No 8 Do - She Has Not Abandoned Me

Seville grew on me. Upon arrival I was not impressed. Then each day she showed me something new. She showed me something about myself. When I left I was not myself. That one place changed me for the worse. Seville should have been the one place I really wanted to go to. It should have been the place I invested the most time. I pretty much ruined it for myself and didn't realize it until I was leaving. I needed to be beside myself for a while. I needed to do it somewhere that wouldn't punish me for doing so. Seville isn't a regret. Seville never happened. I can still go. If she'll have me…

Seville was the hottest place we went to and I didn't think Madrid could be topped. I don't recall what the temperature was because it was too hot to think to look at the temperature. It was always boiling with absolutely no breeze and no mercy. It was hot at the train station. It was hot in the taxi. It was debilitating to sit in the back of that hot taxi as we winded the streets in search of our hotel. At times we'd stop dead at the front bumper of another car just trying the make it through. Were we in India? No we were in our last stop in her beloved Costa De Sol. I didn't want to see Spain. I was talked into it. I was promised familiar food and cheap red wine and dancing. I hadn't danced in some time. I never saw a bean in Spain - not a single one. I'd mistaken Faustino for the rich, Chilean wine I normally treated myself to on payday. Spain was like a purgatory between a French heaven and a pious Italian hell. Seville just this buffer zone in-between the two. Would I make it to Rome? Would I run back to Paris to get back to home? Where was home? How would I get there?

I'd decided that Seville was the one place I would forgo everything. I wouldn't eat in Seville. I wouldn't wear decent clothes in Seville. I wouldn't spend money in Seville. I would partake only in siestas. I would stay drunk off 50 cent shandy. I would ignore her attempts to belittle me. She could wander these desolate streets alone. She could go take pictures of crumbling sandcastles they foolishly named cathedrals. She could mistakingly eat pork cheeks assuming they were inspired portabellas. She could go to a romantic Flamenco performance alone in her matching rayon dress. I was going to sleep off my distaste for having to wait for the real sites. I was going to sleep off the agonizing thought of not having money to get from point a to point b. I was going to drink off the nearby church bells. I was going to drink off the absence of fast food. I was going to sleep and try to forget we were in worlds worst hotel. Did I mention she booked worlds worst hotel and then tried to blame it on me being cheap? I had to drink off the fact that I passed one starred hostels that were better than our three star prison quarters complete with high tech, non-working shower in 200 degree weather that seeped past the air con. 

We walked into a hotel that was too busy to greet us with no one in the lobby. There was the unmanned bar with a sign not to take glassware. There was the unknown puddle in the floor nearest to the chairs from the dinning set of "Bettlejuice". There was the stifling heat of the attic like halls that lead to the atrium. Then there was our room - obviously some couples suite complete with a jacuzzi tub nearest to an all glass door centered directly in front of the king size bed. Before I could break the seal on the toilet she was coughing because the room was littered in mildew from the now overly reviewed overflowing jacuzzi tub that was utterly pointless in a city not far from the fucking sun. Thankfully, she complained and had us moved to a smaller room at the same cost. At least that way we retained the original card key which we used to keep the a/c on 24/7 so we didn't die of sun exposure in our actual room. Our room with a bolted Dell laptop that took up the majority of our one desk/table just in front of the two detached cots pushed together to look like an Ikea platform bed. Our balcony just two feet from the one of three active churches surrounding us.

Seville was horrible. I can't recall if I got worse in the room that smelled slightly better or that one time she thought we would get lost in the dark. Maybe it got worse when all the stores closed on Sunday and there was absolutely nothing to eat but leftover burnt croissants from the overpriced breakfast we opted out of. Maybe it was the complimentary warm boxed juices available at the bar or that restaurant we ate at twice that played a skipping "Best of Celia Cruz" CD on repeat. Maybe it was the time I ordered a frittata and got a savory cookie full of shrimp heads complete with the dotty black eyes. Maybe it was the horses covered in flies waiting for victims while standing in the days octopus catch juice. Maybe it was the complete lack of shade anywhere even under the one tree we found by the water with no wake to provide a breeze. Maybe it was the trifecta of Starbucks by the trifecta of overpriced froyo shops that sold the mass produced castanets. I don't know what made it worse. Her or she?

Then she sang to me when the panaderia had rose creme cakes. When we walked through caverns and turns like the casbah to find the inner sanctum of the city. Maybe it was the lonely walk to see that thing that looked like an old world emporium that was just a city firehouse. Maybe it was the warm bread for change and familiar wine for a dollar more. Maybe it was the one set of castanets that didn't have "Made in China" on them. Maybe it was the guitar shop covered in memorabilia. Maybe it was the live bullfighting on the tv that made me scream. Maybe it was the windows full of polka dots and satin Christening sets for blonde haired Spanish babies. Maybe it was the sighting of a Burger King. Maybe it was the two pack of gazpacho that was marked "Made in France". Maybe it was the waiter that said "of course" when I asked for Cruz Campo. Maybe it was watching the koi fish leap at the palace. Maybe it was finding a place I should have always been. Maybe it was realizing I'd been here before.

The reality is as much as love Morocco this was the closest I could actually get it to without being there. As much as I loved dance I should be sacrificed a meal for a Flamenco show with a friend. As much as I love medieval crap I should have went in the armory without her. I just ruined a great chance at everything over nothing. To stand at a point of absolute misery. I was sick of the smells of Seville. I was sicker of her. I stood there with no place to sit. I couldn't get my lens on my camera just right. I looked down and there it was. A manhole cover with it. I pushed the sand and clay aside with my feet and there it was. NO 8 DO. It rang to me. And then just as it came it was all over.