Sevilla y Granada

              The afternoon of the same day that we saw the great mosque in Córdoba we got to Sevilla and were given free time, which means instead of doing group things we go exploring on our own.  So first thing I did was go to the tourist information office and got a real map.  The hotels always give us maps but if I have learned anything in Spain at all, I have learned that hotels give out crappy maps and that I need a real one if I truly want to enjoy the cities I stay in.   So we did that and talked to the person behind the desk a little bit and then found a few things we wanted to see.  We headed to La Plaza de España.  Very beautiful plaza in a park built primarily to entertain.  In the olden days you could sit on benches that were named after famous cities in Spain and read material left on shelves there that talked about those cities.  Now it is a prime weekend spot to bring inflatables for kids, set up basketball tournaments, and go row boating on the little mote/river thing that surrounds the plaza.  Lots of bridges, columns, red brick and tiles everywhere; we ended up renting row boats for thirty-five minutes and just enjoyed talking and seeing the plaza. 

Main fountain in the center of the plaza

Benches with reading material shelves

                After we were done we walked back towards downtown looking for food.  We decided that it would be fantastic to par-core everything on the way… so we did!  (Par-core: a modern term for jump kicking a wall or tree or whatever) Always fun to be with friends!  One of my jump kicks I spun off the wall into almost a 720 degree spin! I suppose I still enjoy things that I enjoyed as a youth.  Using some directions that one of our teachers from the University of Alcalá had given us, we looked for some restaurants, but they only served fish and the whole group wasn’t willing to only eat fish.  So we found a bar that looked pretty promising and it was!  We had a great server that folded up paper for the girls and made them stuff and had good conversation with us.  Plus the food was good and there was a lot of it.  Therefore I was full and content while entertained by the company of my friends and the art of our server.  After food we found good ice cream and I shared a gofre with my friend Julia.  A gofre is a sweet waffle with ice cream and topping on top and the combination really is absolutely fantastic! We all must have had a lot of energy because for no apparent reason I decided that I needed to walk down the street backwards to the ice cream shop.  I probably went a good five hundred feet! But I wouldn’t have made it without the help of my friends telling where to go!  I think I may be a little crazy!

At the bar

Paper boats made by our server (Claire Hague)

Julia, the gofre, Me

                The next day the entire group did tour of the city on the bus with our tour guide.  He talked a lot about the world fair that was held in Sevilla years ago, and showed us the Olympic stadium that they built there before they were awarded having the Olympics there and the stadium was never used. How embarrassing! And what a waste!  We also stopped at the Basilica of the Macarena Virgin. Being a shrine to the virgin, it was decorated extremely exquisitely, and was really weird to me.  Just look at the pictures.

                After that the guide took us back to the Plaza de España, and gave us a lot more details on it, that I shared with you earlier.  When we were walking out there were three Native American men, or in this case really Indian is the correct word, were playing the reed pipes and it was really cool!  Then we were on our way to the Alcázar.  Originally it was Moorish fort, and became a palace and is still in use for the royal family today. In the entrance there were some very peculiar trees they called “drunken,” because the trees soak up extra water when it is prevalent and store it in their trunks for when the water is more scarce.  It looks just like a beer belly, and it kind a funny to see on a tree. 

Drunken Trees

                The palace was very Muslim with a lot of geometric shames and architecture, tiles and the very characteristic “horse shoe” archways (also called key hole archways).  Beautiful gardens were on the palace grounds.  Then we went to the Catedral de Sevilla.  It is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, and the largest cathedral in Spain.  Like others we had visited its columns are so impressive!  Something that we learned there is that all cathedrals (at least gothic) have hollow columns, and that these columns are what hold up the cathedral, not the exterior walls.  Also, the vaulted ceilings are split into four section that each come together in the center where one rock called la clave (key stone) is placed to hold them together!  Our guide said that if they were to take the walls away from the cathedral that it would still be standing.  It is also the reason that they chose to incorporate so much stained glass in the walls.  Normally this would weaken the walls significantly, but in this case it didn’t really matter. 

