AWC Going Dutch Dec 2019

Adventures in Andalusia
by Alex Moore
Feast or famine. Yes, it’s a cliché and
every creative writing class I took told
me to avoid clichés. Which is why I
don’t like having one in this lead, but it’s the
best way to describe my approach to Spain in
2019. I go years without visiting, seeing loads
of other places in between from Bucharest to
Tokyo to Rarotonga to Montreal, but then I go
three times in one year: Seville in February,
Barcelona in September, and back to Seville
in October.
Diederik and I woke up at 3:30 a.m. to
take a red eye from Eindhoven to Seville; a
Transavia flight that had a group of women
I will “affectionately” dub The Hyenas because
of their raucous cackling at 6 a.m. I’ve
never been a morning person, especially not
on a 6 a.m. red eye, but the only reason I
didn’t glare at the hyenas was my noise
canceling headphones that allowed me to
cat nap. I’d also enjoyed a chococino at the
airport, and if that doesn’t start my day off
right, I don’t know what will.
The purpose of our trip to Seville was for
a wedding. My mom’s best friend’s daughter
was getting married in Carmona, a small
town roughly 30 minutes outside of Seville.
The wedding was most important, but we
agreed that we were going to eat our collective
weight in delicious food, bask in
the sunshine, and enjoy the Mediterranean
vibe that should be brought back to the
Netherlands to bring a little fun to the cold
and calculated Northern Europe.
tapas. Later that day, my mom and dad arrived,
and we enjoyed sangria on a rooftop
bar at Hotel Zenith, where they stayed. Then
we moseyed downtown to one of the many
tapas restaurants, where we sat outside. We
met up with the mother of the bride, who
knew all of the good places to eat. The
bride’s sister joined us later with her boyfriend.
I hadn’t seen her since 2005, so it
was a treat to see her again. While we ate, it
was fun to see the city come alive at night.
A few days before our trip, Diederik asked
his uncle for recommendations for Spain,
one of which was to get a haircut and a hot
shave. The day before the wedding, we decided
to follow his advice. Since Diederik
doesn’t speak Spanish, I was his translator.
Every time the barber asked him something,
he gave his best deer in the headlights look
until I jumped in to translate. Now he knows
how I felt for my first year in Holland. When
the barber of Seville (forgive me) was finished,
it was my turn. My Rapunzel hair had
some split ends that needed to be trimmed,
since the last haircut I had was from my trip
in February. His uncle’s recommendation is
one that I will pass on because barbers and
stylists are excellent in Spain.
After our haircuts, my parents met us and
we took a bus to see some Roman ruins just
outside of Seville. Normally I would sneak
in a terrible pun about ruins, but the only
ones I can think of are too horrific for my
standards, which are fairly low already. In
all seriousness, it was fascinating to see artifacts
from a time period before the Middle
Ages. It was a reminder of how the Roman
legacy can still be found. We marveled at >> 42
Travel4U@americantravelcenter.net/www.americantravelcenter.nl/tel. +3261234901
“Our next holiday is
a safari. They do
the whole world!”
Our first course of action was to locate anywhere
that had a delicious lunch. Our hotel
in the downtown area of Seville, where
we had access to lots of shops, tapas bars
and restaurants. We found a place in the
sunshine, where we ordered patatas bravas,
beef tenderloin and olives just to start.
While Diederik has visited Tenerife and
Barcelona, this was his first time in Seville.
Our lunch was also his first experience with
“They make booking a
holiday so easy. I just
leave it to them!”
“Every trip is
customized, just for
me! That’s unique!”
40 GOING DUTCH
DECEMBER 2019 41