I got a bike, and it’s trying to kill me. But this nice guy named Jesus fixed it.

Walking: kills shoes, naps and travel plans. And people, when they blow away.

One of the most common European stereotypes of Americans is that they’re addicted to their cars. I think this is completely ridiculous…ly true. Here in Spain you would never think of driving to the grocery a mile away. Or even 5 miles away. You could definitely walk that. You probably spend over an hour a day walking here, minimum. As awesome as this is, I have a few problems with it:

• It did this to my shoes:

I call this the “classy hobo” look.

A third of my poor, overworked sole just fell off halfway through a crosswalk. I carried it around in my pocket the rest of the day because I didn’t know what else to do with it. Aaand, when this shoe died I was an hour and a half away from home, so I got to walk around like that for the rest of the day.

Bald Pizza and the Attack of the Churros

It’s time for you to meet some of my CC-CS buddies. Otherwise this will turn into one of those “me and my one friend and my other friend went to see my one friend. No, not that one, the other one”-type stories, which only make sense with some sort of accompanying tree-diagram-type character list. These guys all make an appearance in this post, and they’ll probably show up again later since at least a few of them are going to Austria and Paris with me in a few weeks. They’re good folks.

The characters:

Laura: The first night in Seville, Laura was our fearless leader on our timid little journey out of our hotel. Laura likes Príncipes, the little tubes of cookies they sell all over the place here (kind of like the Spanish equivalent of Oreos). Laura does not like tailgaters. Or the fact that 90% of all Spaniards walk slower than a sloth in Slo-Mo on the sidewalks here. This results in her tailgating slow Spanish walkers. Oh, the ironía.

Midnight: Not the best time to take a bus in completely the wrong direction

I am getting better at this not-being-lost-in-a-foreign-country thing. I abandoned my map weeks ago and almost always know which was is north now. In fact, we have to rewind  a whole 4 weeks to my first experience with Sevilla’s bus system before we get to any lost-in-Spain stories. But man, was I  lost. Supermegalost.

Wednesday four weeks ago I ventured out of Sevilla all on my lonesome to visit a family I’d met back at the convention in Madrid for a Bible study. They live about 15 minutes out of Sevilla in a suburb called… I can’t remember right now, but the bus stop is Los Irlandeses. I took a bus to another bus to Los Irlandeses no problem. Then I stood around looking lost until I happened to run into Manolo, the man of the house, who was out for a walk. He led me through a corridor and down a path to his house. All the houses are connected to those on either side, the little neighborhood forming a triangle that encloses a small courtyard.

Stepping into that courtyard is among the most amazing of my experiences in Spain thus far.