February Observations

So this blog is a little bit special. It consists of all of my random observations about Madrid, Spanish life, European products: things such as these that strike me as fascinating. And it also includes "memorable mentions" of unbelievable news stories or happenings around the city. Furthermore, as I live in the capital city, I've recently became friends with Spaniards but also with people from all over the world who have explained different aspects of their culture to me. Welcome to the melting-pot blog.

1.) Roommates: So I have realized that I never introduced the people who I live with. I do not currently have any pictures of my host family, but I will work on that. In summary I live with a middle-aged woman, Ana, with her 25-year old daughter, Marta, and 30-year old son, Guillermo, along with two other American girls and their golden retriever named Zar. Patty Sullivan is my actual roommate in that we share a bedroom. One of my first blogs has pictures of our adorable room and bathroom. She is a 22-year old senior studying geology at Oregon State University although she is from Chicago. Before I got very sick, her and I would often explore together as we both live so isolated from everyone else. Her school is on the quarter system (instead of semesters) and so she will be leaving during spring break. She goes to Complutense University here in Madrid, which is a giant public university. The other girl who lives with us is Ronni Marinez. She arrived in February, a month after Patty and me. She is a sophomore at Long Beach State University in California. She goes to Nebrija University here with me and likes to take lots of photos, so we often times "photo-shoot". Its great.

2.) Beautiful people: Okay, when people say that Spaniards are gorgeous, they are not kidding. To an extent my perception is skewed by living in Madrid, one of the major fashion capitals of the world and a huge city where everyone walks to stay skinny, but even in smaller parts of Spain people are gorgeous. Heck, even their babies and toddlers are cuter. Honestly a huge portion of this can be attributed to a culture of tending to one's appearances. Americans can look gorgeous too if we put more effort into our appearances everyday all day, but that's just not our culture to do so. We might look go to go out at night, but our level of "going out" is the Madrid level of "go to work/school." All around, Madrid specifically contains an abnormally high percentage of beautiful people.

3.) Talk on top of one another: Nothing seems to be louder than a room full of Spaniards all carrying on different conversations. Its much more normal here to talk over the television, or even on top of your friends. They are just very social people. At times in the US I have to stop myself from talking over others as its a bad habit, but here it seems fairly acceptable. I hope I do not make it too habitual. The main issue is if Spanish is not your first language then not only are you expected to decipher what one person is saying but what someone else is saying at the same time. Mental overload.

4.) Wedding band hand: Yep. They wear their wedding band on their RIGHT ring finger. Ladies: if you're looking for a Spanish man, be sure to check the right hand ;) I guess that advice goes for men too. This is confusing because throughout Europe it changes. People from Cataluna, a region in Spain, for example, tend to wear their rings on their right hands. All around you are just kept on your guard.

5.) Engagement rings: Men sometimes wear engagement rings. It is not all of them. Sometimes the woman will gift the man a fancy wrist-watch following her acceptance of his ring. Other times, engagement rings are not exchanged at all. It is not as popular as in the US when every woman receives some sort of ring. Also, diamonds are not near as popular, though they are growing as a trend probably due to American movies. The concept of spending that much money on an engagement ring is not as excepted. 

6.) Older parents: Parents are noticeably older. The average is probably around mid-thirties with babies. Partly this is skewed by my life in a major city, but also I think its a trait that Spain in general possesses. There are several possible reasons for this. A lot of it can most likely be attributed to the economy. No one has money to have a kid meanwhile birth control and abortions are subsidized with their public health-care system. Another issue is that people do not get married until they are around 30 as they are living with their parents unable to become independent up till this point. Obviously it is not everyone, but it is incredibly common to live with your parents until you are well past college and there is also over 50% unemployment for those under 30. No one can afford a baby until they are much older. I haven't seen a single young couple with a baby. In the US, it would not be all that uncommon to find a high school student with a baby, but here I have yet to see a parent younger than 25 perhaps. Another oddity, is that there are noticeably more men out around the city pushing the baby stroller and holding hands with young kids. With the economy many men (who traditionally had higher end jobs) have lost their jobs and must fall back on their wife. I also wonder if men are just more willing to work nights and let their wives have the normal shift.

7.) Siesta: Reality or legend? That's still debatable. Some Spaniards tell me that its a myth as they themselves do not go home and nap, nor does anyone in their family. Siesta, which literally means "nap time," is more a break in their day for lunch nowadays, at least from my point-of-view. In the US, you would NEVER get a 2-3 hour lunch break. 

