Rio y mar

It's been a wonderful weekend with new friends, Roman ruins, and the beach.  I'm trying to remember what I did during the week, but I can't seem to remember much about it...besides using the heck out of my Sevici bike pass.  Sevilla is perfectly flat and being able to use a bike makes everything so much more accessible.

At the end of the week the weather started getting warm and beautiful!  On Thursday night some of us went to the river for "botellón"which is when everyone goes to the river or plazas to drink wine and socialize.  It was around sunset and the banks of the river were filled with people, sitting in the grass having a good time.  We spent the next day at the Maria Luisa park, starting to plan a trip to northern Spain to go hiking in the Picos de Europa (!!!).

Saturday I went with some friends to Itálica, an ancient Roman city located right outside of Sevilla.  It was built for the wounded soldiers at the Battle of Illipa during the Second Punic War and is the birthplace of the Roman Emperors Trajan and Hadrian.  Built in 206 BC the ruins are now some of the best-preserved Roman ruins outside of Rome.  The layout of the ancient city is still intact and as you walk the "streets" you can see the bases of buildings, pillars, mosaic floors, statues, and aqueducts.  Most impressive was the amphitheater that was able to sit 25,000 people, one of the largest in the Roman world.  As you walked into the amphitheater it looked like some futuristic war zone, with giant boulders tossed to the sides of the entry path.  Apparently when Sevilla was later being built, they removed a lot of stone from the amphitheater and used it for building.  You can still walk through the tunnels underneath the seats of the amphitheater and see the dens where lions were kept before gladiator fightings.

Today we went to Matlascañas, the closest beach to Sevilla, about an hour and a half south.  Everything was going wrong at the beginning of the trip.  It was cold and rainy when we woke up (unusual for Sevilla), I fell off my bike on the way to the bus station and hurt my shoulder, and the bus we were supposed to get on was full.  Everyone was in good spirits despite the unlucky start and we got on a bus to a different town close to the one we were trying to get to.  It was a pueblo bus, and it stopped at all of the small pueblos between Sevilla and the coast.  It turned out to be a cool way to see the smaller towns in the area instead of the bus hopping straight on the highway.  Once we got to the end of that bus line that we had about an hour until the next bus came to take us to the beach.  We wandered around the pueblo a little bit and bought some more food for our picnic.  The fog burned off and it turned out to be a beautiful day.  We got to the beach and ate lots of good food on our blankets, told stories, and relaxed in the sand.  It was a really fun day, and although my shoulder still feels messed up, it was one of the best days I've had so far in Spain.

¡Carnaval!

Carnaval was...wild.  Cádiz definitely lived up to it's reputation as one of the craziest places to celebrate Carnival.  Carnaval is a two week celebration characterized by excess, right before they begin fasting until Semana Santa (Holy Week).  The period of fasting is no longer very common, but Carnival just keeps getting bigger. 

I went with We Love Spain, a program here in Sevilla that takes students on excursions around Andalusia.  We met in Triana (on the other side of the river from me) at la Plaza de Cuba that evening around 8:30.  There were tons of people en disfraces (not costumbres!) flocking to the plaza, all college students heading to Cádiz that night.  There were fifteen buses full of students just with We Love Spain. Thousands of people from all over Andulusia, the rest of Spain, and other parts of the world swarm into Cádiz to celebrate.

Cádiz is only about an hour and a half bus ride from Sevilla and we got there around 10:30 with strict instructions to meet back at Plaza de Tierra around 5:30am or we would get left behind.  We started out as a big group, about ten of us sticking together, completely unsure of where we were or where to go.  But it was pretty simple, we just followed the crowd and soon enough we were in the middle of a huge plaza filled with thousands of people.  There were so many awesome costumes that night.  Matadors, a bunch of bananas, a group of jazzercise-ers(?).  One group of people was pushing around a giant paper-mache volcano (like one of those you make for a science fair).  We came across a dance party in the middle of the street, a car was blasting it's stereo and people were dancing all around it (including me) and then when the song finished it just drove off.  But the best part was just talking to tons of people all night.  I met a lot of really nice Spaniards who offered to help me with my spanish.  They would just correct me while we were talking and help me say what I was trying to say.  I definitely didn't mind the help!