Catedral de Seviilla

Incredible vaulted ceilings

                There is a bell tower at the cathedral that we got to go up and get a fantastic view of the city!  But it was high up! And all ramps not stairs!  So we went in circles up this tower for fifteen minutes before we reached the top!   I got some fruit from una frutería for lunch and then we were on the bus again headed to Granada!

                Our director let us loose again in Granada it was a city where exploring is really easy.  We went to a lot of shops and saw a public puppet show for kids, as well as a public senior’s dance (older folks).  Really cool.  A lot of people, especially the women and girls, were dressed up in the traditional flamenco clothing.  The little girls were very cute.  Below is an example.  Granada is really close to the Mediterranean and it isn’t far at all to get to Morocco in North Africa.  Thus, most of the stores had Moroccan clothing and souvenirs.  The girls bought some cool tortilla plates off of street vendors and of course we had to get ice cream as well.  We found dinner at a smaller Italian bar and the food ended up being pretty good.

Spanish dresses

                That night we walked up to the highest point in the city to the mirador (look out or view spot).  Granada is famous for La Alhambra, the ancient palace of Carlos V.  Well this mirador has a perfect and unobstructed view of La Alhambra all lit up at night.  It was actually very cool, though it was a little crazy to get all the way up there.  The streets are narrow and twist and turn regularly and for a lot of the time we thought we were lost.  But we did get there despite all of the drunk people on the way.  On the way home Michael had one of his extremely strange, funny moments.  I can’t really describe what I witnessed.  If you ask me in person I can, but you might not like what I describe to you.  Those present would all agree I think, especially Katie Willis.   

                The next day, we went straight to the Alhambra. Our guides wore microphones and we each were given a remote ear piece so that we could listen.  Kind of cool to have the earpiece, but also a little annoying.  First because the earpiece didn’t want to stay in sometimes, and second because sometimes our guide would point to something and say look at this and you had no idea what she was talking about cause you couldn’t hear the distance of her voice and find where she was pointing very quickly.  I ended up starting to translate for Profe Hague’s wife who was our “adult supervisor” if you will.  We were too big of a group so we had to have two different guides with an adult teacher in each group.  It was actually very difficult to translate everything.  Going from English to Spanish is super easy, the other way is MUCH harder, especially when it is all about a history that I know practically nothing about.  We got through it though and she was grateful that I did that because she cannot understand any Spanish.

The ear pieces

                All of the Alhambra is of Muslim design, huge and was pretty impressive.  But I will admit that I lost interest just because I have seen so many palaces and such.  It was definitely unique though.  Lots of flowers and very cool masaics and tile works.  Something that the Alhambra is famous for is the fountain held up by twelve hand carved lions that represent the twelve tribes of Israel.  Water comes out of their mouths.  All the running water in the Alhambra including spraying fountains is all done by natural gravity.  They did nothing to pressurize the water other than send it to where it needed to go.  I thought that that was pretty amazing.  We finished our tour and got on the bus for home, a six hour ride!  We stopped for lunch though and had a little sacrament meeting minus the sacrament. 

                When I got home I wanted to see mass in a cathedral so I went to the one in Alcalá, and forgot that it was still the weekend of Corpus Cristi and I was able to watch the procession starting in the cathedral!  Very different than the other and the organ played and the whole congregation sang too!  There was a marching band playing music also at certain parts.   At one point a man in priest’s clothes came near and was shaking people’s hands.  After he left I asked a man who he was and he looked at me a little strangely, realized I was American and replied “Es el Señor Obispo” in a respectful tone.  That translates to “He is the Bishop.”  I was a little bit shocked, here was a religious leader of another faith, very close to me and I didn’t even know it.  I was glad that I got to go to that Corpus Cristi.  It was very different and more, actually, how I thought that the other would have been like. 

