the mother of all updates (and yes, there are pics at the end)

I would be sleeping right now because I have just had one of the most relaxing days of my life, but alas, some genius has decided to practice (thankfully for the first time since January) their skills on some instrument that is part of the horn family. If I had to guess, I would say the tuba. Not a fan of whatever it is though.

So yes, because of my neighbor’s desire to hone their music skills and because of my extreme guilt for not having updated in a long time, that I find myself sitting here typing away while listening to Radiohead in an attempt to drown out the horn playing. I’m sorry to say that so far, it’s not working.

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So yes, in the two weeks since we were there, I have yet to write anything about Seville-my favorite city of Spain. The day we visited (way back on the 11th and 12th of this month)it was an amazing, warm and sunny weekend. Perfect for a group of student tourists to descend on the city and see all the main sights.

Right after we got off the bus, we went directly to the Cathedral for a tour with a fantastic guide (where does Mark find these people!?!?) and got to tour the Giralda Tower (a Moorish tower right next to the Cathedral) as well. It used to be a minaret that the Arabs used to call the faithful to pray. I would dare to say that this tower is one of the most common symbols of the city.

Theoretically, because the access to the Giralda was a series of ramps instead of steps, it should have been no problem to get to the top.


Ha.

Ha ha ha.


The ramps were deceiving and it ended up being quite the walk (35 uphill ramps) to get to the top but the view was worth the climb. You had a bird’s eye view over all the city which was amazing.

The Cathedral was quite impressive itself. It’s the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world and it’s the 3rd largest church in Europe after St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s. Who knew?

Behind the main altar there is this amazing retablo (that’s how it’s called in Spanish. I don’t know the word for it in English...I am hoping that it’s one of those words like “fresco” that has a universal meaning and doesn’t need translation) that is completely covered in gold. It is apparently the largest retablo in the world and it was beautiful. It depicts various scenes of the life of Christ and wow-to think that someone made that...impressive.

Inside there is also a monument to Columbus. It was built in Cuba to go in the Cathedral in Havana, but after Cuba declared its independence from Spain, the Spaniards didn’t want Columbus’ remains to stay in Cuba, so they shipped the whole monument over to Seville. It is completely life size and has to weigh a ton. They say that Columbus’ remains were in the monument and recently they took them out to do DNA tests to see if it really was him, but so far they haven’t been able to confirm anything.

In the afternoon, Diana and I went to the Museo de Bellas Artes which was small but we figured it could be cool. Not too many big names there but still, a lot of great works that were worth checking out.

Of course we had to walk through the Barrio de Santa Cruz, which is the old Jewish quarter of Seville. I loved it. The white buildings and the bright colors used to accent them made it seem like we were in the heart of Europe. This is what I imagined Europe to be like before I really knew what it was like firsthand. Gorgeous.

We then trekked to this wall that was at the edge of the city and on the way saw a group of men practicing for Semana Santa. A preview of coming attractions if you will. Seville is supposed to have the best Semana Santa in Andalucia and it was neat to see how people practice for it. (If you’re wondering what they were doing, they were just walking around tracing the route that they were going to take when they carry the Jesus/Mary statue for their procession. I will admit, nothing too difficult to practice, but interesting anyway.)

As we were figuring out how we were going to get back to the restaurant for dinner, we saw that there were “Roman Monoliths” marked on the map. Thinking that they would be worth checking out, we headed that way and kept our eyes open for the right streets and of course, something that resembled monoliths.

We walked…and walked…and walked.

Down one street and up another trying to find these monoliths. We stopped and asked some locals for directions and they sort of knew how to get there (they were very friendly and eager to help though!) So we went the basic direction they told us and finally found the right streets. But where were these Roman Monoliths the map said were supposed to be on the corner?

By this time I was getting a little irritated at the cartographer because he/she didn’t mark this “landmark” on the map right at all. It was dark out and we were exactly where the map said we should be and we didn’t see anything but houses. We finally asked a family that looked like they might have knowledge of some monoliths in the area and they ended up actually knowing what we were talking about and even walked us there.

