2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 72

The speedy train drops me off on the concrete platform, early in the day. I love this town immediately. There are two thousand years history under my feet in Seville. Christopher Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, and all goods flowing in from the West Indies had to pass through Seville before reaching the rest of Spain. A golden age ensued for the town.

I quickly orient myself with the help of a map and locate the heart of Seville, the Alcazar.

The Alcazar is renowned as one of the most beautiful palaces in Spain. Once you go inside, it's not hard to see why. The upper levels of the Alcázar are still used by the royal family as the official Seville residence. The term 'Alcázar' comes from the Hispano-Arabic word 'Alqáşr' meaning 'Royal House' or 'Room of the Prince.' Peacocks roamed the garden grounds. Game of Thrones was filmed in this very palace.

But it wasn't the exotic birds or the intricate tile work or the Mercury pond that left me breathless with wonder.

Within the palatial rooms, a wrought-iron gate opens up to the veranda. I walk through and I am standing beneath a walkway covered by an airy cloud of wisteria. Sunlight seeped through the purple blooms. And I feel like I had stepped inside the page of a fairy tale. I linger under that walkway for a long while, allowing myself to be hypnotized by the garden, the fountains, and birdsong.

Four hours later, I come out of the palace on wobbly legs, woozy and bamboozled by all this beauty. Walking home that afternoon, around 5:00 PM, I pass by a small boutique on a narrow cobblestone street in some nondescript part of Seville. Something in the window display caught my eye. It's a wedding dress, but in a design I'd never before seen. Off-the-shoulder with sheer, lace sleeves, and a soft chiffon skirt. I paused briefly to admire it, thinking how befitting that even the wedding dresses of Spain have necklines that resemble a fairy tale princesses' wardrobe.

An ESADE student I'd met in Malaga told me, "You can't come to Andalusia without watching the Flamenco dance." So, that very evening, I went to watch one of Spain's dancers perform. I happen to sit next to a woman, Stephanie, who also comes from Canada. We found a little restaurant on the corner of the street which looks as ancient as the stones beneath our feet, and we sit on the patio. Stephanie, who knows some Spanish, takes control of the situation by ordering from the wholly Spanish menu, with no pictures whatsoever. Soon the waitresses brings two glasses of sangria, tiny plates of Iberian ham and olives, and a hot tapa dish which looked like a hamburger at first glance, but is in fact made of slices of roasted eggplant with fresh shrimp and melted cheddar and mozzarella cheese. I take a bite of it and the hot cheese runs away like topsoil in a landslide. The layers of flavor with the shrimp and eggplant and the cheese was so divine I could vanish right into heaven.

Every day I call or email Matt from whatever WIFI connection I can find, and one afternoon he tells me, "After I'm done here in Brazil, I'm taking a month off from work to travel Italy and Greece with you."

"You are?!!!"

Elated, I make squealing noises, spewing out little tips on which airlines have the best deals.

My last day in Seville, it was pouring rain. I took an umbrella and went back into the cobblestoned maze that is old town Seville. I sloshed through the rain, looking for the store with the lovely window display. But I never found it again.

I wish I had taken a picture of that dress.

* * *

Over the next eight weeks, I travel to Barcelona, to Nice, to Geneva, to Munich, to Salzburg, and then all the way to Istanbul in Turkey. These are short stays, mostly – three days here, a week there – just the right amount of time to get the feel for a place, to look around, and to visit the destinations that most intrigue me, not what the guide books tell me I should want to see. I know I probably should be interested in museums and art but I'm much more interested in medieval villages, castles, palaces, and theme parks made of crystal. The idea of princesses and knights fascinate me, and I can't wait to step inside the physical world of where these fantastical characters could, and did, reign.