Gatwick to Sevilla
Ryan Air does a good job of scaring travelers into early arrival. Or maybe it was just me. First off, I got our departure time all messed up. I was convinced that our flight left at 1pm. I told this to Joren and our landlady a number of times. Simultaneously, I also thought that our flight arrived at 10pm. I told this to myself and Henry and Erin (my Vanderbilt friend who we were rooming with in Sevilla). At no point did it occur to me that a 9 hour flight was only plausible for overseas travel, and usually not even Atlantic travel at that. It wasn’t until Friday night around 6:30 that I was speaking all the times aloud to Joren that it dawned on me that I might have confused airplane times. It’s usually good to recheck these things.
A quick look at the printed tickets showed that yes, indeed I had mistaken the departure And arrival time. Now a 4:30 flight that arrived at 7:30 seemed more plausible. I sent off a quick email to Henry and told him to meet us at 7:30 pm instead of 10pm. I wasn’t too worried however, since I figured it would take another two hours to pass through customs just like Heathrow.
Not the case. Jor and I disembarked the plane (a bare bones venture if ever I’ve seen one. Most surfaces covered in advertisements. They even sold lottery tickets aboard.) and walked across the tarmac into the remote Sevilla airport. There were two customs agents, one for EU and one for Other Passports. Jor and I stood in line for other Passports and three minutes later we were allowed formally into Spain. Nary a question asked. Not like entering Canada, where the mountie grilled me for nearly five minutes about my visit schedule and financial situation.
So, Spain entered and then we waited for Henry. He was somewhere in the throng of people, we thought. I sat on a bench to wait while Joren ran upstairs to find an ATM. Henry materialized a few minutes later and it was so nice to see him after four months.
Henry led us to the bus stop and after about 45 minutes wait we pushed our way onto the crowded bus. It’s a good thing that Henry met us because he had already been to the apartment and figured out the bus schedule and the directions.
You may have heard of the Beard Challenge, but if not, Henry and Joren were competing. Henry was four months in. Joren, about three weeks. The results...
We got off the bus and walked the last fifteen minutes just to stretch our legs and survey Sevilla. Turns out we saw most of modern Sevilla, not the old city, but the weather was still hot at 9pm and the people were friendly and my bag wasn’t too heavy. We got to the apartment where Erin was waiting with another friend, Joanna. After setting down our bags and having a celebratory champagne toast, we all left for a respectable 10pm Sevilla dinner of tapas.
The dinner spot we picked was in a nice plaza nearby our apartment, and the highlight of the meal was three pieces of sirloin steak wrapped in bacon and hanging from a kebob steak like a hangman’s noose. Tapas and red wine and two hours later and I collapsed in a heap, glad to finally be in Spain for a good long while.
A quick look at the printed tickets showed that yes, indeed I had mistaken the departure And arrival time. Now a 4:30 flight that arrived at 7:30 seemed more plausible. I sent off a quick email to Henry and told him to meet us at 7:30 pm instead of 10pm. I wasn’t too worried however, since I figured it would take another two hours to pass through customs just like Heathrow.
Not the case. Jor and I disembarked the plane (a bare bones venture if ever I’ve seen one. Most surfaces covered in advertisements. They even sold lottery tickets aboard.) and walked across the tarmac into the remote Sevilla airport. There were two customs agents, one for EU and one for Other Passports. Jor and I stood in line for other Passports and three minutes later we were allowed formally into Spain. Nary a question asked. Not like entering Canada, where the mountie grilled me for nearly five minutes about my visit schedule and financial situation.
So, Spain entered and then we waited for Henry. He was somewhere in the throng of people, we thought. I sat on a bench to wait while Joren ran upstairs to find an ATM. Henry materialized a few minutes later and it was so nice to see him after four months.
Henry led us to the bus stop and after about 45 minutes wait we pushed our way onto the crowded bus. It’s a good thing that Henry met us because he had already been to the apartment and figured out the bus schedule and the directions.
You may have heard of the Beard Challenge, but if not, Henry and Joren were competing. Henry was four months in. Joren, about three weeks. The results...
We got off the bus and walked the last fifteen minutes just to stretch our legs and survey Sevilla. Turns out we saw most of modern Sevilla, not the old city, but the weather was still hot at 9pm and the people were friendly and my bag wasn’t too heavy. We got to the apartment where Erin was waiting with another friend, Joanna. After setting down our bags and having a celebratory champagne toast, we all left for a respectable 10pm Sevilla dinner of tapas.
The dinner spot we picked was in a nice plaza nearby our apartment, and the highlight of the meal was three pieces of sirloin steak wrapped in bacon and hanging from a kebob steak like a hangman’s noose. Tapas and red wine and two hours later and I collapsed in a heap, glad to finally be in Spain for a good long while.
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