The longest, most circular day/ROBBY GRISWOLD IN SEVILLA!

My phone alarm went off at 5am, but I decided that I was pretty in check with my bags and such so I could sleep an extra 20 minutes. Katie´s alarm sounded at 5:20 and we were up. Katie and Jessica told me that they had slept really poorly due to people coming in and out. I, however, slept pretty well for the whole 4.5 hours. Katie told me that she heard Melissa come home around 3 and then Courtney around 4:30. Craziness. Katie went to wake Melissa up, but she just shooed her away, so we figured that they just decided to stick with the Tuesday morning bus. We got ready pretty quickly and were out of the hostel by 5:40. Not bad. It was really desolate and creepy outside, and I´ve never walked faster with a suitcase in my life. We had heard of a couple robberies over the weekend, and the train station was located in a really creepy, bum-infested area, so we were way on edge. I´m talking, really on edge. We got to the train station really quickly, faster than expected, and sweating bullets. It was about five to six when we got there, just in time to make the 6am train. This was funny because our original plan was to take the 8:20, but decided to take the 7am to be safe. We planned to leave the hostel at 6 thinking we´d get to the station at 6:30. Lo and behold we were there for the earliest train. So we bought our 6euro tickets and boarded right away. It felt good to sit down. It was about a 2 hour ride from Lagos to Faro. We talked the whole time, keeping up and alert because we didn´t know when our stop would come. It was nice out, we watched an absolutely gorgeous sunrise and got a good visual tour of Portugal. After about 2 hours we worried that we had missed our stop. We were a bit on edge until the conductor walked by and told us 5 minutes to Faro. Phew. We got there by 8:15am. It was beautiful and sunny in Faro. We asked for directions to the bus station, and it turns out that it was just a block away from the train. So we walked over there, used the bathroom, asked about info on our bus´ status and if there´d be an earlier one, but they had no info since our bus´ company was stationed out of Lisbon, not Faro. So we had 6 hours to kill in little, nothing Faro. First we sat in the waiting area of the bus station. I went to the bar and bought myself what I like to call the Portuguese bagel dog: it was chorizo stuffed in some little pastry thing. I guess it was an empanadilla, but I´m just not sure. We sat around talking for awhile getting eyed by creepy old Portuguese men and bums. That was fun. At around 10:30 we decided to make a location switch, so we looked for an open café (damn labor day). The first thing that we found was McDonald´s so we just went there. It was a pretty nice McDonald´s. AND they had soup! Not just any soup, vegetable soup. Jessica got ice cream, Katie got fries, and I got veggie soup. The soup was sooooo good! It had a really simple vegetable broth with cabbage, carrots, and green beans. It was so good! I was happy. If the U.S. and Spain had veggie soup at McDonald´s, I´d spend some good money there. So ha. We sat at McDonald´s for another two and a half hours just struggling to kill time. We played a few good rounds of "Kill, Fuck, or Marry" and "The Movie Game". We did what we could. Then at around 12:45 we decided to switch locations again. We went to the marina and sat on a park bench to enjoy the gooooorgeous weather. It was very warm, but not hot, and sunny. So perfect. We talked for a bit and were soon approached by this elderly couple who we later found out was a father and daughter. They were British and just randomly struck up conversation with us, asking where we were from, about Spain, etc. etc. The man, we found out, was 92-years-old! He didn´t look a day over 70, nor acted as such neither! Remarkable. That makes me feel good. He told us stories about how he had been in that exact spot years and years ago before the revolution and how it was. I love it. He made our long, boring day worth it. Soon they went and grabbed their own bench. The 3 of us got up to head to the bus station around around 1:40. Once we got there our bus just started to pull up, even though it wasn´t scheduled to leave until 2:30. I used the bathroom quickly, put my baggage underneath the bus, and boarded. It was a pretty crowded bus so none of us could sit together. I ended up sitting next to a youngish guy who smelled bad. What is it with me sitting with the smelly ones? Upon boarding I blew up my neck pillow and passed out for a good hour. I was naturally awakened as we drove through the Spain-Portugal bridge border. Just like on the way there! I´ve got some good mental alarm skills, or something. How silly. So that was pretty cool. We never made a passport stop which I found kind of silly, as well. What is it with Spain not caring about passports? I guess perhaps since we showed them to buy our tickets they didn´t have to check them at the border. I tried sleeping some more, but it just wasn´t happening. So I just read "Los Siameses" for Teatro for the rest of the ride. The ride to Lagos took 5 hours, but the ride home only took a little bit over 2! Talk about luck--now I definitely wouldn´t miss out on precious Robby time. We got into Sevilla around 5:30 and I didn´t get home until 6. It was really hot out. Right as I got to my apartment door I got a phone call from Robby, but right as I picked it up I had missed the call. He left a voicemail, and it said that he couldn´t find his hostel and he didn´t know how to contact me, but hopefully I could run into him or else just meet up with him at his hostel in an hour. Oh no! Robby was lost in Sevilla! I had to hurry up, change, and then go