Exit Interview: Casey and Kristen

The editorial staff of See Jenn Blog has developed a questionnaire for guests, fielded the night before they leave, to get their impressions of the city. We were very conflicted about the arrival of Casey and Kristen, our final guests. It’s not that we weren’t thrilled to host them; it’s just that we knew the end of their trip marked the beginning of the end for our time in Seville. Now that they’re gone—and with less than one month left to go for the two of us—we couldn’t think of a better note to go out on.

Jenn: What was your favorite thing about Seville?
Casey: Mine was Basilica de Macarena.
Jay: Diamond tears?
Casey: Yeah.
Kristen: I’m going to say that was one of my favorites too and also the food.
Casey: The food is dynamite.
Jenn: The dates wrapped in bacon—is that the favorite?
Kristen: The goat cheese, that’s the favorite. Casey’s favorite is probably the dates wrapped in bacon.
Casey: Or the croquettas.
Jay: I guess boquerones [fried anchovies] don’t go on there because that was in Ronda.
Casey: Yup. David Faustino’s specialty. [The restaurant—a Rick Steves recommendation—was called Faustino’s, but we took to calling it after the actor who played Bud Bundy on Married With Children—Ed.]

Jay: What was your least favorite thing about Seville?
Casey: The driving. It was awful. Scooters are also bad. I didn’t like the scooters.
Kristen: The bathrooms with no soap or paper towels.
Jenn: Thank God for lavender-scented hand sanitizer!
Kristen: I also didn’t like how the light switches were all outside of the bathrooms, so I’d get in there and fumble around.
Jay: Jenn had a little incident with one where the light was timed and went out before she was finished.
Jenn: Thanks for bringing that up.
Casey: And you can’t take that out because it’s in the transcript.
Jay: Sorry Jenn. Can’t undo it now.

Jay: Was there anything you wanted to experience but didn’t?
Casey: Isla Magica or the Cruzcampo tour [Isla Magica is a Great Adventure-like theme park we don’t think Casey really wanted to go and Cruzcampo is the Spanish Budweiser with a brewery in Seville, which we think Casey really wanted to go to—Ed.]. We don’t even know if they give them, but in my mind, they do. We’ve been drinking your beer for two weeks now, pal, lets take a look inside.
Jay: Yeah, we already paid for our tour.
Casey: But seriously, we saw all of Seville. We covered all the major tourist attractions.
Kristen: Yeah, we saw everything.

Jay: What was the best part of your trip?
Kristen: The monkeys in Gibraltar.
Casey: Gibraltar.
Kristen: I liked the views through Gibraltar too.
Casey: I did like late-night swimming in the Mediterranean, too. That was pretty cool.
Jenn: You guys have been friends for a really long time, so where would this trip rank in terms of memorable moments?
Casey: It’s probably one of the top ones. It was an amazing road trip and the only other event that I could compare it to is the first time all of our friends went to Michigan. It was an eye-opening experience for all of us because it was our first time, and for us on this trip, it was all new, too. It’s definitely the top road trip I’ve ever been on. Multiple stops, multiple cities, three countries, four days—I don’t think you can top that.
Kristen: You can’t.
Jay: We encountered apes, camels, cobras—
Casey: Morrocans.

Jay: Now this is always the tough one. Who would you rather be stranded in a foreign country with for three months: Jay or Jenn? And I’m sorry, but Rick Steves isn’t an option.
Casey: I have to take Jenn, she spoke the language.
Jay: And she can drive stick!
Kristen: That’s true.
Casey: If not for you, Jay and I would be starving and not be able to go anywhere.
Jenn: [to Jay] Your Spanish has gotten a lot better.
Jay: Hmm. Well, that’s because I didn’t speak any when I got here and now I can order a meal.
Casey: That’s all Kristen and I really learned how to do: order food and wine.
Kristen: And counting.
Jenn: All right, this is probably the more accurate question: Could you see yourself traveling with us for an extended period of time again?
Kristen: Yes, absolutely.
Casey: I’d say definitely. We got along really well, no conflicts and everyone was interested in accommodating other people. I thought it was great.
Jay: And I’m glad that you guys were so flexible, because there was that moment in Marbella when we were trying to figure out a hotel room in Tarifa and I’m just so glad we did it, because it allowed us to see another city, go to Gibraltar and actually go to Tangier, because we probably wouldn’t have made that 9 a.m. ferry if we had stayed two hours away in Marbella. That made the trip and it added a little level of, um—
Jenn: Spontaneity.
Jay: Yes, spontaneity. Thanks, Jenn.
Casey: Would you guys travel with us again?
Jay: Definitely!
Jenn: Absolutely.
Kristen: Definitely Casey, maybe me.
Jenn: Are you kidding? At least if you’re around I can be like, “you two just go, she and I will go to bed.”
Casey: Jay and I like the cocktails.
Jay: Yes. Yes we do.

Jay: This is the final question. Can you see yourself living in Seville? Why or why not?
Kristen: It’s beautiful and I really like it, but I don’t think I could do it.
Jenn: Why not?
Kristen: If I spoke Spanish it would be different.
Casey: I would say no for me as well. Beautiful, great food, very nice people, but too laid back for me. I like to get things done and then do my relaxing and here it seems like they relax and get things done whenever they want.
Jenn: Which was exactly my entire reason for coming here. To reverse my OCD.
Casey: Maybe if you stay here for a while you get used to it. It’s not that I don’t like the city—I don’t want to give you that impression, it’s just like, I think, living in the Southern United States. It’s very laid back and you get things done when you want and that’s just not what I’m used to.
Jay: You’re too rigid, Cas.
Casey: I’m just not comfortable with it.
Jenn: Plus, you probably don’t like the way the dollar is measuring up against the euro right now. [Casey is admittedly on the frugal side—Ed.]
Casey: It hurts a little, but that wasn’t a major contributor in what we did or didn’t do.
Kristen: I’m just too much of a control freak. I have to know where everything is and how to say everything I want to say.
Jay: It’s not without its frustrations.
Kristen: I had a hard time with the lines—that no one was getting in any.
Casey: Can you guys see yourselves living here indefinitely?
Jenn: I don’t think I’d move here indefinitely. Three months is a good amount of time.
Jay: No, because I don’t think I want to endure a summer here, because I hear they’re just awful. I don’t know, but we’ll see when we do our own Exit Interview if we want more or less by the time we leave.
Casey: But I don’t think there’s anything cooler you could do. We saw mountains, we saw ocean—
Jenn: We saw two oceans!
Kristen: Amazing views.
Jay: That ride down from Ronda to Marbella—that was amazing. Every turn was something different and then eventually there was the ocean. It really is beautiful.
Kristen: It’s amazing when you think about how much we did and it already seems like so long ago, like Morocco.
Casey: I’m glad we didn’t get Hassan’s Revenge. [The Moroccan version of Montezuma, duh—Ed.]
Jenn: It’s the one thing Rick Steves was wrong about.
Casey: Thankfully, yes.
Kristen: Well, he probably gave us a little scare that we needed.
Jenn: [to Jay] Yes, because otherwise I can totally see you going for street meat.
Jay: Yeah, totally.
Jenn: If he hadn’t inflicted the fear in you… Ohmigod.
Casey: This is boiled cobra, would you like to try it?
Jay: Yes!