I can’t even express how disappointed I was with these “Roman Monoliths”.

There, sandwiched in-between an apartment building and some houses, were three columns half covered by ivy and other shrubbery, that looked like they had seen better days.

After walking all over the northern part of Seville to find these really great sounding Roman ruins and to end up finding out that these three columns in someone’s overgrown backyard were it, was pretty disheartening. Oh well, now you know that when you go to Seville, don’t bother looking for the Roman Monoliths because they’re nothing exciting and they’re incredibly hard to find.

Sunday we visited the Alcazar which reminded me a lot of the Alhambra. The architecture and Moorish influences-wow. I feel like a broken record when I say this, but it was beautiful.

We had a bit of time before we had to meet at the Torre de Oro (another monument of Seville), so we wandered around and walked through El Parque de María Luisa which was absolutely amazing. (I really need to get some new adjectives...)

I think that was one of the things that impressed me about Seville the most, the fact that there were so many parks and green spaces. You don’t realized how precious grass and trees are until you are in a city that doesn’t really have many parks (like Granada). María Luisa Park was huge-it reminded me kind of Central Park but with more flowers and streams/fountains. It was neat to see families out riding bikes, taking a walk, having a picnic, or playing with their kids. It’s funny that you don’t see that much in the States much. I mean you do, but here it seemed like half of Seville was in that park. There were ice cream vendors and stands that were selling little toys for kids. It was a great place and I wish that it wasn’t all the way in Seville because I would have loved to go back.

The Provincial Archeological Museum was right on the edge of the park and so we took advantage of being right there, went in and got to see all sorts of artifacts from way back when. We’re talking prehistoric times. Pretty cool.

At around 4:00 the whole group met up at the Torre de Oro which back in the 1200’s was part of the “security system” for the Alcazar. Since it was right on the water, it was used to alert the city of intruders and its name came from the fact that it stored the gold that came from the Americas.

We boarded a boat and took a boat ride on the Guadalquivir. (How cool is it to be able to say something like that?) Since it was such a nice day, you could see for miles and it was a great way to see the parts of the city that were a little farther out that we could walk.

After a quick stop at the Plaza de España (another characteristic monument of the city) we headed back to Granada and sadly, that was the end of the Sevilla trip. But wow, was it great.

The main reason I think I loved the city was because of the parks and open spaces and just the all around feel of it. It’s hard to explain but there is something about the atmosphere of a city that can help you to like it or not. Seville was very welcoming-the people were all so friendly and helpful and the colors of the buildings and meticulous upkeep helped give off a good vibe. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but for instance, when we went to Córdoba today I got a completely different vibe from the city. It was slightly dull and tired as Chelsea put it. Very distinct from Seville.

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These past couple weeks have been busy! I get up in the morning and before I know it we’re having dinner. Time is going by so quickly now and I want so so badly to stop it! I don’t want to think about the fact that there are only 8 weeks left of the program...noooo!

But don’t get me wrong, I have been out and about doing things other than homework. Some highlights:

This past Thursday, a few of us from the CLM went to see the new Pedro Almodóvar movie that just opened a week ago called “Volver”. Before the movie at 9:30, we went to dinner at this Chinese restaurant that the two girls from France knew about. It cracked me up that we were going to a Chinese restaurant in Spain and at 8 pm no less. No one is at dinner/tapas that early and we ended up being the only ones in the restaurant. Heh.

This Chinese place was great though. Wow. If you want Chinese in Granada, you’ve got to go to this restaurant which, of course I don’t remember the name of, but I do know how to get there! For 5.50 euros you got the full 3 course meal-in my case it was a spring roll, fried rice, and chicken with vegetables-plus dessert (ice cream, pineapple, flan, etc) and your drink. There was so much food on the table but somehow we managed to finish almost all of it and wow, was it delicious.

