25 Wednesday Aug 2021
Posted in humour, restaurants, sevilla, spain
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I have seen SO MANY bad menu translations over the years, always a cause for amusement. But this one totally takes the cake. Thanks Victor for sending this to me. It’s fabulous.
For non-Spanish speakers the empadronamiento is the census.
15 Thursday Jul 2021
Posted in history, rants, sevilla, spain, tapas bars
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photo courtesy of Gurmé Sevilla
You may recall when a few months ago I wrote about Bodega San José closing its doors after more than 80 years (the Bueno family took over the location around 1935). This was because the present owners of the building refused to renew the lease this year, presumably because they got a more lucrative offer. And here is the result.
Surely this is identity theft? Taking over a cherished family-run bar, doing a big reno, and then not only keeping the same name but putting “desde 1893” in your logo. This new bar (actually “desde 2021”) has nothing to do with the old one and is nothing like it. I’ve seen photos on their (new) FB page and it looks like your typical gastro bar inside. It’s irksome that they are staking claim to a history that was never theirs, obviously trying to profit from it. Not the first time I’ve seen this happen here, but perhaps the saddest one for me.
25 Friday Jun 2021
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So first of all… that’s a misleading title, like many of the headlines I’ve been reading this week about Spain returning to “life without masks”. What IS true is that from Saturday June 26th people are no longer required to wear masks outdoors IF they can maintain a distance of 1.5 metres between people not from their household. Which, as you can see from that photo, is not actually possible in city streets. Heck, some streets in Sevilla are barely 3 metres wide. The other thing the media has been neglecting to point out is that we are still required to carry a mask with us at all times or risk a 100 euro fine if caught without one.
Meanwhile, in spite of the central government’s decision, the regional government in Andalucía is asking us to keep wearing masks everywhere due to our continued increase of infections (we have the highest Covid rate in the country and the EU Council has placed us in their “high risk” level). Given that the Delta/India variant is highly contagious, I am really hoping people will be sensible (fingers crossed). Because this pandemic is far from over.
24 Thursday Jun 2021
The heat is back, creeping back up to 40º, and so we are now always looking for shady streets when out and about. In fact, there’s a new app out there called Shadowmap that tells you when and where streets in Sevilla (or anywhere else in the world) are more likely to be shady. I usually tend to just look up the street, but I suppose it could be handy if you don’t know a place and you are planning a walking route. Honestly, there’s an app for everything these days.
15 Tuesday Jun 2021
Posted in sevilla, spain, tapas bars, tapas tours
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Got an email around 6 o’clock from a guy called Blake asking if he and his wife could join a tapas tour this evening. And well, aside from the fact that I am not giving tours yet, it was very last minute, even too late for José to get into Sevilla on time (he lives just outside town). So I had to apologise and say no… twice, because he wrote back saying they were vaccinated, etc. But I explained it was too late to organise anything and once again had to say no. Then he wrote AGAIN saying that if I changed my mind to just let them know. And then inspiration struck! I remembered when, a few years ago, friends were visiting and I was hit with a random 24-hour bug. I suddenly had to take to my bed and wasn’t able to meet up with them. Instead we stayed in touch by phone and I told them where to go and what to order. And so I decided to suggest this to Blake (especially as he clearly wasn’t taking no for an answer! 😉 ).
Well, he loved the idea and I set it up like a bit of a mystery tour, sending them map locations of the bars by WhatsApp one at a time, with a list of tapas to order at each one. Meanwhile they sent me photos (and bad jokes courtesy of Blake) throughout the evening. Later he sent me this message. 🙂
One of the best travel experiences I have had, thank you so much again and I can’t wait to write my review tomorrow. Cheers.
I was joking that I could maybe do this full-time, doing 3-4 tours a night sending people to different bars while I stay home and netflix with the cats, but the truth is I can’t wait to get out and about again. This was fun though!