Before we knew it, it was almost 5am and time to head back to the Plaza to get on the buses.  By this point it was just Lisa (my best friend so far here in Spain) and I.  On the way back to the Plaza we could see out into the darkness, where the buildings stopped and the ocean was.  So we ran out on to the beach for a little while.  Lisa took off her shoes and walked out into the water, forgetting she was still wearing tights (hah).  That was one of the best parts of the night, running around on the beach at 5am with lots of people in costumes. 

We finally got to the plaza where the buses were supposed to be. We were bus #9, and it wasn't there at 5:30...it wasn't there at 6...not at 6:30...nor at 7am.  We tried to get on different We Love Spain buses but they kicked us off.  It was really cold outside by this time and none of us had jackets.  So we huddled together like penguins for two hours until the bus finally got there around 7:30.  We got on the bus and all promptly fell asleep until we got back into Sevilla.  Let's just say, walking home at 9am still covered in face paint and glitter is not the most fun thing in the world.

Overall it was a fun night, but I won't be ready to go back to Cádiz anytime soon.  I saw some awesome costumes, met cool people, and had a great time with friends...but I also so how filthy Carnival really is.  Streets strewn with ridiculous amounts of trash, borrachos (drunks) everywhere, and lots of other things. I was happy to be back in Sevilla on Sunday.  

Some other things...my bike pass came in the mail today! Sevilla has an amazing bike system, with large and safe bike lanes going almost everywhere in the city.  You just check out a bike from one station and drop it off at another.  And there are stations everywhere, it's never hard to find one.  There's one on the corner right outside our apartment and several around the university so I can ride to school no problem.  Also, I've booked a few trips!  The first weekend in March I'm going to Venice to see Gabby!  Lisa, Andrea, and Amanda are also coming with me and Gabby is going to be our official tour guide, since she lived there for six months last year.  And then the weekend after that I'm going to Barcelona with some friends.  We're learning all about Gaudí in my art history class right now, so I'm really excited to see the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Parque Guell, Casa Míla, and others. 

Here are a few pictures from Carnaval.  Seeing as I didn't see Cádiz in the light of day at all I don't have any great pictures of people in costumes or anything...but this is what I have!

Los Dos.

I keep forgetting what month it is and how much time has passed since I've been here.  The weather is getting a little warmer and today I noticed that all of the oranges are getting picked off the trees.  They're being put in huge sacks and sent off to be made into marmalade.  Everything still feels very surreal when I'm out walking around, especially when I'm exploring by myself, which is what I like to do best (not at night, of course, Mama Jackie :p).

After school one day I wandered into the park adjacent to the University and found a new entrance into the Santa Cruz neighborhood, which is a laberinto (maze) of narrow streets.  The streets were built extremely narrowly to provide shade from the sun during the sweltering Sevillan summers.  I'm pretty certain I was walking in circles for most of the time I was exploring, but there's so much to see I didn't care.  I had to do several double takes while walking down seemingly unimposing alleyways.  I would pass a window and behind the wall would be the most beautiful courtyard I had ever seen.  Ornately tiled patios, fountains, exotic flowers all behind a bland wall.  And the same goes for the numerous plazas scattered throughout the maze of streets.  I would be walking on a street which I thought could not possibly get any smaller and then all of a sudden it would it would open up into a sun-filled plaza. I'd stop a moment to enjoy it and promise myself that I would come back.

