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.