Galaxies far, far away.

Here's for yesterday, because actual yesterday got away from me...I guess it's for today too.
Yesterday, I checked out of my hostel in Sevilla and, with 5 hours until my bus, made my way to the now much talked about planet of Naboo.
5 hours to make it to Naboo, back to the hostel to grab my backpack, and make my bus? How far far away can this galaxy be?
Ok, I'll stop with the nerdy cryptic thing...
Yesterday I went to the Plaza de Espana. Google it. I'll wait...
A) it's friggin cool. Built for the 1929 Ibero-American exhibition, it is a semi-circular building with tiled alcoves depicting each of the provinces in Spain...and it has a moat that you can row-boat around.
B) does it look familiar to you? If not, look again...Anakin and Padme's entrance to Naboo in Episode 2 was filmed there, also, parts of Lawrence of Arabia...but seriously...Naboo...awesome.
I stayed there for an unbelievably long time, wandering the weapons exhibit, listening to a man play Spanish guitar in an alcove with amazing acoustics, and going from pushy vendor to pushy vendor telling them that if they could teach me to play the castanets, that then I'd buy a pair...I am still without castanets, but it was fun seeing how frustrated they were with me and each vendor just trying to out teach the others so I would buy from them.
Apparently I'm unteachable.
Anyway, then it was bus time. I picked up my handy dandy backpack and made my way to the bus station where began my 7-hour ride to Lisbon.
Buses and I have a love/hate relationship. I love taking the scenic route, the rolling landscapes, farm land, industrial wasteland, sprawling highway graffiti, slums, and suburbs that are otherwise hidden from the location-specific traveler. I hate the inability to roll down windows, the snorers, the phone-talkers, and the ever present stench of the on board toilet, even if the door is never opened.
But you take what you can get and you appreciate the experience for what it is: a 30€ adventure.
The highway to Lisbon is lined with sunflower fields, olive trees, horses, cows, and sheep. Bulls rest in the shade of low hanging trees, and I struggle not to name them Ferdinand and warn them about bees. A Portuguese woman tries to teach her Spanish friends useful phrases and they reply by singing Ai Se Eu Te Pego. The bus driver compulsively checks the Eurocup scores, and the bus almost tips when we pass a city on fire, swarmed with bucket-toting helicopters, emitting thick orange-brown smoke. The sun sets as we pull into Lisbon, and I begin my trip to the hostel mapless and in the dark.
The hostel directions are simple: take the green or blue subway line to the station where the intersect, exit, turn right, dead end, turn left and then...forget the rest of the directions, realize that you left the paper you wrote it on next to the hostel computer in Sevilla, that your wifi-enabled device is dead, and that no one, no matter how well known it is among travelers, can ever point you in the direction of a hostel. Ask the nearest hotel if you can use their lobby computer, get told it's .5€ for 15 minutes, agree out of desperation, get your information in 1 minute, flat, and profusely thank the woman at the desk, who hands you back your .5€ and says with a wink, "only 1 minute? We say internet was down."
<3 people.
I walked into the hostel just in time for "Shots O'clock" a Yes! hostel tradition of free shots at 11:30. I then sat down with the only two people who didn't speak English...at all..and spent an hour chatting in broken Spanglish and hand gestures, also in last night's cast of characters: a drunk Canadian who worshipped Biggie Smalls, an Oregonian who went to high school with a Franklin friend, a British stag party, and a VERY forward (though ultimately unsuccessful) Slavic man.
Upon realizing it was 5 am, it was bedtime.
Today I missed the 10 am walking tour, as was to be expected, and instead, followed cool graffiti up to a church, accidentally invaded a baptism, found a supermarket, and feasted on fresh-baked bread, ham, and cheese in the shadow of a statue of an elephant.
Now, back at the hostel, I'm watching the Portugal/Holland Eurocup match...the hostel bar has stopped serving the one Holland fan... I think I like this place.