Sevilla -> Pennsylvania

A year in 4 suitcases:

A last look back at our building and home for the past year:

A low-quality photo from the plane as we left Sevilla for Lisbon and eventually Newark:

Though the flying was long, it went smoothly. It was on the ground in Newark where things really snarled. Passport control was about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Then, another half hour for the rental car. We were already tired, so all the waiting was a bit fraying.

We drove for about 90 mins away from Newark and towards Betty's on Interstate 80W and stopped in a little motel in Stroudsburg for the night. After a quick dinner at a local Thai place, we hit the sack.

El ultimo dia

Today was our last full day in Sevilla. We leave for the airport at 8:30am tomorrow morning. The day was filled with a lot of finalities.

 Here's the last load of laundry:

The last dinner crowd at Diego's. Notice the group in the middle enjoying some heaping plates of snails (caracoles):

The seasonal display by the river was updated for summer. A pretty flamingo:

One last visit to the (best) bridge:

We've cleaned and packed as much as we can. There will be a few odds and ends tomorrow morning, but it seems all under control.

Closing out

We got most of our Wednesday todo list done. We feel pretty good about getting Thursday's list done. I donated some clothing that I decided wasn't worth bringing home as I packed my suitcase:

We seem to be in good shape in regards to having enough space in our suitcases.

***

On the way home from the gym, I noticed that this building that has been abandoned the whole year is getting demolished for a new apartment block. A reminder that Sevilla will continue to grow and change after we leave:

I walked a few different streets:

The past few weeks have been "caracoles season" here in Sevilla. These little snails that live naturally here in Andalucia are a very popular food. The usual preparation is about as spicy a food as Spaniards will tolerate (so I'm told, I'm not partaking, haha, ever):

Instead, Laura and I hit the local doner kebab for dinner:

I'm very full now.

Nearby scenes

I worked on my STEM outcomes machine learning project most of the day. Played around with decision trees. I've been trying to use methods that not only predict outcomes based on academic and demographic information, but that also admit to some kind of interpretation. You can't really look at a neural network and understand why it's doing what it's doing. A decision tree can give some interpretable information.

***

Other than that, a pretty normal day. I took a few more familiar photos. The living room with the high afternoon sun shining in:

San Jacinto in the evening during a "trash run":

The Capilla Virgen del Carmen at the Triana end of the bridge:

The usual boat traffic along the river:

***

This evening I put together a todo list of the things that need to get done between now and Fri morning when we head to the airport.

Dinner date

We've been checking a few items off of our todo list this final week. Today we walked over to the Torre del Oro and climbed to the top (it has free admission on Mondays). I'm glad we finally did it, even though it wasn't a high priority item. There is a nice little museum inside about the history of the tower that's worth seeing. Also the view from the top is nice:

Here's a look back at our neighborhood:

The portadas leftover from the Corpus Christi processions of last week are slowly being taken down:

***

This evening we had dinner at Mario and Palma's house. Lots of interesting traditional Andalucian food. Also, Mario kept bringing me beers everytime I emptied the previous. So I had a few more beers than usual, haha. A nice evening with them and a fitting close to our year.