!!
Zayana: Does it have a strap?
Me: Nope.
Zayana: Hrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
(sends her the picture with Aurora's side)
Zayana: ITS 2 IN 1 OMG! IF YOU DONT BUT IT I WILL!
Me: Hahahahaha you want one toooooooooo? (I always feel better about a spensive purchase if someone else buys it too)
Zayana: One between us is suffice...
But I still thought 90 EUR is a lot of money for a kiddy clutch, so I thought I'll walk around the exhibition first and then see how I feel about it afterwards.
Of course they played the "Once Upon A Dream" song during the princess exhibition on fairytales and gaddamnit I was influenced on buying it!
Me: THAT'S IT! I shall buy this clutch cause I'd never sleep in peace if I don't walk out of here with it..
But like I said, call it gut feel or a guardian angel, something told me to Google the brand first to see if it's worth it etc and omg best decision ever! Turns out they have it in UK for ~£55! Ahh savings, me likes.
The exhibition ticket we bought also allowed us and entrance to another exhibition which was about an artist/ photographer's view of Seville/ Andalusia and his life here.
Didn't really pay much attention (this is why I can't go to museums) but this caught our attention:
A picture of the massacre at the Hall of the Abencerrajes. Basically that's when we made the connection that we took a picture in the hall where many people were murdered..
On the way back to the room from the exhibition, we noticed there were unusually a lot of parents and their kids on the streets (it's like everywhere you turn) and they were all "queuing" of sorts as if waiting for a parade..
(This is just a random photo of a building I thought was pretty)
We decided to make a pit stop at a juice shop (Zoe was craving for it - she seriously have like the most random craving on trips!) and found out that it was the eve of 3 Kings Festivals which is sorta like Christmas.
Legend has it that the Kings would come to town bringing gifts for kids, so on the even kids would queue with their wish lists to send it to the kings' "postmen". So basically the parade is for these "postmen" to collect the kids' posts for the kings. Cute kan?!
Some grapefruit juice, me likes!
Being the tired tourists that we are we couldn't be bothered to brave through the crowd to snap a photo so we just enjoyed the parade from the juice shop. But I really thought it was a cute tradition. Shame that we'd have to miss the actually 3 Kings day parade the next day when the "kings" would be bringing "presents" (candies - it's like they mixed Christmas and Halloween) and distributing it around..
Once the parade was over we made our way back to the hotel to chill. We continued watching Down With Love and actually enjoyed the cute romcom. We tried to find another movie that would give us the same light-hearted effect Down With Love had, but we couldn't settle on anything else so we just ended up watching Friends/ did some online shopping. Lol
Soon it was dinner time and at first we wanted to go out for paellas and a walk at Plaza Espana (cause Rich suggested it too saying it's apparently even more beautiful at night) but decided that we're lazy bums and we'd just Google pictures of the Plaza.. hehehe
So it was maggi for dinner that night.. Since they threw away my maggi cup that I was saving for recycling, I had to improvise..
#punjadilahhhhhhh
Around 9ish we made our way for a flamenco show and that was the end of highlights in Seville as the next day consisted of nothing but making our way back to Brighton.
Another lucky thing about our trip also was that the day we decided to stay in and leave Seville, it was gloomy so we didn't miss out much of amazing views :p
All in all I was glad and thankful that I got to spend my winter break/ new year exploring a new city.
Both Zoe and I agreed that we should aim to make this an annual thing and she's already asking me "where should we go next!!" and I'm here like .... let's see how my bonus is like first this year :p
