Experiencing Sevilla as a tourist

Today my mom and I did a lot of touristy things around el centro, the center of Seville. First we walked to la Catedral de Sevilla. While taking some photos of the imposing, impressive outside architecture, we were approached by a woman carrying short fragrant branches. She gave us one each and started telling us our fortunes, which we knew she would charge us for, but it was fun so we let her take total advantage of our blatant status as confused extranjeros. She told me I would get married and that my mother would live a long life. My mother started to hand her a 2 euro coin but she insisted that we give her more. “Coins are bad luck. You must give me paper money.” But we needed the paper money, the larger denomination, to get into la Catedral. So we told her that we were giving her all we could. I’m pretty sure she cursed us. So I’m a little freaked out by that. My mom told me not to worry, but clearly she’s never had a gypsy curse placed on her before.

view of La Catedral and La Giralda. The dome covers the room with the Bishop's chair.

Anyway, slightly shaken up (but not shaken down), we entered the astonishingly large Catedral. It was so beautiful, but in a dark, intimidating way. My mom, an architect, was amused by the agglomerative styles. The building was originally constructed as a Mosque (1184-1198), its famous Giralda bell tower a minaret. The building’s Islamic roots are still visible--for example, in the mushroom-shaped Puerta del Perón--though not overwhelming like the Gothic elements (then again, I supposed Gothic elements were supposed to be overwhelming...) After the Mosque was consecrated as a Cathedral in 1248 (burn!) the space was renovated four additional times: in a Gothic style (1434-1517), during the Renaissance (1528-1601), during the Baroque period (1618-1758), and between 1825-1928, when the three main doors and the southwest corner were added. The interior is covered in ornate drips of gold and painstakingly carved wood and stone. The ceilings are vaulted and very high, reaching 37 m at the center of the transept. My mom, who is not only an architect but also an historian, commented that she hates seeing such lavishness within Catholic spaces--it reminds her of how corrupt Catholicism was centuries ago. “People were literally starving while this was being created” (referring to an especially gaudy gold crown). I did really enjoy the room with the Bishop’s chair--it was a brighter space with a pretty cupola.

After leaving la Catedral, we nourished ourselves with some café and walked to Real Alcázar, the royal palace about which I have heard much wonderful praise. This was such a peaceful experience, especially after my gloomy and heavy experience in la Catedral. I want to come back to Real Alcázar every day that I am here. Obviously that will not be possible, but hey, a girl can dream. I think the grey sky and slight drizzle made the bright walls brighter, the old tiles clearer, and the lush vegetation riper. Normally I prefer sunny weather, but today I was grateful for its absence. Islamic influences are far more apparent here: I noted many semi-circular arches and arabesques.

Major highlights were

• El Estanque de Mercurio (Mercury’s Pool), which, if I remember correctly, was originally part of some plumbing that was turned into a decorative pool in the 16th century. Don’t quote me on that, though.
• Los Baños de (the baths of) Doña María de Padillas, a long originally uncovered pool that was enclosed in a vaulted space after an earthquake.
• El Cenador del León (The Lion Bower), a pavilion named for the lion statue in the fountain opposite the bower.
• Cuarto del Almirante (The Admiral’s Room), in which important cosmographic discoveries of the Americas, and the first trip around the world, were organized.

looking up at El Estanque de Mercurio from a sunken terrace

Expect more on Real Alcázar. A lot more, I hope! Everybody should get to see this place. Time for dinner! Even though the real Sevillanos won’t be sitting down to dine for another two hours...

Getting here (Sevilla)

I am afraid of flying.

