Sevilla

Well, rain is not the most conducive to exploring a city for the first time, however I did love Sevilla. We got there Friday morning and our tour guide started us off with a walk through the historical Jewish area of town in Barrio de Santa Cruz. We saw some pretty plazas and the Bar from Cervantes’s Don Quixote. The walking tour ended at the Alcazar, the King’s old residence. We went inside and saw it’s beautiful gardens with peacocks in it as well as a cool labyrinth.

Then we headed over to the Cathedral and the Girandula. The cathedral was commissioned by Los Reyes Christianos (Isabel and Ferdinand, the ones that finally expelled the Muslims from Spain) in the early 16^th century. They basically had the mosque torn down and built the cathedral on top of it. They kept one part of the old Moorish building, the Girandula, the tower. The cathedral was slightly less cool than the one in Granada, except for a couple things. The first thing was their altarpiece of gold, because it was made with about 2 thousand kilos of gold. That is such an insane and over the top amount of gold that it was impressive. The next different and cool thing was the tomb of Christopher Columbus. There are many different locations that claim to have the real remains of Christopher Columbus, but the main contenders are in the Caribbean and Sevilla. Chris (my friend from high school studying in Sevilla) and I were talking about this and he said that of course, typical Spaniards, they had to prove they were right, because they believed it with the same strength as every Spaniard steadfastly believes they are always correct, so Spain invested millions of dollars tracking genealogical trees and doing DNA tests to prove that they had the correct remains. They concluded that, based on genetic evidence, it was either Christopher Columbus or his brother Diego, and this was enough for them. The third thing is the Girandula. It was built by the Muslims and actually has 34 steep ramps instead of stairs. It is quite a trek, but the view from the top is worth it. You get 360° views of the city. In spite of the rain, it was still an amazing view. We could see across the river, the plaza de los toros, the alcazar’s gardens, and a cool bird’s eye view of the cathedral as well. I took some pictures and hopefully I can post them soon so that you can see them.

Our next stop was lunch, and the original plan was to eat outside in a park, but due to the downpours of rain, we had to improvise. A group of us ate in a Starbucks, an American commodity that they were thrilled to see once again. Then the bus took us on a sightseeing tour through the city. We saw all the pavilions that the different American nations build for the Expo in the 20s. There were beautiful buldings by Guatemala, Uruguay, Argentina, and of course, the US. Our final stop was Plaza de España, the building Spain built for the expo. Of course it unequivocally put all of the other pavilions to shame. It was huge and gorgeous, it was used as the Planet of Naboo in Star Wars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edhLosefD0Q&playnext=1&list=PLE17E2F496BEBB543). It’s another one of those places where the pictures don’t do it justice, you just have to go and see it.

Then we relaxed for a little before walking out and seeing a little of the city. The really cool thing about Spain is you can just aimlessly walk about the streets and there are amazing things to see. There are 16^th century churches around the corner and you might just run into the elaborately designed city hall. There are beautiful plazas everywhere and good for a nice rest with a gelato or ice cream cone.

Friday for dinner Cassia, one of the girls in the program, had the brilliant idea to make pasta in the hostel’s kitchen. We had yummy bow-tie pasta with marinara sauce. It wasn’t so much that the pasta was the best pasta I’ve ever tasted, but it was pasta that I was used to. The Spanish make pasta, but they make it differently. The spaghetti sauce my padre makes is a lot different than I’m used to and he often uses different noodles. I like the pasta he makes, but it’s not the “americanized” pasta I’m used to, its “Spanish-ized” pasta. I ate our delicious bowtie pasta until I was completely stuffed. I had not been that full in ages, and my stomach was upset that I had eaten that much.

The next morning we started our touristing again, and I had a small “check-list” of places suggested by my guidebook, but none of them were too terribly interesting. Saturday evening was the best though. Chris, Melissa (a girl in the program) and I went to get tapas for dinner. We looked at the tapas menu written in chalk outside the café and the only thing we recognized was croquettas de jamon (fried goodness with pieces of ham in them). When the waiter brought us the menu we saw that they had English translations for all of them, and suddenly we were in heaven. Everything on the list sounded so tasty, it was really hard to decide what we wanted. We decided to order four of the “tapas” sized (as opposed to the bigger “plato” sized) of the ones that sounded the best. Of course the first was croquettas de jamon. The second was to be patatas con aioli, potatos with an aioli sauce on it. Then we decided it was time to order a vegatable one, so we picked eggplant with bacon and covered in cheese. Por su puesto (of course), the only way we ate a vegetable was to cover it with bacon and fill it with cheese. The last one that we chose was chupa chups de carne. It was a type of small steak kabob that had bacon, cheese, and potatoes and was drizzled in a sweet sauce. When Melissa took a bit of her portion of the chupa chups de carne, her face lit up and she just said “Oh my gosh.” It was delicious. All of it was delicious. I bet you can guess which three were my favorite though. This was so good we had to order more, so we got another menu and chose three more. We ordered a mushroom meatball one, spinach with fried tomato and garbanzo beans, and a chicken/bacon/cheese one. The first round was my favorite, but oh my was it so good. I was completely full once again. It was a good weekend for my tummy, it was very happy. It had gotten a very large amount of delicious pasta Friday night, it was reunited with its long-time love, American fast food (yes, yes, I confess, I ate McDonalds for lunch that day), and it was filled to the brim with tapas on Saturday night. On the way back from flamenco Chris, Melissa, and I stopped to get chocolate con churros to top the night off.

Now on to the flamenco I just mentioned. Saturday night after tapas we met up with most of our group in a place called La Carbonería to watch flamenco (it is a style of song as well as dance). It was beautiful. The woman danced as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders and the man’s voice overflowed with emotion. Sevilla is known for its flamenco and I am certainly glad I got to experience it.

The next morning we went to Plaza de los Toros, the bullfighting ring of Sevilla. It was really cool to see the inside of the ring and hear the tour guide tell stories of how it was built and the origin of bullfighting. She also took us to a museum where we could see old outfits the bullfighters wore as well as the heads of bulls that “gave good shows.” The final stops were the chapel where the superstitious bullfighters would pray before entering the ring and the Puerta Principal, the main door through which the bullfighters entered the arena. It was interesting to hear about bullfighting from a Sevillan who favored it. A lot of the time conversation centers on how horrible it is that the bull dies and the unnecessary danger the horses face. Hearing it told in a positive light was a slightly different experience, and I enjoyed it.

A few toursity pit stops and a tasty pizza (although, again, not exactly as American as I was used too, the crust was much more like a tortilla than crust) later, and I was on my way to the bus station to return to Córdoba. Of course, with the luck Jake, Melissa, and I had with the Plaza de las Armas bus station on our trip to and from Lisboa, the bus we were supposed to take us home broke down and we had to stand around for an hour uncertain as to what was happening before a new bus came to take us home. Eventually I made it safely home to Córdoba, exhausted but feliz (happy).