As I was trying to find a path out of the maze I stumbled upon a church (which is not hard to do in Sevilla) and decided to go in.  Bare and quaint-looking on the outside, I expected the same for the interior.  The doors squeaked as I walked into the dead silent church, and I was immediately overwhelmed by the large and ornate interior.  A woman was sitting on one of the pews facing the left chapel, and looked like she had been sitting there praying for hours.  I immediately felt bad for the squeaking I made and the backpack I was carrying, being a tourist in her place of worship.  But I took a moment to sit down and take it all in.  It was a beautiful church, the altar a massive piece of artwork and the chapels on each side equally overwhelming.  After some researching, I'm pretty sure it was the Iglesia San Bartolomé, originally a synagogue, and then converted into a church in the 18th century. But I'm still not entirely sure.

On a completely different note, I'm going to Cádiz for Carnaval this weekend! The city is about an hour and a half south of Sevilla, on the ocean.  It's supposedly one of the biggest celebrations of Carnival in the world, right after Rio de Janeiro and Trinidad.  I went out costume shopping today with Lisa and Andrea and got some feathers, beads, and flowers.  I plan on just throwing together something completely wacky and then pouring glitter on myself.  I can't wait!  I'll be sure to add lots of pictures after I get back.

Las Setas

I finally saw the Metropol Parasol tonight, and it's amazing.  It's said to be the largest wooden structure in the world and looks like a giant waffle.  They also call it Las Setas de La Encarnación which means Mushrooms of the Encarnación Square.  I was telling my host mom recently that I wanted to go see it soon, and to my surprise she had nothing good to say about it.  Like a lot of other Sevillans, she feels that the enormous modern structure has ruined the area, one of the most historical areas of the city.  She said she didn't like that the modern structure was placed right in the middle of the medieval streets and buildings and that it was a disgrace.  Apparently a lot of residents feel this way, and don't like the fact that a huge mushroom has been placed in the middle of their very old and very traditional city.

I thought it was beautiful, and one of the coolest things I've seen in Sevilla.  It was designed to offer shade from harsh Sevillan summers and make the square more accesible.  La Encarnación used to be a parking lot, and in my opinion this is a whole lot better than a parking lot.  You can go underneath the structure and see carefully preserved Roman ruins, and then you can walk on top of the structure and look out at the city.  The architect drew inspiration from the vast vaults of Sevilla's Cathedral and wanted to make a "cathedral without walls".

Caminando

This first week of classes has been the most relaxed first week of classes I've had since...the fourth grade? Classes starting after 1pm every day, and no class on Fridays definitely helps.  I usually sleep in, then wake up and have breakfast (toast with olive oil and sugar is my new favorite breakfast)/lunch then walk to the University.  Walking to school doesn't take long, and is always beautiful since you walk through a park and past the Plaza de España to get there.  The school itself is beautiful, built and used in the 18th century as a tobacco factory.  It has a moat, drawbridges, and a most confusing floor-plan I've ever had the pleasure of being lost in.

After school I usually head into the Santa Cruz neighborhood, to the river, or into Plaza Nueva rather than go straight home.  I like to sit in Plaza Nueva, one of the bigger plazas in El Centro, to watch little kids play soccer and watch the protesters outside of the city hall that appear every afternoon.  I've still got a lot of exploring of Sevilla to do.  Friends and I were walking through the city a few nights ago and came across the giant waffle/mushroom!  It was dark and cold so we didn't spend much time there, but it's called the Metropol Parasol, and I really want to go back soon during the day.  