Correction: flying makes me nervous, but I am downright terrified of airports. They are really confusing and busy, and I am awful at navigating. I can barely find the post office from my house in Boston, and the post office is like 4 blocks away. So getting from Boston to Madrid and from Madrid to Seville was a little daunting for me. Happily, my father gave my mother a trip to Europe (doesn't that sound much more classy than "Eurotrip?") which she decided to use now in Seville. Flying over with her eased my fears a lot/made it so that I didn't have to figure anything out on my own. Plus, now I am here early and handling all the communication with natives. So I am getting a chance to flex my Spanish muscles, which are kind of atrophied, before classes begin. Bonus!I'm glad I didn't have to get here alone, because transit was kind of nuts. Flying from Boston to Madrid was a piece of cake, but there was an unusually heavy snow in Madrid (my friend Teresa, who lives there, told me all schools and universities were closed), so our flight to Seville was delayed from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. I don't mind delays at all-they offer a chance to snooze, read, and listen to music. But get ready for some wild stuff. A lot of flights were

entirely cancelled. There were 4 lines to the Iberia (a Spanish airline) desk, each with about 200-250 people waiting to figure out what to do about their cancelled flights. Understandably, people were frustrated that they were stuck in Barajas and that they had to wait so long, so obviously they STARTED A MINI-RIOT. Logical. The people in the line started chanting really loudly and standing up on tables and whistling and getting in the faces of the Iberia people, so THE AIRPORT CALLED IN SOME SOLDIERS WHO WERE CARRYING AROUND RIFLES. The rioters also woke me up from my nap. Anyway, we eventually got on our plane after hanging out with this cool Canadian lady for a while and we arrived here, in Seville. We did kind of take a rogue taxi, who, because he wasn't official (which we didn't know when we got in) couldn't drive on a lot of the inner streets of the city. So he dropped us 10 blocks away from the hotel with awful directions and we got a little lost and it took us an hour to find the hotel, but it was an

adventure, and we got to see a lot of pretty façades/interesting shops.

Interesting Things So Far:

- the architecture--there are a lot of beautifully painted façades (oranges, deep reds, pinks, bright yellows) with balconies protected by black iron fences. They are muy bonitas!

- there is a hilarious surplus of bridal shops

- there are orange trees EVERYWHERE. I think in the rain a lot of the oranges fell off so they are littering the streets. They look very pretty and yummy.

- NO8DO. I was seeing this written and on signs and banners everywhere I walked, so I looked it up on wikipedia (what a great tool). If wikipedia was telling me the truth, the 8 represents a madeja (a skein of yarn). When read as "no/madeja/do" it sounds a little like "no me ha dejado," which means "[Sevilla] has not abandoned me." I thought this was a really nice motto-it made me think that people here must feel a real kinship with their city, something I look forward to witnessing and hopefully experiencing myself!

That's all for now. It's time to get ready for dinner! (8:15 is still a little early for dinner here, but hey, I'm still adjusting).

Blail (blog fail)

Ok, I'm a blogging failure. I've tried to write a post many times, but to tell you the truth, it's a good thing that I didn't because it would have been boring. Since my last post, on November 4th, I have worked many more hours at the toy store (including holiday hours which were nightmarish), gone salsa dancing again a few times, spent time with old friends home from college for the holidays, packed for Spain (I'M LEAVING THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW) and gone through NBC withdrawal because of its month-long comedy hiatus.

So aren't you glad that I have neglected these gap year chronicles? Get ready for some real entries soon though. I will be in Seville, Spain from January 10th to May 15th, with a week-long pause somewhere in the middle there for my cousin's wedding.

Let me tell you right now what I am excited about and what I am nervous about.

EXCITED ABOUT:

- seeing/being a part of a beautiful city

- becoming fluent in Spanish

- eating (here's hoping that they like jamón serrano as much in Sevilla as they did in Madrid. This cured meat is so incredibly delicious!)

- being warmer than I am right now

- making new friends, both American and Spanish

- developing a relationship with my host family

- riding a camel on the trip to Morocco

NERVOUS ABOUT:

- failing to become fluent in Spanish

- eating fish, which doesn't agree with me but which I understand is a staple in southern Spain

- being placed with a host family with whom I do not get along

- falling off a camel on the trip to Morocco

Also, my brother Zander keeps telling me that I'm going to get sold into sex slavery. I was doing an okay job ignoring this horrible prophecy of his until I watched that movie Taken with Liam Neeson. Fun movie. Stupid brother.

