West Coast of Western Europe Pt 4

cont'd from West Coast of Western Europe Pt 3

Sevilla is well known for the Flamenco dance and bull-fighting amongst other things. But winter is too cold for the bulls to come out and fight, so we could only go for the Flamenco show.

The one we went to was a modest little theatre 2 streets from our hotel. The show featured a guy on guitar, a lady on vocals plus a male and female dancer. Not being sexist or bias, but the guy dancer gave a better performance than his female counterpart. You could see the fire and passion, so much so his red shirt flung out from its tucked position to set this girl swooning!


Ok folks, there is no need for rolling eyes...

That was Christmas Eve.

As our bus to Lisbon wasn't till 11 on Christmas night, and we didn't want to pay rent for a room we were only going to stay for half the night, we decided to check out around noon time.

Things went a bit out of hand as there were some discrepancies in payment. We thought we were due to pay 18 Euros per night (as listed on our booking sheet), but when we got round to paying the bill, the receptionist charged us 22 Euros.

"That's not right", we echoed.

A-huh. But what's that in Spanish???

Great. The receptionist spoke not a word of English, and we spoke not a word of Spanish. And we're supposed to settle this rather complicated matter.

HOW???

Jus then a guy walked past us.

For no rhyme or reason, my instincts said I should call him.

“Hi, sorry. Do you speak English?”

“Yup”.

I nearly wanted to shout "Oh great", when I remembered that's only half of what we were looking for.

"Erm, sorry again. But do you speak Spanish too?"

"Yeah, I speak Spanish as well".

Now I can say "great".

"Right, could you help us out for a moment?"

"Sure".

We told him the situation and he translated everything we said to the receptionist. And he did the same with his reply to us.

To cut the long story short, the receptionist said for as long as he has been working there, the rent had always been 22 Euros per night, and he blamed the booking website for giving us the wrong quote. We sensed he wasn't going to budge, so we had no choice but to pay the amount he asked for.

I suppose you could say getting the guy to be our translator wasn't of much use since we paid 22 Euros eventually, but I beg to differ. At least with his help, we reasoned (a little) with the receptionist and the money didn't go into the hotel's accounts without a fight.

A note to Rodrigo...

Firstly, muchas gracias.

I know you gave me your name card and all, but I think I've lost it!

You have no idea how many (crocodile) tears I shed as I overturned my entire room to look for your precious name card, but worry not, I remembered your name, Senor Rodrigo Hernandez erm something (I like your middle name by the way, am gonna add it to my fav name list after this). I remembered the way you looked, the knitted brown top you wore, and the (brief but interesting) exchange we had, so not all is bad...I guess it's just yao yun mo fun...

Eherm. The last bit is a private joke between me and the girls =P

“Tall, dark and handsome?” I hear you ask.

That is if he wears an 8-inch platform shoe and shed some pounds…

:)

We went to Plaza de Espana and Parque de Maria Luisa for a walk after that. The latter was a nice little park where many families came out and spent quality time with loved ones on Christmas day. It was quite surprising that many people were out on the streets actually. I had always thought it was going to be soulless like in the UK, with most shops closed and only 3 cars on the road every hour, but no, I was proven wrong. Amusingly wrong!

Day then turned into night and it was time for us to board the long night bus to Lisbon, scheduling to reach the Portuguese capital at 7 in the morning.

Waiting at the bus station was quite a harrowing experience, as people looked rather dodgy over there. I apologise if I offended anyone with that remark but personally, that was how I felt. People stared at us everywhere we went, like they've never seen PYTs before. Sure, getting that kind of head-turning attention is (or would have been) flattering any other time but not when it's late at night, at a dim, quiet bus station...

Thank God we got on the bus safely and reached Lisbon before dusk as planned.

To be continued...