That one time I slept in Sevilla 🇪🇸, instead of supervising two of my brothers… [English]

Let me start this off by saying… It wasn’t my fault. I’m serious. It wasn't. Just remember that, as you continue to read this post. And I’m 100% confident that two of my brothers would, and to this day still do, strongly disagree with me. But, I didn’t go for the one walk that would go down in infamy for the rest of my life, with these brothers of mine in Sevilla, Spain. <Pro Tip> "Infamy" was, and still is, one of the best hip-hop albums of all time... Don't believe me? Check out this collab track with 112 (“oneeeeee tweeeellllve”)... Sure to get your head nodding. </Pro Tip>

The year was 2019, the time of year was late June, and the time of day was “just the worst brotha“… You see, we had a long flight from New York to Madrid. There were several things going on from seat shuffling, language barriers being both realized and hit, other goofy travelers on our flight and general bodily discomfort as well as SEVERAL life decisions being questioned for the roughly 6+ hour flight-time. These items coupled with a second albeit shorter (roughly 45 minute) flight south from Madrid to Sevilla really I really felt exhausted. Prior to the flights, I had also had quite a long run of intense engineering at work, on-call rotations, coupled with intense studying and labbing daily sessions for the CCIE Security Lab [Posts available here and here if you’re interested in learning about that experience] I was prepping for at the time, so yea I was quite tired. So long before we found that FANTASTIC hole in the wall restaurant cerca del Hotel, or went to the bullfight… [more on those activities later] …I finally gave in to my internal battery depletion and general lack of energy after being in public so much as an introvert, and fell asleep roughly 10 mins after showering, immediately following the check-in to the Hotel.

So the story goes like this… “Supposedly“, I was cross eyed and certain people didn’t want to wait for me to rest a bit before heading out to get some food, drinks, “supplies” aka snacks, etc for the Hotel rooms we were staying in… “These people” (partially pictured below) decided, autonomously, to head out and bring back the essentials. What could go wrong?

So, fun fact… Spain has something called a “Siesta“ that basically shuts down most of the local businesses so people can have a break, head home, and actually take lunch. You know, enjoy their day… However it was a warm afternoon…

So I woke up, and after showering for the 2nd time since checking into the hotel, I went downstairs to the lobby and had a quick bite to eat in the hotel restaurant and drank a cuba libre, enjoying the A/C on a warm afternoon in Seville (you saw the pics above, yes?). As I wrapped up the burger I was eating, I asked the waitress if there was a “Día” (grocery/market chain in Spain) close-by since I wanted to just pickup some waters, snacks, etc. She told me it was “aqui mismo” as she motioned that it was right across the street. So I paid my tab, and walked across the street to pickup some items.

After getting back to my hotel room with the stuff from Día, I picked up my Burn Notice rewatch on my Plex Server back in the States to pass some time. Of course, I had VPNed back to the homerack/lab for that to encrypt everything twice <still notasecurityguy>. After about 3 episodes of Weston, I wanted to check out some non spy-related stuff (I know, odd hearing that from me) so I turned on the TV in my room and was watching part of the UEFA Fútbol/soccer game that was on. “It was at that time, I re-al-i-zed” a lot of time had passed since I had “supposedly” woken up and was cross eyed. Then there was a knock at the door. That’s kinda weird I thought, but then again I assumed these brothers of mine were still sleeping… Mind you, we had no electronic communication aside from the WiFi at the hotel as we didn’t grab SIM cards yet; and that was assuming people had enough energy left in their brains to actually charge their phones.

Then there was a SECOND knock at the door. I’m not going to lie to you as I opened the door, I was confused. My two brothers were standing in the hallway outside of my room. Both were breathing heavily, sweating like to the degree that I thought they threw themselves in the rooftop pool, fully clothed. They were holding large jugs (3 and 4 liters-containers) of water. One of the two of them looked at me and said instinctively to me “Really…? You have food? Idiot...” The other one was a tad more vulgar as he pushed me out of my doorway and then slammed the water jugs they bought for me on the desk in my room. He then asked me “where the f*** did you get snacks and water?” So, I responded “across the street from the hotel in Día. And why do you both smell like you fell in a swamp?” To which my brother responded with “BULL***T! Move! NOW!” Then he pushed me out his path again on his way to my fridge while proceeding to rip open the minibar fridge to grab a water and then consume it, disrespectfully. Followed by a second water being consumed, with fury. “You’re full of s***, I hope you enjoy PAYING for these waters…@$$**** ” was muttered in my direction. The situation, and conversation, got progressively more vulgar and devolved quite rapidly, so instead of laying out a word-for-word reenactment and re-opening some the scars that therapy helped clear up… Here’s a peaceful picture I took in a park a day or so later of a duck-like creature hanging out in the shade by a water-filled aquifer. 🤣

So, to add some context to our story… Evidently, they had gone out with nothing but a cached portion of google maps on their phones (remember no SIM cards or international roaming packages had been purchased yet) and in turn, they ended up walking SEVERAL kilometers to whatever store was open, and then (for some un-Godly known reason) decided to walk back to the hotel with water jugs in hand (dumb). Mind you, this “journey” happened while the sun was at it’s peak… So, just let that sink in. And remember they did this, while literally everyone, including cabbies and Ubers (remember this was 2019), were on siesta aka not working so they basically went when walking was the only viable option. So fast-forwarding, when they showed up at my room to give me the water and other stuff they bought from the store and consequently saw that I had literally not a trace of sweat on my body while being in possession of several containers of water and food already… They um.. they weren’t very happy. However, the following day everything did reset and we went for SIM cards so we could go ahead and access that old “world-wide-web” that we had taken for granted.