Today, we went to Ronda, a sleepy little medieval town in the middle of the Málaga mountains.  Maybe not sleepy, but I felt like I was in some type of fairytale picture book.  We went to the Plaza de Torros first, the largest bull fighting arena in Spain (the building isn't that big but it's famous for the large diameter of the actual fighting circle).  We then went to the Puente Nueva, Ronda's famous bridge that connects the town across the Tajo gorge.  The bridge was built in 1741, took 42 years to build (the bridge they built in the same place before this was completed in only 8 months and collapsed).  It served as a prison for a while and then during the Spanish Civil War, prisoners were thrown off of the bridge into the gorge (they say).  We took a little hike down around the town into the gorge, and found and explored some remains of old stone structures built into the side of the cliff.  We went as far as we could toward the bottom of the bridge and walked along some cool trails built into the side of the cliff.  We found one side of a little cliff-house that we saw from the top of the bridge, but to make it through to the rest you had to squeeze through a dark and damp stone tunnel filled with spider-webs.  Our journey stopped there, but we decided that as soon as we got home we would look up more places to go hiking and explore during the weekends, even if it was just a short day trip away from Sevilla.  It was a beautiful afternoon and so nice to be out in some fresh air with the open skies.  The sky definitely seems a lot bluer here.  

Plaza de España

Walkin' home!

Afternoon beside the Guadalquivir River

Puente Nueva in Ronda

It was a pretty hike

Días Tranquilos

Today was the first day of classes here in Sevilla and it was definitely a very long day.  For the first two weeks of classes everything is still up in the air, kind of like it usually is at any college.  But here they also tend to change around classes, rooms, and times quite a bit during the first two weeks.  And because we're international students they kind of forgot to tell us.  I went to my first class at 9am and they told me it was actually in a different classroom at 3pm.  I'm not complaining though, I'd much rather have class at 3 and not have to wake up early.

I ended up having three different classes from 1pm-7pm: The Arab World Today, Great Masters and Major Artistic Tendencies in Spain during the 20th Century, and Español de los Negocios (Business Spanish).  The classes seemed pretty normal, nothing too different.  The first two classes are both in English.  My art history class only has four students in it though, which is interesting, all of the art history classes I've taken at UGA have had at least 50 students in it. And tomorrow I'm taking another Spanish class, Literature y Ciudad: El  Caso de Sevilla.  

On Saturday and Sunday I had lots of time to go explore the streets of Sevilla more deeply.  On Saturday we walked through El Parque de Santa Luisa, the park right next to where our home stay is.  It's along the river and full of orange trees, fountains, and hiding statues and sculptures.  We walked in El Centro from there and when my friends started shopping, I decided to go try to find some other friends that were nearby.  I ended up getting quite lost, and walked around the city for two hours before finding my way back to the apartment.  I got quite good at asking for directions by the ninth or tenth Spaniard I asked for help, though, and thanks to one man pulling up directions for me on his iPhone, I finally got home.  

Sunday was a peaceful day and a lot warmer than it had been the past couple of days.  Lisa and I went and walked around, took pictures, and got ice cream.  We went to the river, explored the Jewish Quarter,  and watched adorable Sevillan kids rollerblade everywhere.  

Luckily, I don't have class until 3 tomorrow so I can sleep in and then go walk around some more before school! I need to buy a bike pass soon so I can start riding a bike to class.  Goodnight!

Me Encanta Sevilla

Ah I'm finally settled into my home-stay in Sevilla and it is wonderful.  We left Toledo early Thursday morning, and after a long bus ride we arrived in Sevilla around 5pm where our host families were waiting for us.  Our host mother, Salud (pronounced like "Saluth") is really nice and drove us to her apartment, in the Porvenir district, and pointed out her favorite places in the city along the way.

Salud's apartment is on the third floor of a complex, and is a lot bigger than I was expecting.  My roommate and I have separate rooms, and they're very nice and cozy.  One wall is made up of built-in cabinets/closets and the bed is half underneath these cabinets.  And on the other wall is a large desk and chair.  The window looks out into a little courtyard and they windows of the other apartments, from which everybody hangs their cloths to dry.  I really love my room and although once classes I won't be spending tons of time in here, it's nice to have a place to keep all of my things and not be living out of a suitcase.

Our first cena was delicious.  Salud made tortillas españolas (which are like Spanish omelets, with potatoes and onions), ensalada, y sopa.  And then she always wants us to eat oranges at the end of every meal here, which I definitely don't mind.  And for breakfast so far we've had toast (except it's a french baguette, not sliced bread) with marmalade, coffee, and an orange.

