Madrid Endings and Seville

Our last day in Madrid was unfortunately not spent touring this amazing city. We awoke to some seriously major technical difficulties with my computer, and spent the entire day dealing with them. Thanks to the computer department team at El Corte Ingles (a European department store), and many infuriating hours, all was sorted out by the end of the day. I am finally back on my two feet technologically, and I will be carrying with me just a little more Spanish than I would have if I hadn´t encountered this problem.
The morning of July 19th we had train tickets from Madrid to Seville for 9am. We arrived at the train station around 8:30am (just to be on the safe side) and went searching for the platform, but we couldn´t find where we were supposed to go! We finally asked someone and they informed us that the train departing for Seville was leaving from a different train station in Madrid. Apparently there are 3 train stations in the city, and we went to the one we had arrived at (from Lisbon, Portugal), not realizing that was not where our Seville train would be leaving from. Luckily we were able to have our tickets changed (free of charge) for the 11am train (since there was no way we would make it across the city to the other train station on time).
For safety purposes, Chad has been wearing a money-pouch that hangs around his neck, under his clothing, and rests on his stomach. We have been keeping our passports, extra cash, Euro-rail passes, and other valuables in the pouch. So, when we finally found our train, and were asked to show our Euro-rail passes, naturally I turned to Chad and lifted up his shirt in search of the money pouch (forgetting that we put the pouch in my purse right before entering the train station). And, when not finding the passes on his stomach I freaked out. I can´t imagine what the ticket lady must have been thinking (¨what crazy Canadians, strip searching each other for Euro-rail passes??¨). Luckily I quickly remembered where they were and grabbed them from my purse, and all was well again.
The train ride was so smooth and comfortable! We each had a table/desk in front of us. They even gave out headsets and played a movie, just like on planes! We were pretty impressed!
Once we arrived in Seville, we found our hotel, and then went walking around the city. It´s a small, beautiful city, with lots to see, right on a river. We were not prepared for the intense heat though! At around 5pm the temperature was 42 degrees Celsius!!
We first walked along the water down to the famous bull fighting ring: Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza. We had wanted to get tickets to the bull fight since Chad had never seen one (I saw one when I lived in Barcelona), but unfortunately there was no fight going on that day. Instead we went for a tour of the bull ring and into the small museum. The bullring was built in the late 1700s and seats up to 14,000 spectators.
  You can tell pretty clearly how hot it was outside by our glowing faces:
We were pretty hot from walking around so we took a little break at a bar right on the water and had some delicious Mojitos. (That´s me standing at the bar ordering us more  Mojitos in the background of the photo below)
We then passed by the Torre del Oro:
We then went by this really large and beautiful building that houses the Archive of the Indies, which contains documents and artifacts that relate to the colonization of the Americas by the Spanish.
Right behind this building we found the huge gothic Cathedral and La Giralda (it´s bell tower), built in the early 1400s. Unfortunately since it was Sunday evening, the cathedral was closed and we were unable to walk around inside. We still had an amazing view from the outside.
We also saw the outside of the Real Alcazar, Seville´s Royal Palace. Unfortunately it was also closed.
We strolled around for a few hours and then had dinner at a local Tapas bar. Tapas are small appetizer plates, and they are very popular in Spain. You generally order a number of different tapas, and all together they form a filling meal. 
One thing that I found pretty cute about Seville is their pedestrian walk/do not walk lights at intersections. I am so used to the lights in Canada, with a stationary little green or red man as a walking indicator, but here in Seville, they have a moving little man and a countdown to how many seconds you have left. He first starts out walking slowly, then as the time left decreases he starts walking faster, until he is sprinting for the last 5 seconds. I took a photo of him but clearly you can´t tell from the photo that he´s moving. But he´s still pretty cute!
As we were leaving Seville I noticed the size of my backpack. It has somehow grown extremely large through my travels!!
Just to compare, this is me with my backpack as I was leaving Toronto a month ago:
This is me as I was leaving Seville:
Notice how the top of the backpack rises about a foot above my head, while before it was almost at the same height as me!!
We could have easily spent a few days exploring Seville, but we had train tickets for Granada leaving the following morning.  We loved our short time in Seville and hopefully it won´t be our last!