find Robby! Hehe, I felt like I was in a kid´s action flick. I hurried upstairs, put my big suitcase down, unpacked my contacts and deoderant (essential), talked to María del Mar briefly, told her that my friend from the U.S. was lost in Sevilla and I had to find him so we´d catch up later, I changed, freshened up, and rushed out the door. No time to walk--I took the bus. The bus dropped me off at Puerta Jerez and I headed towards calle Sierpes. I was pretty sure that Robby was staying in the same hostel that Stacey and Ryan had stayed in a week earlier, so I called Stacey to find out exactly where it was. I was really hoping that it was that hostel, I couldn´t remember the name of Robby´s hostel, just that he said that it was off of Sierpes, and I remembered that Stacey´s hostel was off of Sierpes. So I hoped for the best. It was about a fifteen minute walk because the hostel, Nueva Suiza, was at the end of Sierpes on a side street. I first stopped at Campana, the famous bakery which was right next store, and bought Robby a palmera and a big water (he sounded tired on his voicemail) as welcome gifts. I then found the street, turned the corner, and went to the reception. I asked the girl working there if an American guy checked in who was really tall and had red hair. She asked his name, I said Robby, and he was in the book. She told me that he was there, in room 25, and she told me that I could just go straight upstairs and see him. I liked this hostel so far, nice reception, very laid-back rules, nicely decorated, just nice altogether. I started to ascend the 4 flights of stairs, room 25 was on top. I couldn´t believe that in a matter of seconds I was about to see Robby! As I got closer to the top I could hear his voice. Then I got there; his room was right at the top of the steps next to the big open balcony. I saw him, he saw me, and we screamed! For a very, very long time. And then we hugged, tightly, for a very, very long. We were all giddy and had catching up omigod-I-can´t-believe you´re/I´m-here talks on the deck. We excitedly then gathered our things, I gave Robby his palmera and water, and we went for a walk. We caught up, talking forever about Sevilla, about Ann Arbor. Robby had had a really good semester and had so much to share with me that I had missed. He actually had just moved out of East Quad the day before. He just left school and headed to Europe for a month, crazy! He had been taking a class about immigration in Europe in the RC and at the end of the semester the class travels to Granada and Berlin. Robby decided to come up early to see me for a couple of days, then he would meet up with his class in Granada for a week, then the class would go to Berlin for a week, then Robby would travel by himself to Munich to visit Rachel who has been studying there since October. Craziness! Then Robby gets home, has two weeks, then heads to San Francisco June 13 for his Buddhist retreat that he will be at until Christmas. So crazy. So basically this would be my last time seeing this kid until January, so I was milking it. Robby enjoyed his palmera, I showed him some of my favorite buildings, and the cathedral, gave him some historic facts about Sevilla and its monuments. It was so nice to have a visitor! And Robby was so happy to be in Spain, to be seeing me, and to be in Europe. I love his spirit. He was hungry, and was on a major, major budget, so I figured that the best dinner option would be, of course, Cien Montaditos. I showed him how the whole ordering system works and I made some suggestions. We both ordered 3 sandwiches, I wasn´t too hungry, so I got 3 very typical Spanish montaditos so Robby could have some. I also got some olives, and we both got the big-ass mugs of beer that I drank on my 21st. We sat and chatted and ate and drank and were having a great time. I was so so so so soooooo happy to be with Robby in Sevilla, but it just also felt so surreal! Like, Robby´s a part of my Ann Arbor life, and now he had entered my Sevilla life. I have never really discussed this, but my life here is very, very different from back home. It´s strange, I don´t feel like this is a part of my junior year. Like, this is an entire separate occurrence in my life. It feels weird to think that just last semester I was in Michigan. Everything here is just...different. I don´t know. Separate, I guess? Nevertheless it made me so happy to share that so that he can experience what it has been like for me the past 4 months because I can get a good idea of what life in Ann Arbor was like, but others thinking about Sevilla? Blogs and pictures just don´t suffice. You just gotta come be a part of it. As we ate we started coming down from our reunion euphoria and Robby´s jetlag and lack of sleep began to catch up on him. We decided to hit up Carbonería for some free flamenco at 11, so Robby decided to nap in the meantime. It was about 9pm and I told Robby that I´d come by his hostel to wake him up at 10:45 (he didn´t bring an alarm clock nor phone). I walked him back to his hostel and was off on my own. I didn´t have time to stop back home really, so I decided to just wander. I gave Stacey a call but got no answer. So I just wandered over to the internet café and sat there for about an hour blogging (I was way behind). Then I got a call from Stacey who had finished up dinner and she and Ryan said that they´d meet me on the steps of the Cathedral in fifteen. So I paid for the internet and walked over. They had started drinking, but I was pretty dehydrated and tired so I just bought some water from Starbucks. We caught up, they told me about Cádiz and I told them about the Lagos shitshow and they got quite a kick out of it. I then told them that I´d meet up with them