SPAIN: SEVILLA

The end of the semester is right around the corner, and classes are building up. So, I've decided to spend the rest of my semester in Spain, but that means I can explore a new city! I took a day trip to Sevilla, Spain, with my friend Emma! But before I get into that, I thought I would quickly talk about my week at the hospital doing my first ever clinical rotation! 

I obviously could not take any photos while I was in the hospital, but above is a photo from my last morning going to clinical! We got there around 7:00 a.m., so it was the start of sunrise. Doing my clinicals in Spain was one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do, but I wouldn't change a thing. Balancing learning core nursing skills, traveling, and studying for my other classes was no easy task. But, I learned so much and am so grateful for the things that I got to do and see. I removed a urinary catheter, administered medications to patients, cleaned wounds, and saw a pic line insertion. I was so nervous during my 3 days of clinical, that I could not carry on a conversation with my nurse because thinking about speaking Spanish was the last thing on my mind. The nurses spoke Spanish with very, very broken English, so the majority of the time, I would only use my "si's" and "no's." I'm looking forward to going back to the States and using the skills I learned for my new internship this summer and throughout the rest of my nursing career. 

Anyway, on Saturday morning, I woke up super early and met Emma at the train station. We had a little over 2 hours on the train before we got to Sevilla. The train ride consisted of studying for our exam, reading our books, and talking. 

While we were talking, Emma and I found out that we share a lot more similarities than I thought:

1. We're both twins.

2. We're both the older twin and older by a minute.

3. We're both nursing majors.

4. We both did our clinicals in Madrid.

5. We both love to read.

6. We both love diavola pizza.

Once we made it to Sevilla, we took an Uber to Plaza de Espana. One thing that I didn't know about Plaza de Espana is that the outside is decorated with 48 providences of Spain.

I got to see a lot of cities that I've visited while abroad: Segovia, Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, and Valencia (I go next week!).

The colors of the tile and the architecture were beautiful. I could've stayed there all day. Even better, we got there around 9 a.m., and there was no one there. But slowly, throughout the morning, it got busier and busier.

Around the plaza was a man-made river that you could row a boat across. I thought that I would be a pro since I've rowed a boat plenty of times up north, but I completely embarrassed myself.

Emma and I ended up each taking a paddle and rowing from either side of the boat. 

Once we finished with the row boat, we saw a group of ladies dancing flamenco in the middle of the plaza. We were able to push through the crowd and watch for a bit.

After, we walked through Parque de María Luisa for a bit. 

There were birds everywhere! Ducks, geese, swans, pigeons - any bird you could think of. At one of the ponds, there were adorable ducklings. 

After the park, we had about a 20-minute walk to the cathedral and just observed the architecture and plants that Sevilla had. 

Once at the cathedral, we started by walking up to the top of the tower. 38 stories later, we made it, and the view was beautiful! I saw on a sign in the cathedral that it won a Guiness World Record for the largest Roman Catholic cathedral by area. 

Even crazier, inside the cathedral, I saw this spectacular display of a tomb. Emma turns to me and says, "That's Christopher Colombus's tomb." I kind of laughed and thought she was kidding, but no, that really was Christopher Colombus's tomb. 

Of all the things I thought I was going to see while I was abroad, Christopher Columbus's tomb was not one of them. After walking through the cathedral, we were hungry and looked for a place for lunch.

To celebrate our love of diavola pizza, we found a restaurant that had diavola pizza, and it did not disappoint.

While eating lunch, I found out that Emma has only had gelato once or twice while she was abroad and never in Spain. I thought that was crazy, since I have it way more often than I should. So, I went to my favorite gelato spot, Amorino. I didn't realize it was a chain, so I'm a little disappointed to know that it's not a hole-in-the-wall, but we still went, and I got my favorite flavor.

At this point, our train wasn't for another few hours, so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon playing the card game, Rummy, and ordering a pitcher of sangria.

While we were playing, I checked our train tickets just to see if we were able to move them up an hour, and it turns out we could! I quickly changed our time and realized that we had under an hour to get from the city center to the train station. 

After one Uber cancellation, I was getting nervous that we had made a mistake, but we made it with a few minutes to spare!

Once in Madrid, we took the metro back home. But then, the craziest thing happened. Just as I thought the doors were about to close, my family friend Luke walked onto the metro car I was in. Of all the places to get onto the metro, he gets onto the same one. Even crazier, his dad, Peter, was with him, and they also came from the same train from Sevilla that Emma and I were on! It was great catching up and talking to Luke about his semester in Madrid. But what are the odds?! It was a great end to a great day. 

A quick selfie for proof this happened!

Best Part of the Trip: I really loved walking around Plaza de Espana. It was super quiet when we were there in the morning, so it was super peaceful to observe the architecture.

Worst Part of the Trip: We booked this trip at the last minute, so we weren't able to do everything in Sevilla. One of the things that I wish we were able to do was visit the Royal Alcázar of Seville. But it's a good excuse to come back!

Overall Thoughts: I had a great time spending my day with Emma! I've been going on trips with a lot of the same friends, so it was fun to switch it up. I'm glad I was able to explore another part of Spain too!