Day 1: Spain

I’ll be honest. Seville and I had a rough start. In order to leave room for spontaneity (like scraping the south of Portugal in favor of Morocco), I generally don’t make plans very far in advance. Flights, accommodations, hell even continents are usually planned for with just a few days notice. I find this to be the best way to travel, but it certainly has its downsides. It’s usually more expensive and, occasionally (but quite rarely), you run the risk of not being able to find a place to stay. Such was the case with Seville.

It just so happens that I arrived in Spain on the weekend of a holiday: Dia de la Hispanidad – when Spain celebrates its discovery of the Americas thanks to ole Chris Columbus in 1492. This usually doesn’t mean much more to Spaniards than an extra day off work, but it causes places to book up like mad and prices to skyrocket. I searched and searched and searched some more. In the end, I was able to find a shitty hostel for which I paid 95 euros for ONE NIGHT. That’s right. I paid over $100 American dollars to share a damp room with eight other people. To be honest, I was just grateful to not be sleeping outside, but when you’re on a budget you usually spend $100 for 3-5 nights – and that’s a NICE hostel that includes breakfast.

For an extra flare of drama, it happened to be cold and rainy when I arrived and the warmest clothing I have are workout leggings and a cardigan so thin it’s see-through. This trifecta of terribleness caused me to shift into full on pity-party mode. Cut to me crying into my beer at a bar, feeling homesick and lonely for the first time in nearly a month of traveling. Mildly pathetic, I know. But I was mostly discreet about my crying. Later that night I called my family and some friends, giving me some much needed perspective and by the time I laid my head down I was feeling much more optimistic.