Civil Sevilla

I spent the Saturday and Sunday in Sevilla.  It wasn't off to a great start when I woke up at 5:30 for our bus at 7:00.  This was the first time I went to the bus station and it was easy, so I'm not worried for future ventures.  But, I slept on the bus and we got to Sevilla by 11:00 AM.  We went straight to the hostel that we booked called The Architect.  Now, I haven't had great experiences with hostels in the past, so I didn't have high hopes for this place.  As it turns out, it's really really nice.  The beds were comfy and weren't built by hand with pieces of wood stabilizing them.  The bathrooms were clean.  And breakfast was included.  So Nick, my friend from API, and I dropped off our stuff and immediately went out to see the city.

Sevilla is a beautiful city with an old-timey feel.  It has a very specific pallet that consists of mainly of pastel colors.  Important buildings had a white, black, and golden yellow scheme.  The first thing we saw when we left the hostel however, was the Catedral, the 2nd largest cathedral in the world and the largest Gothic cathedral in the world.  We walked through the free parts and snapped a couple of photos.  Then we moved to a fountain that featured a woman standing on a platform that was carried by children.  The children were crying, too.  I don't know what this was supposed to represent, but it creeped me out.  From the fountain we went to the Fabrica de Tobacco, which used to be a Tobacco Factory but was converted into a university where they teach people things that probably include not smoking.  They had this interesting art exhibit that didn't really grab my attention, but at the end, they had really old books and other artifacts.  At least that was interesting.

From there we found the Parque de Maria Luisa where the famous Plaza de España.  This is where La Junta, or the government of Andalucia is based and did they pick the right place.  It is a building with two towers on each end that connect a crescent shaped building.  In the center of the this moon building was a giant fountain that gave off mist, an ingenious design that takes into account the scorching days in Sevilla.  It was 75 degrees (25 degrees Celsius), so the mist was very welcoming.  From there, we crossed the courtyard to the building.  At the base there were tiles of each providence.  We looked at them all and I got a better understanding of where each is located.  We even stopped at the Granada one where a tile depicted the surrender of the moros to the Reyes Catolicos, Catholic Kings.  The detail that was put into each province was incredible.  Even the railings were decorated with painted ceramic.  This was my favorite place that we visited.

From there, we went to find some of the typical tourist attractions, but none of which were anything too interesting.  We did try to cross the river Guadilquivir, which happens to be the same river that Cristo Colon sailed from on his search for India.  So, we crossed the river looking for some more attractions, but we could tell from our first steps that this side of the river was much different.  On our search for this monastery we were attacked by gitano dogs and saw the scariest trees that I have ever seen.  Instead of leaves, they had spikes and they did not look inviting in the slightest.  After walking for an hour or so, we took the first bridge back and searched for this place with statues of Hercules, but that too was less exciting.  The two statues were small statues atop a tall, thin pedestal and they weren't even in a park, they were in the middle of this plaza full of people.  From here, we walked back to our hostel and found a nice little plaza right in front of the town hall.  There were lots of street performers including a mime who danced with a puppet woman.  He drew the largest crowd, but there was also a quartet singing and a man made up like an orc.

After returning to the hostel, we picked up our chaquetas, jackets, and headed out in search of food.  We landed on this place called Osiris Pizza and I got an exquisite BBQ, bacon, and meat sauce pizza that couldn't have been a traditional Spanish dish even if I tried.  Nevertheless, I ate it with pride and it really filled my empty stomach.  After this, we went back to the hostel to sleep, an activity we hadn't done since 5 AM.

DAY 2: Since we did so much walking the previous day, we decided to check out some museums.  We first went to el Museo de Bellas Artes, or the Fine Arts Museum.  They had very, very old pieces of work from the 12th century that all had one thing in common: Christianity.  Though I know the impact that this religion has had on the world, it is surely evidenced by the art.  Every painting or sculpture had Jesus or a Saint represented.  This was very interesting and though the art wasn't the best I've seen, it was still astounding to see how people thought back in the old days.  While in the eleventh sala, I got a phone call from an old friend: Rachel Sadok.

I knew that Rachel was going to be in Sevilla around the same time, but this was the first time we talked over the phone.  We planned to meet up at the Cathedral and it was really cool to see her because I hadn't seen her for over a year, when we both went to UMass.  We sat at a bar that had a jarra, or mug, of beer and a small sandwich for only 2€, but then she had to catch a flight, so she left and Nick and I decided to go inside the Cathedral.

This was amazing.  Here, Christobal Colon is buried and is also the home of the Giralda, a giant bell tower that over looks the entire city.  We climbed up the 17 story building and got a look at the river and the Plaza de España and we could see the intense amount of white buildings.  White buildings were actually something that the Arabs brought to the peninsula.  They believed in the inner soul and therefore they didn't have flashy, decorative exteriors of their houses.

After the cathedral, we headed to two free, smaller churches.  Both were very humbling, but also very stunning.  They had stained glass windows and a decorative piece behind the altar.  This was a real testament to Spain's wealth if even their smaller churches had elaborate decorations.

Then, we stumbled upon this weird looking geometric structure.  I was confused at first because it looked like a 3-D squiggle, but then I remembered the pictures that my friends who are studying abroad in Sevilla.  This area is called Plaza Mayor and is actually on top of another plaza that holds ruins from Roman time.  Yes, from the 2nd and 3rd century.  You could climb up to the top and look out to the city.  It cost euro and we were done spending money, so we just kept walking.

After all of this, we finally caught our bus home.  Again, like in Cadiz, I found myself missing Granada.  It is more familiar, it doesn't have a scary part of town, and I will never get sick of seeing the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the distance.  After the 4 hour bus ride back, at 3 AM, we went home and went to bed.

The next day, I took a relaxing break and caught up on sleep.  But today, me and a couple of friends decided to go to the beach.  We took the 11:00 bus to Salobreña, a beach town that is only an hour away from Granada.  It seemed like the perfect beach day: sun, 60+ degrees, but when we got to Salobreña, it was cloudy, windy, and chilly.  We waited it out for an hour and then our luck began to change.  The sun was peaking it's head through shade of the clouds, but the wind was still pretty strong.  We tried to go into the Mediterranean Sea, but it was even windier that close to the shore and I actually didn't have a towel.  We did, however, climb little rock thing that was about 50 feet above sea level.  They said you could jump off of it, but that seems like an activity for when it's warmer and there are some locals doing it so you know what to do.

As you can see, this 5 day weekend was very eventful.  As for other cities in Andalucia, I would like to visit Cordoba because of the Islamic influence and because my host mom is from Cordoba.  Once it gets warmer, I will definitely venture back towards the beach, though there are better ones like Nerja and Almuñécar that are a little further away.  And the Science Museum will definitely get another visit because there is no way that I saw everything.  It seems like I'll have a lot of things to do in the coming months, but first, after two days of classes and one day off, I'm going to Roma with my program.  From Saturday to Tuesday we will be seeing the beauty and splendor that everyone goes on and on about.  After Rome will probably be the next time that I blog, so until then, ¡hasta luego!