8.) Smoking: a very large percentage of their young population smokes. Just about every college student in Madrid smokes. I would say that the percentage is the reverse of that in the US, where only very few students smoke cigarettes. Some people roll their own to be cheaper, but it is still an expensive habit during such bad economic times. As I am allergic to smoke it annoys me a lot that people around me are smoking. At least you cannot smoke in restaurants, schools, bars, etc. Its a breath of fresh-air, but seriously.

9.) Metro: The metro (subway) is amazing. It is so fast, so easy to use, and so efficient. The train always comes from the your right as you stand on the platform, the metro map is clearly labeled as are the stations, and the timers announcing the next train are accurate. It is the 6th longest metro in the world, but the way the set it up, all the lines cross one another so you rarely every change trains more than once to get somewhere. The first line opened in 1919 and the stations served as air-raid shelters during the Spanish Civil War. With urban sprawl and such a rapidly growing population, the metro is changing significantly itself in recent decades. I live off of line 9 (the purple line) which was built in the early '80s. The metro itself is a game during rush hours. Everyone lines on the platform in the location that will directly lead them out to the exit that they wish to take when they get off the train. When your stop is next, people approach the door ready to jolt as soon as it opens. The escalators that navigate the system (thank goodness because my stop has 3 escalators worth of stairs journeying into the center of the Earth) have a set system: right side= standing, left side = walking/booking it. I'm in love with the metro system. I have never once felt threatened like you do in American subway systems.

10.) Girl's purse stuck in door: One of the craziest things that I've witnessed was when I young woman stepped out of the metro car and the doors closed on her purse, which was still inside. Immediately her face changed to panic. I froze but fortunately there were several men who jumped in to the rescue and started prying open the doors as soon as it happened. They were successful is opening the doors but it was a stressful minute. I'm sure it was worse for her.

11.) Milk: Okay, their milk is weird. It lacks flavor, comes in a box, and it's concerning that it lasts for 9 months if you don't open it. Turns out that Europe uses Ultra-high-temperature processing: "1–2 seconds, at a temperature exceeding 135°C (275°F)" whereas the US uses High-temperature-short-time processing: "temperatures of 71.5 °C (160 °F) to 74 °C (165 °F), for about 15 to 30 seconds." The downside of the European way is that you lose flavor, but the pro is that it lasts for a lot longer without spoiling. It is used in the US in McFlurries and airplane milk, but when it was introduced about 15 years ago, Americans did not take to the idea of boxed milk that lasts so many months.

12) Bread: Wow, their bread is good. There definitely is a benefit to buying your bread everyday from the local bread-shop. I have eaten an ungodly amount of bread from each dinner and I have no regrets. Wheat bread (pan integral) is not as much of a thing here as they do not think that it adds much of an additional benefit. Regardless, their bread is the bomb. Doesn't matter what type of bread you are getting: bocadillo, loaf, baguette, its all good.

13.) Ham obsession: Spaniards are literally OBSESSED with ham. They have many meat shops where the walls are completely covered with ham legs. Whenever you go out to eat, you can always order something with ham: may it be a ham sandwich or anything else with ham mixed in. If you are Jewish, it would be atrocious. They have two big types of ham: Iberian ham (jamon iberico), which is the more expensive type of pig and requires more care to raise the pig and then there is Serrano ham (jamon serrrano) which has more white to it and is less flavorful from what I can tell. Its very common to go into a bar and see a ham leg sitting ON the bar so that when they make your ham sandwich, they shave off some meat right in front of you. They are even so obsessed with ham that I saw an ad in a store window where you could buy a mattress and get a few ham leg.

14.) Tipping: It can be done, but most often times it is not. Waiters and waitresses receive a normal wage and taxi drivers the same. They probably just charge extra to pay their employees more.

15.) Taxes: When something says 5 euro, it is literally 5 euro. Taxes are included in every price so you never add on a percentage. This makes things easy when you go to a restaurant and the price on the menu is what you pay as you do not tip either.

16.) Separate checks: Restaurants oftentimes refuse to allow payment with separate checks. Perhaps its easier mental math as there is no need to include tax or tips, but if everyone has a 20 euro bill for their 9 euro meal things get tricky. For this reason I always try to break my bills down so that I can always pay my share exactly and be done.