                The next day I met Julia McArthur and Katie Fancher to go to the zoo.  It was cool, they had a lot of animals, but I felt like we paid way too much.  The seal show and the dolphin show was pretty cool though.  Tuesday evening as a group we went to a concert in Madrid for an artist named Andrew Bird.  His style is not necessarily my type, but he is definitely a very talented musician.  His music was a mix of easy listening stuff to more like rock.  He used a violin a lot and did a lot of mixing in his songs with a mixing pedal.  On a mixing pedal you can play something and record it and then play it back while you play something different.  He used the pedal a lot. 

Katie Fancher, Me

That bear was only like 15 feet away and kept pacing back and forth!

                We had some really fantastic crepes in Madrid.  I put Nutella and bananas on mine, and it was superb!  Wednesday of my last week I went to the naval museum in Madrid, that had many many weapons on display, and models of the different kinds of ships that have been used in Spain from sail boats to modern styles.  Pretty interesting.  We had a group dinner at a nice sit down restaurant.  Paella was the main dish, which is one of the most common and unique dishes in Spain.  Michael and I had our last Spanish ice cream in Madrid the day before we left. It was really good gelato, and I mixed raspberry and banana.  The banana was amazing!    

Before the concert

Andrew Bird on the violin

                We had very easy finals.  One took me forty five minutes because I had to write three essays, and the other one, for y history class was like a copy of the review sheet with fewer questions, and I finished that in like twenty minutes.  We had kind of a goofy graduation ceremony that I thought was pointless.  We each got a certificate, and took pictures afterwards.  Our last day, our host mom Teresa made all of our favorite foods!  She made patatas a la riojana and pimientas rellenas!  Then she gave me a very nice recipe book with lots of Spanish recipes and more particularly from the vasque region of the Spain, where she is from!  She wrote me a note inside and it was very cool!

                The next day we bussed to the airport and flew all day!  Randomly I met my best friend Jeremy Butz’ mother in the Charolette airport!  Crazy! The world is clearly too small!  Her gate was right next to mine.  But that was my Spain experience!

Córdoba

                We had another awesome week of activities in our program!  A group of us on Saturday went to Xanadu a huge mall with an indoor ski hill!  The hill wasn´t very impressive, but it was cool that it was indoor.  The mall was so huge!  Therefore I got bored after about an hour.  Oh well.  It was cool, but too many clothes stores.   That really dominated my day.  That night a small group of us traveled just two stops down the train to a town called Torrejon.  They have a park called Parque Europa, and it has small replicas of major land marks in Europe such as the Eifel Tower, a few famous castles, and other similar things.  Well during the summer they put on a twenty minute water light show.  We went and saw that and it was really cool!  They shot the water up in many different forms and then light up the water with light from behind and some parts were like movie clips and other parts just fancy lights.  It was all done with music too!  It was really cool!

          I want to insert another couple interesting facts about Alcalá de Henares.  Before I showed you the dumpsters they use in the city, but I didn't tell you that some of the those dumpsters are put underground, and so a dump truck with a crane on it comes and lifts the dumpsters out and dumps it into the truck.  kind of inefficient system, but cool nonetheless. 

Dump truck crane

A modern rendition of Quijote and Sancho Pansa

                Sunday evening there was a charity fútbol game at the Real Madrid stadium.   I got to go and see a game in the stadium watching many retired Real Madrid players play!  It was very cool!  Them being older now, and it being a charity event, the game wasn’t very intense but still cool to be there.  Monday I took a group of people to go see some abandoned tunnels and ruins left from the crusades.  Not really the crusades but close enough; it was the Muslims fighting the Christians outside of Madrid.  Kind of cool pieces of history, right in my back yard in Alcalá de Henares!  To get there we had to take our shoes off and cross the river and it is a fun hike out there.   The ruins are falling apart but both the tunnels and ruins were used to station soldiers preparing for attacks on the city.  

Inside the ruins

                Tuesday, our entire group did a tour of the Real Madrid stadium and learned a lot about how trophies are awarded and got to see the inside of the locker rooms, press rooms, and got to sit in the dug out area!  Pretty cool stadium.  Built to hold about eighty-five thousand people.

