Last Post from the Spain Trip

Better late than never!  We are home now and Dean is finally feeling human after a relapse on Saturday.  But first, more on Sevilla.  Friday night we went to a flamenco show. Glad I can check that off my list.  It was set in a dark, small room with about 50 spectators, a wooden floor and three chairs.  The first 2 guys came in around 9PM.  One was tall and sandy haired, looked like a college student from anywhere in the US.  The other was short and dark, almost Peruvian.  They sat down and the dark one started to wail and cry while the other guy provided some intermittent strumming on the guitar.  The way the guy's face looked, he could have been singing, "I went to Fez, and now I have diarrhea, oooooh, ooooh".  From what I understand about flamenco, he was  probably singing about his wife leaving him, his dog dying and his trailer catching fire, sort of like C&W music.  Later a woman came out and did the stomping as well as a younger man.  It was OK, but now I don't have to see it again.
Saturday was very rainy in the morning.  We went to the Alcazar, Catherdral and took a horse carriage ride around Sevilla.  The Alcazar was built by the Catholic kings after the Reconquest, but it was done in the Moorish style.  The architecture is amazing and the gardens beautiful, even in the rain.  The Cathedral is awesome with lots of gold leaf, a huge pipe organ and Columbus's tomb.  The Spanish celebrate Columbus Day too, but on Tuesday, not Monday.  It's a pretty big deal, especially in Sevilla as the discovery of the new world really put that place on the map.  It was the perfect inland port to accept all the loot from America. 
Maria Luisa Park is where the ill-fated Exposition of 1929 (bad year) was held.  It is lovely.
Had a nice lunch in the old Jewish Quarter (ham again!), then off to explore by foot.  By then the sun was out and it was great.  That night we got together for a farewell drink (minus Dean as he was sick) and then a bite to eat.  Once again, lousy paella.  
We left the hotel at 4:30 the next morning to catch a 7AM plane and there were still people lined up outside the nightclubs waiting to get in! 
Many hours of flying, a 6 hour layover at JFK, then back to Seattle at 9:30 PM.  All luggage arrived.  We stayed the night in Seattle, the home today.  Back to reality tomorrow.  I have managed to download the trip photos and post them on the blog.  Still have 200 captions to go.  It was a great trip.  Where next?