17.) Salad during meal: Salads are treated differently here. They are not as commonly eaten as an appetizer but more as a supplement to one's meal. For our dinner, which I think is fairly common in most Spanish households, we eat salad during or after our meal. The idea is that if your meal doesn't fill you up then you can supplement with salad. I suppose that's one way to avoid over-eating. I'll eat salads more often here, but I'm still not the biggest fan.

18.) Very black Africans: As Spain is located just 8 miles across the sea from Morocco, Africa is close. This means that there are true Sahara-desert Africans in Spain. Oftentimes they do not speak great Spanish and are selling bootlegged merchandise for cheap prices. The Madrid police seem indifferent, but in other parts of Spain the police will chase after these vendors.  What is incredible is how incredibly black their skin is. I have never seen anything like it in person. They are a very good-looking people but also a very LARGE race of people. Many of the men tower over  me with their jacked muscles.  Many of these immigrants are from Senegal and surrounding countries. As it is dangerous to immigrate into the US, boatloads of people drown attempting to reach Spain.

19.) Italian novelist Tamaro: I have attended a language interchange (intercambio) several times where people from all around the world go to practice either English or Spanish. For some reasons, the intercambio that I have been attending has a lot of [beautiful] Italians. I asked them how to pronounce my last name and I'm saying it more or less correctly, but they make it sound better. What was interesting is that they pointed out that there is a famous novelist named Susanna Tamaro. Maybe we are related? She is from Trieste, Italy, so maybe one day I'll journey there to question about my last name.

20.) South Korea Mono: As I obviously was quite sick with mononucleosis when I first arrived here, it would be casually mentioned in conversations. One thing I learned while speaking to a girl from South Korea is that almost everyone gets mono as a small child because everyone shares plates. What is great is that they never get it again. To her it was hilarious that at 20 years old, a normal age in the States, I had this childhood illness. But it is not uncommon for visitors to South Korea to develop mono.

21.) Work day: Compared to the hardworking people of China or Japan, Spain is on the other end of the spectrum. It is not so much that they are not hardworking, it is more that they enjoy more social gatherings and breaks during the day. For this, Spaniards are in the office each day longer than the other European countries, but are also known to be some of the least productive. They oftentimes have a 2-hour lunch break and smoking breaks are incredibly common. This is nice. People enjoy life.  They are not stressed and are never rushing because they took on too much work like Americans are known. They can have more time with their families and develop more friends. Who's to say that one way of life is better than another?

23.) Soccer (futbol) mania: Much like the excitement that accompanies American football, futbol here is a HUGE deal. I live in Madrid: home of FOUR professional teams. From what I can tell, men are much more enthused by futbol than women, just because its only ever been mentioned to me by Spanish men, not women who oftentimes roll their eyes. Bars are packed on game nights, particularly those important games. People are so manic for futbol that when Real Madrid beat Barcelona a few weeks ago, I could her cheers and screams throughout the neighborhood, and surely it was the same throughout the entire city. Its a nice dose of excitement. I still have not been to a game, but I would like to try and find some cheap tickets just to witness the craziness one day. Men oftentimes base their styles off of those of professional players. They are the superheros and celebrities of Spain.

22.) Woman's tragic suicide: As I have mentioned in previous posts, the economy of Spain is VERY bad right now and the banks are only further screwing everyone over worse. Things were so bad for one woman in Madrid that she went into the Bank of Spain downtown, doused herself in gasoline, and set herself on fire: in the bank! She surely wanted to make a statement and she did it in a very tragic manner.

23.) Building floors: You would not think that this would be difficult, but it is. And actually their logic, for the most part, makes better sense. When you walk in from the street, you are on level 0. If you go down a level you are on level -1, etc. If you go up a level you are on level 1. The only exception to this is that some older buildings have an "anteplano" level, which is between 0 and 1. I'm not sure why its called that but it makes counting floors difficult if you are unsure if you are on level 2 or 1, etc. If you are on an elevator and you want to leave, you need to press 0, not 1 as Americans are used to.

24.) Elevators: They are very small here. Oftentimes they will be around 3ft by 3ft in floor space. To be honest I am unsure how anyone moves into a building because I have been told they must either use a crane or carry the furniture up the stairs. I live on the 11th floor.

