4 summers ago, I was a starry-eyed girl just starting to soak up the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of this wonderful city. I had just barely started to learn Spanish, navigate myself through the maze of old moorish maze of streets, or get accustomed to the Sevillian lifestyle.
My dear friend Carlos had warned me, it gets hot. Really, really hot. And everyone leaves and the city is left with the ancient ghosts of Romans and Phoenicians (ok those are actually my descriptions). I of course thought he was exaggerating, and did not heed his words. I am of course from the tropics and I could take it, and this city didn’t seem like a desert at all.
So I had decided to stay in the city for the summer of 2008. I was then working in a fine dining restaurant called Tribeca, and I didn’t want to leave the job I had just found to fund my European adventure.
Sure enough, it got hot. It averaged between 43°C – 47°C degrees (109°F – 116°F), with a couple of days hitting the 50s (122°F+). And everyone did leave. I was left not only with the ghosts of the city’s previous invader’s and occupants, but with a hodgepodge of people’s pets (well someone had to take care of them while the smarter ones fled the infierno in pursuit of cooler pastures).
It sizzled, it scorched. I learned. I learned which times of days to do your shopping. The time of day to nap. In the silence and lack of company, I studied my grammar and my vocabulary. Under the cover of the cool night, I learned the map of the city streets while walking a friend’s dog. And this way, the city became mine.
We’d somehow always end up by the river – me and Casper, the dog. The light breeze at night somehow always leads one there. And I took comfort in it. I treasure that first summer I had. Because it gave me the time, and the solitude, to really look around me and absorb just how beautiful this city that I had just then started to call home is.
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Photos taken with my then new
Olympus Tough 1030 SW
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Elle Cid Adventures 