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OK, so the point of this article here is to also show some pictures and share some other experiences we had in Sevilla, Spain. So let’s get back to that. Sevilla… Is a beautiful city. It was my first trip to Southern Spain, so it was cool to see the similarities to the northern region of Cantabira (where I had spent most of my time while in Spain prior to this trip), but it also was apparent just how distinctly southern/unique that this city was. Oh and the language. Welp… Oh yea… The locals 100% knew that I had learned Castellano (Castilian Spanish) in the Northern Cantabria region of Spain. Because as everyone in Spain says “Todo el mundo habla, y los Cantabros Cantan“. Basically calling out the Region of Cantabria’s delivery on the way the sentences sound like songs when you are speaking at a normal rate as they normally end in an upward inflection. In Sevilla… That is not the case. Literally, as soon as I opened my mouth and spoke while attempting to get a SIM card (the day after the “siesta incident“). I then had to actually convince, with physical proof of residency, people both working in the store and shopping at it that I was actually from New York and had only spent time vacationing in Northern Spain, and did not actually reside there. But my accent in Spanish was strong. I will say most places in Spain are very welcoming and helpful, as long as you are being respectful while trying to speak.

Where did we stay? Well, we took about a 30 min cab-ride to our hotel from the Sevilla Airport to NH Collection Sevilla at: Avda Diego Martinez Barrio, 8, 41013 Seville Spain. It’s located relatively close to the Sevilla-San Bernardo Train Station. The hotel was reasonably priced (we had paid for the rooms I believe at the end of 2018 or early in 2019, so your results may vary). The food, drinks and service at the hotel were all great as well.

Although we didn’t travel very far from the hotel, as we were mostly on foot, the sights around the city were amazing. We spent some time at the Plaza de España, which was about a 7-10 minute walk from the hotel. The stone and tile-work, the fountains, attention to detail and overall architectural design was super impressive. My bros and I did enjoy it quite a bit and visited frequently both during the day and at night.

Connected to the Plaza de España, is Parque de María Luisa. This park was really nice and tranquil. It had a mix of greenery, flowers, Glorietas, horse drawn carriages, trees that provided shade, statues, aquifers, a small waterfall and just too much else to list here. Overall, the park provided some definite relief from the sun on the warm summer days that we visited in Sevilla. Here are a few pics:

Moving a little further North and West from Parque de María Luisa we stumbled upon the Canal de Alfonso XIII. We went down to see the larger body of water as a change of pace. It was a nice calm area with low foot traffic. My bros and I took a break for a while there and just enjoyed being present.

Right across the street from where we were hanging out from the Canal, was the Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla. I’m going to take a slight pause here as Bullfighting is a very cultural thing in Spain, however it is still viewed as controversial everywhere in the world. First off, I’ve been to several [bullfights]. In my opinion, it’s 100% an event to be seen, if you’re looking to be fully immersed in the culture of Spain, complete with families cheering on the festivities and whistling/booing when they Matador is doing a poo job. I do recommend it. I have been to bullfights in both the Northern region of Spain, as well as in Sevilla. Although the events are mostly the same in both the North and the South of the country, there are some small differences in the way they are setup and executed. I am only going to show some before pics here since, people “think they’re ready” for that type of an experience, but they really aren’t. A question I get asked a lot is if I would go to another bullfight. And my answer is, if someone needs someone to go with, I am there. When you buy an entrada (ticket) you are basically getting to see up to 6 fights/matches. I’m super blessed to have known an older gentleman, we’ll just call him “Tio” for now, who took the time to explain the entire sport of bullfighting to me. Complete with how it is scored, what to look out for and how to enjoy the fights, more as a local than a tourist. Also, you should drink the wine from the boot! Just DO IT!!!!!!! I don’t have time to explain. 🤣🤣🤣.

One of our favorite times of the day was around 11:30am local time, when we would assemble poolside [see what I did there?] to chat about the trip, and whatever else we felt like talking about or debating. Take our [way too personal] discussion about the state of Marvel’s MCU through mid 2019. Or our other countless convos about how good the food was, how the culture was so much better or just how we could all see ourselves living here. Some of our best chats came after having some fantastically and “properly mixed” drinks, cervezas and/or shots of orujo. All of which… …are quite refreshing.

A little ways further north from the Parque de María Luisa, are the Setas de Sevilla. One of my bros had read about it and wanted to head over to see what interesting architecture had been put together. So we hopped in a taxi and headed north. It was a really cool design and had some interesting views of more urban areas. We chose the evening/tarde to go see it as we had heard there was some lighting designs that were pretty cool to see. We caught a glimpse of that, but the larger lights were still on when we had gotten there.

We strolled around Sevilla a bit, mostly as the sun set, as well as after the sun went down. It’s a city full of life, culture, tranquility and great spots to see. Here are a few pics from around the city.

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And you can’t talk about Spain without talking about the comida! Some of the best in the world I’ve ever had. We sampled a little bit of everything in Sevilla, from Black squid ink paellas, to ox-tail, patas bravas, burgers, carne, arroz, pizza, ocamarones, bacon wrapped lobster tails, Ximenez prepped chicken (where I base my own recipe off of), and of course ice cream. I’ll let the pics do the work here:

Here are some panoramic shots I was able to take with my iPhone back in 2019.

Well that’s it for my first viaje (travel) post here on the site. We had a great time in Sevilla. I hope to head back, with the family and even my bros in the coming years, and experience even more of the great food and get further immersed in the culture. Hasta luego!

Oh also, how could I forget. Doctor “Physics doesn't apply to me” Banner…

However you have redeemed yourself with the Cali trip sir. Love you to death brother. Hasta luego por ahora mi gente… – Stark out