25.) Graph paper: I am unsure why, but it is customary here to take notes on graph paper instead of the horizontal-lined paper that we use in the US. I am not used to this and so I write very small to fit in the graph paper. Its an odd size gap because I feel like one square tall is too small, but two squares is too big.

26.) Robberies: Everyone is well aware that you need to watch your stuff while in Europe due to pick-pocketers. This is their full-time job and they are good. My roommate, Patty, got her wallet stolen on night and we have no idea how it was possibly stolen as we were walking along the street and no one seemed to approach us. Fortunately for her, it was found the next day on the street with only the money gone. Most pick-pocketers are only after your cash or passport. They could care less about your credit cards for some reason. I got my metro pass stolen at a dance club one night and that was a wake-up experience that I cannot get lax and must always be aware of my stuff. Fortunately that was something I was able to replace the next day. I love putting my wallet in the zipper of my purse that lays against my leg and when I carry my ipod I always tuck it into the inner zipper inside my purse. When I'm in big crowds I keep my hand on my purse. Iphones are probably the #1 biggest theft among the Americans I know. Honestly, you should never, ever, bring one to a club, but I could list 8 names off the top of my head of people who's iphones have been stolen, most of them in clubs but not all. The one thing I've noticed is that I hear less and less about robberies which probably means that the other Americans, myself included, are starting to blend in as well as get smart. The problem I'm trying to convince myself is to never let down my guard because as soon as you do that is when it'll happen.

27.) German Shepard: I adore German Shepards ever since growing up with one. It always makes me so happy to see them around Madrid. I would say that they are one of the most popular breeds of dogs and I see them quite often. It makes me want to go buy a German Shepard puppy right now.

28.) Lunch: This is minor, but in Spain they say "comida" instead of "almuerzo." To them, "almuerzo," as it is called in Latin America, is something that their grandparents would say and is no longer used. This led me to find out that a lot of Latin American Spanish is older than the Spanish that they speak in Spain. Honestly, I would have guessed the opposite.

29.) Formalisms: In Spanish there are two ways to address "you." You can speak to someone formally (an older person, someone you just met, or a superior) or you can speak to them informally (like a friend). In Latin America it is very disrespectful to misuse the form of you, especially to someone older than you. In Spain, however, this concept of formality is rapidly losing its popularity and almost everyone solely uses the informal version. Children refer to their parents as "tu" which is unheard of in some Latin American homes. In fact, in Spain, it is almost rude to call someone "Ud" because it makes them feel old. I would have expected Spain to be more formal all around, but apparently not.

30.) Exit/enter signs: When I first arrived in the airport of Madrid, I remember seeing these little green, running-man signs and having no idea what they could signify. The few Americans that I met up with were equally clueless. Come to find out, that unlike in the US where exit signs are red, the exit signs here are green (as in green means go). So when there is red above a door it means that you cannot use it, but when there is green above it you can use it. I'm now accustomed to this and wonder if I will be slightly confused in the States. I don't look at the signs any longer than to differentiate the color.

Sevilla (Day 2 and 3)

Despite my bedtime of 4am the night before, I still decided to go on the free walking tour that our hostel offered in the morning...at 11am. I went alone as my friends slept, haha. It was a three hour tour that covered a lot of the city and was filled with the historical background that I love. The best part was that the tour was offered in both English as well as Spanish, so I went ahead and took the Spanish tour. I felt so cultured.

I had not realized was the importance of Sevilla during the colonial days. At this time, Sevilla was a very prosperous, wealthy city. Due to its geographic location 80 km from the Atlantic Ocean along the Guadalquivir River, Seville became the economic center of the Spanish Empire as its port monopolized the trans-oceanic trade and the House of Trade wielded its power, opening a Golden Age of arts and letters. Christopher Columbus (Cristobal Colon) himself is buried within the cathedral. In fact, my guide explained that as Columbus's origins remain unknown he may have actually been a Spaniard. Recent studies of his manuscripts have proven that he spoke perfect Catalán. This would imply that he may have been from the Barcelona region. Traditionally it has been believed that he was an Italian who simply went to the queen of Spain as he thought she was likely to fund his travels, as she did.

Located within Sevilla is the General Archive of the Indies, which is the repository of extremely valuable archival documents illustrating the history of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and the Philippines. Kept in this building are original texts written by Spanish conquistadors of America.