Employee Discount: Friend or Foe? I'm going to go with foe. Yeah, definitely foe.

One of the perils of working retail is the employee discount. When you have one, you convince yourself that it is an awesome idea to spend money at your workplace. You're spending money, but because you're getting your stuff at a reduced price, you're saving money. One of the children's novels I read at work one day had a character who thought this way about shopping. She called her method "spaving" -- spend saving. Maybe it was my fondness for wombinations (word combinations, duh) that made me do a little "spaving" myself. Yesterday I spent about $45 at work, which is five hours-worth of wages (untaxed wages, mind you). I feel stupid because (a) even though I spent less than the average toy shopper would thanks to my trusty but evil employee discount, I spent way more than my store spent to get that stuff in the first place and because (b) that is $45 I could have spent on things that would make me grow smarter/more cultured or at least appear to grow smarter/more cultured. On the bright side, I have my advent calendar a month early and I am now the proud owner of some children's art supplies.

The gym wasn't so bad yesterday, although I was not prepared at all for the locker room. I'm not stupid--I knew there would be some changing, I just didn't expect there to be so much walking around and interacting while changing. Also, since when do people have to pay $2 for towels that are half the size of normal-human towels? I'm bringing my own towel from now on, you hear? That's really all for now.

Salsa Sundays & Seville

I wonder what makes someone obsessively write on (in?) his/her blog for the first week that he/she has it and then fail to write for the entire second week that he/she has it. Maybe it's because the second week of that person's life as a blogger (by the way, I'm talking about myself here) has been simple and quiet. Simple and quiet are fine and unobjectionable qualities in moderation, but nothing to write home (or on the internet) about.

However, there are four noteworthy life-plot-points that I will now make. Disclaimer: one of them is about television.

First, I joined a gym. 18+ years of self-examination have shown me that guilt-tripping is the most effective way to get me to do something, and I am now guilt-tripping myself into exercising. If I don't really make the most of my membership, it will be a tremendous waste of money. So tomorrow, I'm slipping on a pair shorts--ugh, how awful--and tackling the treadmill before work. Wish me luck, my 4 darling readers. You will all probably hear me complain about this experience tomorrow night.

My second update is that I went salsa dancing last night with a friend from work, which was a new experience for me! Before you write this off as pathetic, know this: I am an awful dancer. I really only have danced with people that I know really well--never in a room full of strangers who are mostly a decade or two older. We went to a restaurant downtown and heard a live band called Cinco Son play for a few hours, and over the course of the night my knees grew kind of sore (since when am I an octogenarian?) but I picked up some of the steps and had a ton of fun. I think that my first time going out dancing was, in many ways, a rite of passage. I would never describe myself as shy in general--I am usually quickly friendly when I meet new people--but I am crowd-shy, and noise-shy, and body-conscious, so going to Salsa Sundays was a little intimidating. Hopefully this gap year will be filled with many more intimidating, but ultimately fun and doable, experiences like this one.

Third, I am growing steadily more in love with NBC's Community. My boyfriend and I have been watching it together every weekend, and I like to play the clips with Abed and Troy over and over again, and he likes to make comments on what it says about my brain that this repetitiveness never bores me, and I like to ignore him and continue to appreciate Abed. I am so impressed by this character because in every episode so far, he has managed to break my heart a little bit and make me almost suffocate with laughter. He is so eager and sincere, and so, so, weird at the same time. He and the rest of the ensemble cast are worth watching, so if you're not already hooked, go catch up on Hulu!

Fourth, turns out I am the ONLY person enrolled in the gap year program in the Dominican Republic. So I might be going to Seville instead. Big development. Yes. But, I don't know that much about this big development yet, and it's past by bedtime (didn't I mention earlier that I am an octogenarian? Because I am, at heart.) Good night!