Day 48: Australia day!

So Seville you offer a free walking tour- we're on it. Seville is cool as pretty of course. Every city seems to be. It is the oldest city in Europe which is a pretty good effort considering what it's up against. But really it has the perfect location, right at the bottom of Spain- perfect for shipping. And shipping is what it was famous for. We saw the old ship yards that became a hospital when the shipping industry grew too big. The hospital was vey large and at the entrance gates to the city so that all the sailors coming in could be checked to see if they were bringing new diseases.  We also saw the amazingly gothic built cathedral with the contrasting moorish tower next to it. Reason being the Romans came and took over of course and when an earthquake ruined the moorish church, the Romans decided they'd build a massive cathedral. The tower was too sturdy and well built to be affected by the quake and it was the tallest tower in the Spain at that time so the Romans kept it as part of the cathedral. A little while after the cathedral was built the king decided to put a sculpture depicting the story of Jesus shouting at the people for trading in the church. This is because gypsies were numerous in Seville and being very hot they found the cathedral was a nice cool place to trade. So the sculpture was erected to remind the people this is wrong an not allowed. Instead a hall was built across the road for trade. After a deal the parties would hold hands and point toward the cathedral to promise it was an honest deal.  We saw the statue of the richest woman in Spain. She owns 40% of Spain and is more powerful than the royal family- queen Elizabeth bows to her! She is now 85 and has recently married a 45 year old man - ick! We saw a beautiful beautiful plaza espania with a moat surrounding where people were hiring boats. The plaza itself is built in three different styles- moorish, roman and something else. You can tell the different styles just by comparing the patterns in the roof. There are also pictures about Spain's history all around the plaza. The one our guide explained to us was of Christopher Columbus kissing the queens hand when he returned from his journey to south America bringing herbs and native south Americans. The story goes that perhaps he had something going with the queen for if you look into the picture he is shutting the king down and favoring the queen. Legend has it that the king was impotent so the queen was in search for someone. She was Christian and so only bathed twice a year so no one wanted to sleep with her. Then if you delve deeper it is proposed that Columbus was perhaps Jewish because he planned his trip so that he left the day before all the Jews had to leave the country if they did not convert to Christian... So who knows really... The plaza is also shaped in a semi circle facing west. This is to signify an embrace to south America to say sorry. The architect was the same guy who created the Eiffle tower too.  Our last stop was the Tobacco factory. It is now a university and it is a beautiful building. And it is huge- 9000 people worked in it and they were all female too!  Ahh so much writing- feel free to skim over... After the tour we went for lunch with the group for Moroccan pork. Then off to the alcazar palace. This was the palace of... It was brilliant. The design was again a mix of moorish, Christian and Islamic architecture. The most outstanding though was the gardens and they went on forever- not quite like Versailles forever but still long enough to be called forever. And there were orange trees everywhere! I decided it was necessary to steal a royal orange but I felt like I had disobeyed god after that... Eating the forbidden fruit... Oh there were also peacocks in the garden and I was somehow sexy enough to make one sprout his magnificent tail to us!  So being Australia day we of course had to celebrate and how better to celebrate than with a 12 euro liter of vodka? Well I know- how about add a pub crawl after that... And that is what they did. My fav part of the pub crawl was the salsa dance lessons at the beginning- probably because I was chosen to accompany the teacher- whom of course had all the moves. My second fav part was the second bar where there were a group of people on rollerblades??? My least fav part was the hangover the next morning...