To further prove that I was the American in the group, I had never heard of the Duchess of Alba, a woman who is apparently well-known all through-out Europe, not only in Spain. Although she has FORTY titles they can be shortened: Doña María del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart y Silva, 18th Duchess of Alba de Tormes, Grandee of Spain. Her godmother was the Queen of Spain, Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg and that's not even the most impressive part. She herself holds more titles of nobility than the QUEEN OF ENGLAND. Should the Duchess of Alba walk into the same room as the Queen, the Queen who have to bow down to the Duchess as a sign of respect. For obvious reasons, the two have not seen each other since they were both girls. The duchess's fortune includes ancient palaces throughout Spain, paintings by the Spanish masters Velazquez and Goya, a first-edition copy of Cervantes's Don Quixote, letters written by Christopher Columbus, and huge tracts of land; her wealth is estimated at between €600 million and €3.5 billion.

One reason that she is currently so popular in Europe is a result of gossip magazines that surround her recent marriage in 2011 to a man 24 years younger than her. He has no claims to any of her wealth. So basically she is the female European Donald Trump. I recommend looking her up online.

Without a doubt, the most impressive building that I have seen in my life is the Plaza de España in Seville, Spain. Although I still need to backpack around Europe with Kevin, it is currently my favorite location in the world. The colorful tile-work is breathtaking, the shear massiveness is overwhelming, while the symmetry of the waterways connect the plaza into one magnificent Renaissance Revival piece of art. Located within the Maria Luisa Park, this plaza was built for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. The purpose of the exposition was to improve relations between Spain and the countries in attendance, many of which were former Spanish colonies.The city of Seville had prepared for the Exposition over the course of 19 years. Many countries, including the United States and most of Latin America, had their own exhibits built in the city that are now either used as consulate offices or other government buildings. None could compete with Spain's exhibit of the Plaza de Espana, however, Ronni and I went exhibit hunting on Sunday morning and were blown-away by how ornate all these buildings were considering they were only built for one exhibition. I recommend looking up the others as well.

The Plaza de España complex is a huge half-circle with buildings continually running around the edge accessible over the moat by numerous beautiful bridge. All of this surrounds a gorgeous fountain in the middle of the plaza. The semi-elliptical building faces due west to symbolize a hug to Spain's past colonies. Although its sort of a slap in the face at the same time because their exhibit is 10x grander than those of Latin America for the exhibition. By the walls of the Plaza are many tiled alcoves, each representing a different province of Spain. Each of these alcoves include a map of the region along with tiled art depicting a historical event from that region or a famous attribute of that region. It is very specific to each province.

The plaza was used to film scenes of Naboo in Star Wars episodes I and II as well as to film scenes in The Dictator in 2012.

As all of us were greatly enthused with this plaza, we spent a large portion of our day on Saturday walking to the plaza from the complete opposite side of the city. It was over an hour of walking but at least we got to see some sights, like some random stretches of what I assume to be Roman walls or on the other extreme, the more modern architecture of the city. All around Sevilla is one of the most gorgeous cities that I have visited. Between the constant palm trees and orange trees (NOTE: you cannot eat the oranges in Sevilla) its also easy to think that you're in paradise. Though supposedly during the summer, the heat is almost unbearable.

On Saturday night I was not feeling as well as I had been feeling as so I did not want to go out for very late, which is a hard accomplishment when people do not go out until at least midnight. We ended up going bar-hopping on Beta Street in Triana, which supposedly is a popular thing to do for college-age students. We saw a lot. I had a lot of fun because it gave me a solid opportunity to actually talk with (and hear) some Spaniards, as well as have fun with some friends for a couple hours.

In our hostel we took some nice siestas, but I made sure to be awake for sunset on Saturday night over the river. It was worth waking up. 

Sevilla (Day 1)

Unfortunately, I am rather far behind on blogging and will attempt to catch-up what I am able before my spring break extravaganza in Morocco this upcoming week.

The weekend after I was released from the hospital in January many of the kids in my program went to Sevilla (Seville) for the five-day weekend. Needless to say, I was mildly depressed that I was so sick and because I was missing out on even more adventures in Europe. As soon as I was healthy enough to travel, I started making plans left and right for the upcoming weekends. One of these trips was the weekend of February 22nd-24th to Sevilla: a chance to make up for some lost time.

