Monkeying around at Palicio Real
We weren´t feeling too horrible on Sunday. After wondering on Saturday how we ever made it through our party years of college we paced ourselves a bit more last night. We packed up our bags to which Kelly´s broke even more. Now there were two metal bars jabbing her in the bum. Again, awesome. Kelly checked us out late, as usual, although Jenny was running even later, also as usual. While Jen attempted to get her life together Kel sat in the atrium distraught over her backpack crisis. Finally, right when she had reached her lowest low (in backpacking sense), Roy woke up! We figured since he is a chiropractor, he could fix a backpack spine also. He attempted some caveman style hammering to fix it at first but it still busted out of its seems. Finally he proposed taking this giant metal piece off completely...Kelly threw him a face as if he was completely out of his mind to which he went ahead and took it out with no problems. This is the part of the blog where we let you know Roy is the man. Seriously, he just saved Kelly a ton of euros/hassle/possible injuries. Thank you Royyy!!!! Turns out the spine is dumb...so we´re hoping.
The three of us caught up with the world on computers for a bit and then set out for snacks and a Picasa exhibit. We traveled through a gorgeous, ritzy area of Madrid where we sat outside for a wrap and smoothies. The weather was AMAZING and we learned all about our new friend and shared our stories in return. He´s more than just a Virgo, spine-fixing, spunky Canadian. We eventually found the museum which closed 30 minutes earlier...normally this would be a buzzkill, but on a day like today, there was too much too enjoy. We found Plaza Mayor, the huge palace, gardens and countless other wonders. We hung outside the palace for a while, where we took pictures of a fellow traveler by himself. Jenny and Kelly engaged him in conversation about travel plans/experiences and regretted not inviting him to tapas with us. Afterwards we died laughing as we realized Roy had not spoken a word but just listened to our conversation with the American guy... we had rambled about just meeting "this guy" (pointing towards Roy) and how we were going to see him in Lisbon because he makes killer pancakes and canadian maple syrup. Sometimes our joking/weirdness gets a little to strange and that guy definitely strayed off quickly thinking about what wack-jobs you meet out in the world and how we had most likely kidnapped Roy, who to his knowledge did not speak a word of English and looks pretty inconspicuous with his hood up. But seriously, we are thinking about Portugal this week, Roy really is known for his pancakes, ice cream and margaritas... why wouldn´t we go?
We had an awesome afternoon and ended the day at El Tigre, a locals-filled tapas bar off the beaten path that David had suggested last night. You order a few cheap beers, and they bring you plates of tapas. Yum! It was a great way to end our weekend in the city and with our new buddy. We grabbed our backpacks from the hostel and set off to catch a train. Luckily we made the 8pm one...Jenny passed out and Kelly watched the in-transit film. 2.5 hours later we were in Sevilla! We quickly realized in all the days glory we had forgotten to pull up directions to our hostel and there was no wifi in sight. Long story short, we wandered some...and some more...caught a bus...wandered some more....to be honest we were lost at night in a city we didn´t know before we somehow found the hostel, which is in a side street off an unmarked plaza built into a historic wall. We get it, free spirited travel is one thing but maybe this was a little too far. Clearly we are taking backpacker relaxation pretty seriously as we weren´t phased by this situation -- Lesson learned though, more organization from here on out! The Oasis hostel here is awesome though which is comforting. We knew it was bed time...so we jumped in our bunks and decided Seville will look better in the morning.
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