Today we spent most of our day in lines. We started by going to mass in one of the cathedral’s chapels. This is the only place where there was no line up. Turns out the mass was already half over. We didn’t understand much but could tell when they were saying prayers that we knew by their intonations. After mass we went outside and around the building to visit the cathedral. We had visited it in 2006 and didn’t remember much about the inside, apart from the long climb up the ramp to the top of the Giralda tower and the tomb of Christopher Columbus where other places also claim to have his remains. As it turns out we didn’t remember much because there is not much to remember, it is not that spectacular inside. We have seen small churches that are free to enter that are more beautiful inside than the cathedral. We figured that they must have spent all their money decorating the outside because the outside is beautiful. Turns out that it is free to visit on Sunday's.
In one of the courtyards, they were selling packs of holy cards. They resembled the packs of hockey cards that the kids in Canada buy with the pictures of hockey players, here it is pictures of saints or religious images with a prayer printed on the back. These are not like the ones the nuns gave us at school. The kids and some adults had big binders full of these cards with lists and numbers and they were checking their cards against these lists and checking off the ones they had.
After the Cathedral we got into another lineup to buy tickets for the Real Alcazar. After a short half hour wait our time came up only to find out we were in the wrong queue. This is our second time trying to buy tickets for Real Alcazar and both times the box office was closed. The security guards recommended that we book online. Which we have done and now have tickets for Tuesday at noon. There was a pleasant surprise when we booked, they normally only offer senior rates to EU members but are now offering the same rates to seniors from everywhere.
Our next destination was the train station for tickets to Cadiz. We stood in line for the bus to the Santa Justa train station where we once again stood in line to speak to a teller. We wanted to go on Wednesday but apparently Wednesday is a holiday so therefore no trains. We will need to make sure we do our groceries on Tuesday. I checked with google and it is Andalusia day. We were told that we might as well wait and buy our tickets on the day that we want to travel because they are the same price whether you buy ahead or not and then we can be assured of good weather and there is less risk of missing our train. We will try to go on Thursday because we are realizing that time is flying by much too fast, and we need to see and do the things on our list.
It is now raining and is going to continue to rain tonight into tomorrow morning until the sun comes out again in the afternoon. We were back at the apartment around 4 in time to do a load of laundry. And relax a bit before supper. Since it is Jacques turn to do supper and we are having rabbit I will do a bit of cleaning around the apartment while he is cooking.
On our way to the bus, we did stop for a tapa that we hadn’t tried yet and is one of Andalusia’s specialties ‘the oxtail stew’. It was good, the texture is a bit different from what we are used to. Jacques would eat it again but now that I have tried it, I will pass, I much preferred the pig cheeks.
I am now finishing the blog before calling it a night. Supper was delicious and we have enough left overs for another meal tomorrow or Tuesday.
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