Unfortunately we chose a rain-filled weekend and so rain storms came in and out throughout the day. It was a blessing however that we were so far south as Sevilla was much warmer than the Madrid chill we had grown accustomed. This did not stop us from exploring. One place we could not miss, literally, was the Seville Cathedral accompanied by its famous 343 ft tower known as La Giralda (the most well known symbol of the city). The cathedral itself is the largest Gothic cathedral and fourth largest cathedral in the world. It is built upon an ancient Muslim mosque and still contains various elements of Muslim influence, as is common in southern Spain.

Seville Cathedral

Upon arriving in the bus station in Sevilla, Ronni and I found ourselves in a dimmly-lit open ware-house contained only a few buses, where the night outside consisted of the pouring rain. Fortunately we had had some wifi on the bus and so we were able to determine the route from our current location to the hostel. I have a greater appreciation for internet in the United States now, and I do not even have a smartphone. Wifi is everywhere.

Among the horse-drawn carriages, towering cathedrals, and cobblestone streets it was easy to lose oneself in time, only to be jolted back into the present with the sound of a loud BANG. In the United States, a loud unexplained bang would be sufficient for people to hit the deck for fear of terrorism or a stray hunter or any number of things. In Spain, however, people are very nonchalant about everything. So as we ask some surrounding locals what was the source of the sound, they were indifferent and simply said that the were not sure. Turns out it was a protest. These are pretty common in Madrid and apparently common in other parts of Spain as well, particularly with government workers. After realizing this, the subsequent random noises became average to us as well and we ceased to notice them. This is probably danger waiting to happen but Spaniards just go with the flow.

We did not enter the cathedral as we are cheap college students who'd rather spend money traveling to other cities, but at the entrance of the church two old women holding rosemary leafs approached us. As I am an naive American wanting to practice Spanish I stopped to listen to the women thinking she was about to tell me about Catholicism. She then proceeded to take my hand and start telling me that I was going to have a bright future, I would marry a wonderful man, and that I have a strong heart. About then was when I realized my generic future meant that she was a palm-reading gypsy and not a little old church lady. As I pulled my hand away and she said "5 euro," this was further proven to me. Obviously I was not able to give her 5 euro for a 30 second accidental palm-read, but I gave her a euro despite her pleas about her pregnancy (this lady was old...) and grabbed my friend Ronni who was dealing with another gypsy. Natalie was the only one who was smart enough from the start to stay away. You live, you learn. 

Madrid doesn't have many gypsies that I have seen, but other parts of Spain have many. I will admit, I am completely fascinated by the gitano culture so I have since investigated further. Known as the Romani people, they originally emigrated from Northern India as early as 1000 AD and now compose 2% of Spain's population. This ethnicity is also found in Portugal, Morocco, and southern France. 

Palm reading

"They tend to speak Caló, which basically encompasses a range of regional dialects of Spanish with numerous Romani loan words and mannerisms. Nevertheless, to varying degrees, they identify with Andalusian culture and music due to the large gitano population present in that region. They are typically Roman Catholic but they are not regular churchgoers. They participate fully in Spain's state-supported medical system. Gitano" word come from "Egipciano" that is the Spanish for "Egyptian". Like in the word "Gypsy", which come from "Egyptian", is due to a medieval belief that the Romani people came from Egypt. The term "gitano" has also acquired among many a negative socio-economic connotation (much as the term quinqui) referring to the lowest strata of society, sometimes linking it to crime and marginality and even being used as a term of abuse. In this, one can be Gitano "by degree" according to how much one fits into pre-conceived stereotypes or social stigmas. During the Spanish Civil War, gitanos were not persecuted for their ethnicity by either side. Under Franco, Gitanos were often harassed or simply ignored, although their children were educated, sometimes forcibly."

