BootsnAll Travel Network



El Puerto de Santa María and Seville

We headed to El Puerto de Santa María, a 1-2 hour (I forget) train ride from Sevilla, in a town not far from Cadiz. We were there to visit the Osbourne winery, an assignment that Rich’s sister sent him on. She wanted him to interview the head of the company, or at least someone in charge there to see if it would be good for her TV show.

I was hesitant about using our valuable time in Spain to do something that might not be that great.

We arrived and it was a very quaint town, with the narrow alleys and old architecture.

We met our guide, a lovely and delightful Spanish woman, who told us all about sherry. She took us through this huge wooden building filled with hundreds and hundreds of old spider-webby barrels and explained how in the summer, the whole building if filled with a few inches of water to try to keep the barrels cool.

It was pretty interesting, actually. Sherry is made differently and isn’t sealed shut like wine. Sherry doesn’t have a year, like wine, because all the years of sherry are mixed together in certain percentages, so if you drink some sherry, you might be drinking stuff that’s one year old AND 200 years old. Pretty neat, huh? After she showed us around, we got to taste all the sherrys and we all seemed to like different ones. They got progressively sweeter and sweeter. At the end, she brought all of us our favorite bottle to take home. It was cool.

Afterwards, we had some tapas, including some nasty patatas bravas. Patatas bravas are fried potato chunks with a spicy red sauce and creamy white sauce.

I. LOVE. THEM.

patatas bravas.JPG
(These are from Barcelona. These were delicious.)

The whole trip I was on an endless quest for the best patatas bravas. These were not it. I will discuss later.


A picture of ham and other food we ate that day.

We took the train back to Seville and then lounged in the nice hotel pool. I forgot to mention that Seville was quite hot during the day.

Later that evening, we took a cab to the Barrio Santa Cruz, or the old Jewish quarter. It was extremely touristy, but for good reason: it had all the narrow, winding alleys and beautiful old buildings that were so fun to wander through. We finally ate dinner at San Marcos, an Italian restaurant Jim remembered from his old Spain days. Poor Jim had to deal with our endless food vocabulary translation questions, and he readily admits that food vocab is his weakest point in Spanish. But we perservered.

Later, we walked across the bridge again to Triana, to a very cool outdoor bar that again, Jim remembered. Rich & Kristin took a cab back to the hotel, and Jim and I took a cab to a bar that Sara Sanchez (remember, our Sevillian friends) told us she’d be at.

The rest of the night (until 3am) we talked to her and all her TV & movie friends that were there. She & Jim talked primarily in Spanish but once in a while I was able to sort of understand what they were talking about, which was very exciting for me, since I know very, very little Spanish. We walked to a bar in El Centro and there were hundreds and hundreds of people outside, drinking and talking. There were also lots of stray dogs.

I asked Sara if there was a university nearby, because I couldn’t believe how many people were out at like 2am! Seriously, HUNDREDS just standing out on the sidewalks and lawns. No one getting stabbed or harrassed, either.

Jim taught Sara and her friends how to say “I lay my mac down” which was awesome. She really got the gist of it and was able to apply it hilariously.

We met some of her friends, most of who didn’t speak much English. One of them was embarrassed to speak English and didn’t even want to try. It was interesting to see that, because I was afraid to try to speak words in other languages at first when I visited other countries. I think it is because I was afraid I would say something wrong and the listener would think I was clueless. But now I know it is better to try that do nothing. One of her friends, an admittedly fabulous costume designer, was excited to try his English on me and it was fun.

I was jealous of Jim, who was able to talk with her at length about all sorts of things, including American & Spanish politics and current trends and whatnot. Locals are the best. She was so friendly and so cool. I am so glad we were able to meet her.

We had a great time and didn’t get back to the hotel until after 3am.



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