in 15 and I left down Sierpes to wake up Robby. The woman at the reception let me walk upstairs again and I found Robby sleeping and I tapped him awake. Turns out he had only slept for about 20 mins due to lodging mix-ups at the hostel that they spent a long time working out. That sucks. However, he was determined to see some flamenco so he forced himself groggily out of bed and we headed out and met up with Stacey, Ryan, and Jessica by the Cathedral and we all walked towards Carbonería. None of us really knew concretely how to get there, I had gotten some pretty obscure directions from the reception, but we were pretty much on our own. We ended up getting turned around, lost, consulting the map constantly, and asking a bunch of people. I took a shot or two of vodka in the meantime so that made the process a bit more pleasurable, but I felt bad for dragging Robby around and having him experience the brute of my lack of navigation. We finally got there at around 11:30 to catch the second half of the first performance. There weren´t any seats so we moved to the front and ended up sitting on the most likely filthy floor. Whatevs, suffer for your art, they say. Then we found open seats in the upper area and we moved up there. But our view was pretty obstructed and there was a drunk group of Americans next to us being loud and obnoxious. So Robby and I moved back down to sit on the floor. A group of Spanish people sitting in the front side table had two open seats and offered them to us after seeing us on the floor. How nice! The first performance was pretty alright, it was that same British dancer (I´m still not sure what nationality she is, actually), but the singer that I had seen the first time I went to Carbonería. The guitarrist was the same as the one from the last Monday I had gone there. The show was not bad. Robby was enjoying it, although he knew that this was definitely amateur flamenco (UM hosted a professional troupe back in February). But he definitely enjoyed it nonetheless because it´s just oozing with culture. The only thing that really sucked about the performance was that the audience was the loudest I´ve ever heard. They were terrible, and even when people shushed them the continued to talk. Terrible. I was piiiiiiissed. Oh well, whatcha gonna do. Once the first performance ended a bunch of people got up and we were able to grab a prime seat in the front row. Well, Ryan and Stacey had to sit separately because although I claimed the whole bench some annoying American girl sat at the end with some dud when it was obvious that it was taken. She did her best to avoid my dirty glares. I bought Robby a Coke and Ryan hazed Jessica by buying her a tequila shot and a beer. Oh man. Stacey and Ryan were drunk and silly. Soon the next show started which was much better since our seats rocked and people were a little bit quieter. A couple girls about our age got up and did some bailes sevillanos and they were awesome...the best sevillano dancing I've seen yet. It was nice because then Robby got to see some authentic, unique Sevillano dances and he got a small taste of what Feria was like. Later, the woman dancer sang a song. That was pretty cool...she's basically a triple threat. She was awesome. Maybe she is Spanish...? Who knows. The show ended at around 1am, Stacey and Ryan left, and Jessica, Robby, and I stuck around for an additional 20 minutes just chatting. By 2 we decided to head out. I walked Robby part way back to his hostel and then walked to the taxi stop by the University so I wouldn't have to walk home alone at 2:30 in the morning. The streets were completely deserted, it was kind of eerie. When I got to the cab stop I noticed that there were no cabs. Not one. I was not happy about this. So I grabbed my mace and braved the walk across the bridge. I assumed that there'd be taxis at the stop in Plaza de Cuba (there always were), even though it was a 15 minute walk from my place, better safe than sorry, and it'd be cheap. But there were no cabs. In fact, I barely saw any vehicles on the road. I saw maybe two taxis but they were taken. Sigh. I guess I was walking home. I've never been so nervous/on edge in my entire life. I had my hand tightly gripped to my mace and I did my best to not make much noise when walking. I walked down Republica de Argentina because it's the best-lit street in los Remedios. Oy. Once halfway down the street I saw an empty cab approach. I considered hailing it down, but I had already gotten this far, I may as well finish up the next 7 minutes. Once I was two blocks from my street I saw my first person: a bum digging through garbage. Before he could see me I made a quick 180 and turned right on Niebla to take a back way. Sucks because it was less lit, but I was not risking it with that guy. As I was walking I spotted a guy about my age rushing down the street as if trying to get home, just like me. We were in the same boat. I followed him, trying to stick as close to him as possible so as to stay around people and not look like a 21-year-old American female wandering the streets alone at 3am. I finally made it to my apartment and let out the biggest sigh of my life. My heart was pounding so fast and hard. That was so freaky, I can't even tell you. I was so exhausted after such a long day and my crazy nerves that I decided to sleep through Historia del Cine the next day. I mean, we were supposed to watch Citizen Kane and I've already seen it in English twice so no big deal. So I got back, got ready for bed and completely passed out. It was the longest, most circular day ever. Started with a fearful walk early in the morning in the dark, and ended like so. However, the middle of it was pretty awesome. ROBBY WAS IN SEVILLA!