Different types of trophies, the shoe is the greatest player in spain, the ball is greatest player in Europe, and the square one is greatest player in the world

                Thursday morning we headed out early on our way to Córdoba.  On the way there we stopped in a small town called Camuñas.  They celebrate the Corpus Cristi on Thursday every year and so we got to stop and see the celebration.  Very strange and actually we all got a little board of it after the first half an hour.  It is a procession that starts from the chapel, and the performers all wear masks and there is dancing and music in the form of a skit or play.  It consists of the seven vices or sins, and seven virtues. All of the vices wear strange evilish masks, and the virtues all are dressed in a very recognizable ways that reflect gifts or righteous acts.   At one point in the procession, each of the vices run at the the front where the bishop is standing and where the Crustodia is, while screaming.  Pretty strange but has a lot of symbolism I believe.  The purpose is to remember the resurrection of Christ and all of the pass over.  

                 The city was all decorated for the celebrations. The sidewalks were painted, rugs were hung on everything, the children participated in the procession, and they all had tambourines.  Interesting view into the culture.  When we were leaving, some cars had parked in front of our bus and made it impossible to leave going forward, so the bus driver backed up several hundred feet through the narrow streets with cars parked on the sides!  I swear the bus drivers are crazy here!

The red mask is a common theme for the dancers

Banners

                After that we stopped at a town called consuegra to have lunch and then we got to see the famous molinos de Quijote, or the Quijote windmills.  They are the windmills that were written about in the adventures of Don Quijote when he attacked them cause he thought that they were giants.  We read that chapter out of the book don quijote underneath one of the windmills.  There was a lot of wind! No wonder they put so many windmills up there!

Me, Neil (profe's son)

                We got to Córdoba that afternoon.  It is a beautiful and ancient city.  The streets are very narrow, with flowers hanging from the buildings on either side of the street.  We got to see an ancient roman temple.  All that is left are the columns and other stone ruins that have fallen down.  It was very cool, and they are trying to restore it piece by piece.  The ruins are from the first century! Holy cow they are old!  We had a buffet dinner that night which was pretty good, lots of Italian food which was a nice change.  After dinner, a group of us went and explored some more and saw one of the main plazas of Córdoba all lit up at night with a beautiful fountain in the center.   At the hotel before bed we all played a few games of monopoly deal.  And that was very fun and relaxing.

                The next day we saw the jewish synagogue  built in 1350 A.D. and saw a statue of Ben Maimonides.  Known as a figure of wisdom, theology, philosophy and medicine.  They say that if you rub the shoe of the statue that his wisdom will rub off onto you, so of course we rubbed the shoe!  We also saw el Mesquita, or the Great Mosque that Córdoba is famous for.  The site was first used for a Christian chapel, but when the muslims took over they built there huge mosque where the chapel was.  Then when the Christians conquered again, they decided to remodel part of the mosque into a cathedral. This is an amazing piece of history because most of the time when the Christians reconquered they destroyed anything muslim!  It is the only mosque-cathedral in existence today! 

Each of these archways is a double arch, you see it better below

Amazing architecture

The whole mosque is a huge open room with columns and double arches supporting the roof.  Some of the muslim sacred prayer rooms are still in side on the outskirts of the building, and in the center of the mosque is were the cathedral has been built.  They had to take out many columns and arches and then build up with a vaulted ceiling all in the typical shape of the cross that the catherals are built.  A most impressive construction marvel!  Every columns in the mosque is unique with the capitols (top of the columns) each having different designs.  It was very very impressive.

Sacred prayer room for Muslim faith

The Vaulted ceiling of the cathedral in the mosque

To get into the city you have to cross a beautiful roman bridge, with huge towers on either shore and archways all along it to cross the river.  We left Córdoba en rumba a Sevilla, (in route to Sevilla) and stopped at one more place on the way called Madinat Al-Zahra.  It is a small city-state/palace were the caliph (Islamic viceroy sort of) lived.  Ruins are all that are left today.  The city was built in 900 A.D. and only lasted for 80 years. 

The roman bridge with the mosque in the background

Ruins of ancient Madinat Al-Zahra

We went ot Sevilla next and I am going to put that and Granada in another post!