The movie wasn’t so bad itself. Heh. Actually, it was really good. I haven’t seen much of Almodóvar before, but I have heard that he has a distinct style (“Bad Education” etc.) and was interested to see this movie. It didn’t have really big name actors (other than Penelope Cruz) but it turned out to have a really good story line that confused you just enough but kept you very intrigued. It was also really neat to see a Spanish film in Spanish without subtitles because so much is lost in the translation of foreign films. I really liked it and recommend going and seeing it when it comes out in the States.

Then yesterday I went to see a performace that was part of the Tango Festival. I had been looking forward to this for weeks now-ever since I bought the ticket in February-and was really excited that is was finally here. For 18 years now Granada has hosted this International Tango Festival and dancers and musicians from all over, but especially South America (obviously), come and perform during the 6 day festival. Each night there is a different show at the theatre and throughout the week there are milongas, classes, and presentations at various hotels.

On my particular night, I got to see three different couples plus two musical groups. The first was called La Llamada and was from Montevideo. They had a Caribbean beat that although catchy, wasn’t quite was I was expecting for tango music.

The second group was AMAZING! They were called Sexteto Mendoza Tango and wow-fabulous. You couldn’t help but want to dance, even if you didn´t know tango. The whole theatre loved them so much that there was a mad rush at the end when everyone was leaving to buy their cds.

The dancers were incredible. I had no idea that there was so much lifting and jumping in tango but regardless, it was really cool to watch tango being danced so quickly and with such precision. Anyone want to take a trip to Argentina with me? : )

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Of course today we went to Córdoba. As I said earlier, I wasn’t that impressed with the city. It seemed, not run down, but just kind of washed out. I’m not sure how to explain it but it wasn’t as welcoming as Seville at all. The weather was on our side though and it was another beautiful day to take a trip-it got up to about 30ºC in the middle of the day.

When we got there we had some free time so a group of us went to the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos which had some beautiful gardens and an impressive collection of mosaics. After a huge lunch, we went on a tour of the famous Mezquita of Córdoba and it was gorgeous. To think that something like that was built by hand that many years ago and is still standing just blows my mind. Also all the mathematical reasoning behind certain aspects of it-how were they that advanced? Incredible. It was slightly odd to see a Cathedral and a mosque in one but maybe that was part of the charm. Our guide told us that most likely, if the Cathedral hadn’t been built within the Mezquita, the Mezquita would have been destroyed along with all the rest of the mosques when the city was conquered by the Christians.

Then it was the best part of the day. We got to go to Arab Baths. Talk about relaxing...

You go in and there is a changing room (one for men and one for women) with lockers where you change and then take a shower before you go into the baths. You go in and right away you are in the cold bath room where there are two “tubs” with freezing cold water. But no, you start in the lukewarm pool. It was the biggest “tub”-about the size of a small swimming pool, but very shallow. You could sit and your head was still above water. You sit there for a while and then you go to the hot water baths. There were three of them and you stay there for no more than 5 minutes before you go to the cold bath and try to stay there for more than 2 seconds. Heh. The cold one was so cold. I think the longest I stayed in that one (you could stay in there for up to 5 minutes) was a minute. It reminded me too much of my January showers...heh. Just kidding. : )

You continued in that pattern over and over again until they called you for your massage. Oh man, that felt so good. They had different oils to choose from (lavender for me) and you lied there and just forgot that the world existed. Fabulous.

The whole thing lasted 1.5 hours and by the time it was over you were so relaxed that you just wanted to find a bed and sleep for hours. A lot of people ended up asleep on the bus because we left right after we got out of the Baths. It was a neat experience and I would totally do it again.

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So yes, that is the update. Señor Tuba has stopped practicing so I think that I will take advantage of this and get some sleep. Tomorrow I have to start studying for my midterms that are coming up in a week...yikes. I am so worried about them because I don’t know what to expect but I think it will turn out okay.