Yesterday morning, those of us in ISA that are attending la Universidad de Sevilla, met in a plaza (Spaniards say it like "platha"... they add a "th" to everything) near the university.  We went in a large lecture hall with a bunch of other foreign students and listened to various professors and administrators talk about the university (in Spanish of course).  We found out where the library was, how to participate in extracurriculars, all that good stuff.  And afterwards they had a mini-brunch for us in the courtyards (which are beautiful and filled with fountains and orange trees).

After this, one of our site directors took us into el Centro, the center of Sevilla, to show us the ISA office.  We wandered around for awhile after this and hung out in some of the plazas, until it was time for our tour of the cathedral (!!! I was so excited for this).  It's the largest cathedral in Spain, second largest gothic cathedral in the world, the third largest cathedral overall in the world, and is the supposed burial site of Christopher Columbus.  The nave of the cathedral is enormous and then there are 80 smaller chapels on both sides of the nave.  And because it was originally a mosque, before they decided to build a cathedral over it, the giralda tower still stands.  We walked up 34 ramps to the top of the giralda tower (which they used to call prayer from five times a day while it was a mosque) and had an amazing view of Sevilla.  We learned that the motto for Sevilla, which can be seen everywhere, even on the tomb of Christopher Columbus, No8Do, means No Me Ha Dejado.  The middle part of this phrase (mehadeja) sounds like 'madeja' when spoken with the clipped accents which Spaniards have, and means knot.  So the 8 (which is drawn like a knot) is in the center.  And the phrase means "It has not abandoned me" referring to Sevilla.

We had another ISA meeting last night in a hotel (this meeting was pretty pointless) and then afterwards, Lisa, Andrea, Michelle and I went back to El Centro to go get some tapas and drinks in some of the plazas.  It's wild how many people are out and about at night here in Spain.  Not just in some areas, but everywhere.  It was about 11pm and there were people rollerblading, walking their dogs (haven't seen one dog on a leash since I've been here), eating dinner, just out enjoying the night.

Later today we're going to go out and do some more exploring of Sevilla, but right now it's nice to just relax.

 Cathedral

 No8Do

 Parque on the way to school

Toledo el Hermoso

Toledo is a very beautiful city and very, very old.  We had tours today of el museo Santa Cruz, Santa Maria la Blanca synagogue, and el Catedral Primada Santa María de Toledo.  Santa Cruz is an old cathedral, built right before the Christians reconquered Granada from the Muslims in 1493.  The Santa Maria la Blanca synagogue was very interesting because although Catholics later claimed the building, they still respect the Jewish tradition by lighting candles for the Sabbath every Friday night.  Toledo is well known for being a place where Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived together in harmony.  Toledo was also the home of El Greco and we saw The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, one of his most famous paintings, in Santo Tóme.

After our tour of the city we had free time to go eat lunch and wander around.  So several of us went to a small restaurant hidden in some of the narrow streets to eat.  It was really good, but what people were telling be about the portions in Spain is definitely true.  Since I've gotten here I've had pretty much nothing but tapas, small appetizers shared between everyone.  So I'm just about always hungry, hopefully that will change once we get to Sevilla tomorrow!

Yesterday, in Madrid, we went to El Museo Prado and El Palacio Real.  El Museo Prado is a huge museum and has lots of famous paintings by Goya, Velazquez, and others.  And the Royal Palace was out of this world.  It was a huge complex, the King actually moved out of it because he thought it was too big.  The palace also had the largest collection of Stradivarius violins in the world.

We have another ISA meeting tonight down in the hotel lobby, and then afterward hopefully I'll go get some dinner somewhere.  Tomorrow we leave for Sevilla.  It's about a six hour bus ride from here (although the high-speed train from Madrid gets there in two hours) so I'll have plenty of time for a nap.