Flamenco en Sevilla! (y proche)

Check out my awesome hat!

13 Septiembre 2007, Jueves

Not much to report today. We went to the famous (not to mention ginormous) cathedral in Sevilla today. It is the main architectural touristy draw for the city, aside from the Plaza de Espana. It started out as a mezquita (mosque) sometime around the year 1100 and then got converted to a gothic cathedral in the 1400s and they just kept adding more and more…gothic architectural stuff to it. Like the Giralda…a huge bell tower that had to have been the tallest building in medieval Europe sometime. It has a huge weather vane at the top of it, which is where the name comes from: “girar”=to spin…giralda. I have been to (it feels like) thousands of gothic cathedrals and they all seem to mesh into one in my mind, so I hadn’t realized that I had actually been to the cathedral until I saw the tomb of Christopher Columbus, which is very distinct since it is this huge bronze statue of four Spanish kings carrying a coffin. Right around that time, Natalia and I ran into a huge Russian tourist group from New York, which was interesting.

Senora made the most interesting thing for lunch which was stuffed aguacate (avocado) with shrimp..mmm…..

I found the best helado in Seville today. The word for ice cream cone in Spanish is “cucurucho,” which just sounds like you’re ordering ice cream in a rooster.

In the evening, I vegged out by watching “Gran Hermano” which is like the American show Big Brother. Already, the transvestite in the house, a very attractive “girl” named “Amor” is causing issues between some of the characters. Spanish TV, along with most TV in the world, is complete trash….even the Spanish are known to call TV “telebasura”…(teletrash) They look up to American TV and most TV shows are dubbed versions of House, Friends, etc. That should tell you something.

14 Septiembre 2007, Friday

Today we had an interesting assignment in Celeste’s class…she gave each of us a deck of cards, so we can ask a Sevillano to teach us how to play a card game.

In the afternoon, Natasha and I went shopping for a bit so I could buy my old camera for 20 euros cheaper in El Corte Ingles (gotta love El Corte Ingles). In the evening, we went to a flamenco show in El Palacio Andaluz, definitely one of the most touristy things I’ve done since coming to Sevilla. It was interesting, the place was beautiful, and flamenco is always fun to watch. The guys all had this straggly hair that made them look like hobos, which was not the most attractive look. I suppose the look they were going for was the stereotypical latin love type, but it wasn’t working. Flamenco dresses are so pretty…I cannot WAIT to take classes….

Afterwards we went to this cute as hell little hole in the wall tapas place, complete with hanging jamon legs. We tried a typical Andalucian drink, I think it was a kind of wine called remujito. The tapas were seriously amaaaazzzinnngggg….I had this ensaladilla (little salad) tropical, complete with pineapple and shrimp. Then patatas aioli, which my Senora makes much better than most tapas places. Also, I had this montadito (small sandwich) with shrimp and aioli, which is kind of like a mayonnaise type of sauce. Then we headed to Calle Alfalfa for mingling with Sevillanos, which I still have not gotten the hang of. Jaoine, our chaperone, is dating this Spanish guy called Juan Carlos. (yes, like the King of Spain) We could not understand A WORD of what he was saying. We also checked out this discoteca called Catedral which was trying so hard to be selective and pretentious, but didn’t really do it for me. The nice thing about Sevilla is that girls don’t usually have to pay cover, but guys do.

15 Septiembre 2007, Sabado

Oh so early this morning we went to Carmona, a small city about 20 minutes from Sevilla. We looked at Roman ruins there….a necropolis, or graveyard, of tombs and whatnot. A cool part was climbing down this ladders into an actual tomb which only a few people could do at a time…

We also went into the town to see (what else) the church there, which was actually very pretty. It had this creepy lifesize statue of Jesus which had a curious story. One guy asked the Jesus to cure his daughter of some illness. When she got better, as a way of saying thanks, he cut off her hair and made Jesus a wig. So this statue has real hair. Like I said…creepy…

The streets in this part of Andalucia are tiny and narrow, and buildings high, in an effort to beat the heat….so the sun won’t be able to shine into narrow alleyways. Buildings are exclusively white to also beat the heat, which makes for a nice view from a high point which we also did. Carmona is famous for churros con chocolate, which we had at a small café…it was really nice…the churros weren’t really anything special, but the whole experience was.

Back in Sevilla, during lunch, Senora and Juan were reminiscing about girls who had lived here previously, and Juan brought in this giant book about America to show me. He opened to the first page which was this huge map of America with little X’s to show where each girl who had lived in their house was from, complete with her name so they would not forget. It was kind of funny, there was an X in central Illinois with no name, and they couldn’t remember who it was…..which is a shame. I proudly made an X and wrote “Estela” somewhere (I hope) in the general vicinity of Galesburg.

This afternoon I had coffee with Roberto, my intercambio (kind of like an exchange program with the University of Seville). He was…interesting, kind of watered type goth type. He arrived wearing all black, complete with beard and earring. He is a student of English and spoke it quite well. (we alternated between ingles and Spanish). Somehow my conversations always end up being on the deep side, and we started to talk about G-d and religion. He says that most people are just baptized and have first communion because that’s how it’s always been, but most people are really uneducated about religion and really don’t care. (or go to church or anything, in the case of young people). He had never met a Jewish person before, so I took the opportunity to inform him a bit, and we talked about the similarities between religions. I also asked him what stereotypes Sevillanos had regarding Americans and he said that they were self-centered, in regards to education, since they do not know anything about Spain and cannot even locate it on the map. He asked me about what stereotypes Americans had about Spain, and I had to think hard because HA HA we don’t really think about other countries in the states. So of course I said the flamenco and bullfighting bit. I don’t think I will meet him again, but it was still a nice opportunity to talk to someone. (he also fulfilled my homework of learning a card game, which was not exciting because it was a game called “bullshit” that I have played since about twelve years of age…called “mentiroso” (liar) in Spain.

Just in case you were wondering, the Spanish word for “piercing” is…. “piercing,” said in a Spanish accent otherwise you will not be understood. It seems as if they are QUITE popular here, among the young people one can say they are indispensable. Among girls…lip piercings seem to be all the rage…Christy, you’d fit in quite easily. They like the Marilyn, and all sorts of variations. I don’t people are quite as creative with lip piercings in the States.

Vale.