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!