Flemenco music and dance, which is popular in Andalucia (southern Spain) is not originally a gypsy dance but has been strongly influenced by their culture and is now commonly associated with the gypsies. From speaking to Spaniards about the culture, I have come to learn that these people tend to marry among themselves and oftentimes the father selects the groom for his daughter. Apparently there are some gitanos in my neighborhood and for whatever reason they prefer to bathe in the pond of our park in the summertime. This is something I have yet to witness. I did find out that there are a lot of gypsies in Sevilla because across the river in the town called Triana the gypsies were kept for hundreds of years. There was not a bridge across the two towns until 1854! This was to prevent the "slums" of the gypsies from spreading into the prominent trading town of Sevilla. Conveniently, now Flamenco is very popular in Sevilla, though I still have not yet paid to see a flamenco show. History <3

Continuing on the with trip, I liked the Spot Central Hostel a lot. It was plain but very trendy in its furnishings and it was also a great location within the city. We could walk to all of the major sites, the cathedral was a 5 minute walk and the river was also a 5 minute walk. I would recommend it because the staff was very helpful and they had activities such a bar crawls, bike tours, and free walking tours. One recommendation that the staff gave us was La Colonial, which was a three-story tapas bar with some of the best tapas I have ever eaten. We ate there several times during the weekend. For the first time I had patatas bravas, which is a Spanish favorite that I knew I needed to try soon.

That first night we decided to go out with some girls that Natalie knew from her sorority in the US who were studying in Sevilla for the semester. They lived in an odd mix of a residencia and a host family, but I thought it was awesome because they had so many international kids from all over Europe who were studying in Sevilla on Erasmus (the EU version of "study abroad") like some from Holland, Germany, and of course, Spain. What was interesting was that a family lived in the house and some of them that were doing "home-stay" would live upstairs and eat with the family, but downstairs was more like apartments that shared a kitchen and they fended for themselves under minor watch from the family. All I know is that the family apparently owns a restaurant and so they eat their from time to time with the family and get paella, all kinds of delicious meals, and whatever they order! Such a solid deal.

Prior to going over to their residencia, we, being poor college students, decided to split a bottle of cheap wine as clubs are just outrageously expensive. The problem is that you cannot sell alcohol after 10pm in Spain. That is unless you find a chino which is a convenience store, typically run by Chinese, that sells just about everything and is known for selling alcohol at all hours of the night. The signs always say "Alimentacion" which refers to snacks. We went to several bars and just tried to a buy a bottle there but they wouldn't let us take it unless we drank it there. So we saw some kids sketchily drinking out of bags and decided they were the ones we needed to talk to. The one kid told us there was a chino right next door, but when we went it was closed. He then proceeded to go up to the bars and yell "JUAN!" until a Chinese man appeared, let us into the store, and stood by the door while we shopped. At least it was cheap.

That night we went to a discoteca called Abril Sevilla. I think that this was my favorite discoteca in Spain. I had a lot of fun that night. It was free to get in if we got in by a certain time, but apparently we needed to know someone. Somehow we just slid in with another group and it was fine despite the massive line of 100+ people who were unable to enter the club. That was nifty. I like Spanish clubs because no one grinds. It just fun, (mainly) innocent dancing. We met some really cool people from all over. Some guys were sketchy but you'll find that everywhere. The one thing I noticed in comparison with Madrid is that people were not as beautiful in Sevilla. This worked in two ways: for once not every single woman was stunning but also the guys were not as attractive either. (Let's see if Kevin actually reads this). Obviously I was not looking for anyone, but it was shocking how much better looking people are in Madrid clubs. This club played a good mix of Spanish and American music, while most clubs only play American music so I enjoyed this. "Te pintaron pajaritos" and "Los rayos del sol" are two of my favorites. I love dancing.

That night we had an interesting walk home. It was supposed to be a 30 minutes walk, the metro was closed, and we didn't want to pay for a taxi. But it was raining. Fortunately I wore a waterproof coat, but I cannot say the same for my friends. They were freezing and their feet were dying from the heels. [I can proudly say that I am starting to master my heels!] What made things more interesting besides merely walking in the direction we knew we needed to go was that we asked a guy for directions who then proceeded to walk with us the rest of the time. I kept telling him, "Thank you, we're fine now. I can get us back." But he kept insisting he was going close to there anyways [one of my friends told him what street and hostel we were going to, I had only asked him where the famous landmarks were so I could navigate from there, haha]. After a while my friends were too miserable and although I was fairly sure we had to be getting close and as badly as I wasn't wanting to pay for a cab, we decided that we were not certain where we were or if this guy had any idea what he was doing and we caught one and said goodbye to our stalker friend. The problem was that LITERALLY the next street over was the street of the cathedral and we immediately knew where we were. So we tried to get out of the cab immediately but then he reminded us that we have to pay a minimum fare of 7 euro. So we rode it home, all of 3 minutes. We were so close.