Sevilla, España

Sevilla Blog Entry
Sevilla was a spur of the moment decision. I knew I wanted to go at some point while in Spain, but it happened to be this past weekend because Ryanair is awesome. While paroozing their website I stumbled upon round trip tickets from Alicante to Sevilla for less than 30€! After trying to convince my friend Hill to go with me and not having any luck, my friend John walked into the University of Alicante cafeteria and asked if I wanted to go with him, Carli, Steph, and Carolyn to Sevilla to celebrate Carolyn's 21st birthday. Que casualidad! What a coincidence! I had my ticket purchased within 5 minutes. We left Thursday after class and had our first smooth Ryanair flight. We found our hostel and, to our pleasant surprise, it was one street away from a really cool park called Alamada de Hurcules. The alamada had a mosaic tile floor in sections, fountains, benches and was encircled by about 50 different bars, cafes and tapa places. Not bad for randomly selecting a hostel location. The hostel itself was really cool too. We had a private ensuite- which means rather than dorm style with strangers the five of us had our own room and bathroom. The atmosphere was very chill too. When we walked in a bunch of hippies from the Netherlands were playing acoustic guitar and singing Bob Dylan and the third floor terrace was always bustling. We took it easy Thursday night and just checked out a few places around the alamada, knowing that the next night would be Carolyn's 21st. We woke up early Friday to get a full day of tourism in. The first thing we wanted to find was the Cathedral and right when we got the steeple in sight a guy driving a horse drawn carriage stopped and asked us if we wanted a ride to the Cathedral. I laughed at him and pointed at the steeple just two blocks away. Nice try, señor. He laughed and said that it was actually a tour of the city that ended at the cathedral. The girls were really into it and before asking a price had already jumped in. Worried about breaking the bank in our first hour exploring Sevilla, I made sure to talk to the driver before getting in. For 10€ each the five of us got a carriage tour for an hour. It was perfect because we really got out bearings of the city that none of us knew at all. After we got out of the carriage we met up with Carolyn's friend from home who was studying in the city and was waiting at the cathedral. Her name is Sam and she had brought a friend (who was actually from Michigan). We all toured the cathedral and then went up the tower. The tower was 34 stories and was designed for horses to climb up it, so instead of stairs it had a series of ramps. After the cathedral and tower we all headed back to our part of the city to get dinner and hang out a little bit before going to a free flamenco show. David, the guy who was in charge of the hostel, organized this every weekend for the clients. We met in the lobby and walked to a flamenco bar. I'm not sure if the free price tag had anything to do with it, but I enjoyed this flamenco show more than the "famous" one that we had seen just a week earlier in Valencia that had cost us 19€. Everyone agreed. After the flamenco show we headed back to the bar area around our hostel to celebrate Carolyn's birthday. We woke up a little slower Saturday morning, but still got up relatively early, had a great Spanish breakfast, and then headed to an open-air market. Afterwards we went through the shopping district (which is very difficult to walk through when you're traveling with 3 girls) and then spent the entire afternoon at Plaza de España. Plaza españa in Sevilla is something like a shrine to Spain. It is a huge semicircle building with a moat around it. Around the front of the building are different bench sections all next to each other and each one is dedicated to a city in Spain. Behind each bench is a mosaic of a scene correlated with each city and on the floor in front of the benches are maps of the region around the city. Naturally we all took pictures on the Alicante bench. After a little wandering and exploring of the monument we rented a rowboat and enjoyed a nice row around the moat. After plaza de españa we split up into two groups- Steph and Carli went back to shop in the same shops that we have in Alicante (only in Sevilla) while Jon, Carolyn and I went down to the riverfront to find the Torre de Oro. It was the docking sight of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Columbus left for the new world from this sight and also returned to it, dropping off his piles of gold stolen from America. The tower was originally built in the 13th century as a watchtower. After the torre we decided to walk back along the river, even though it was quite a bit farther that way. We didn't care. It had been a beautiful day and the sun setting over the river made our decision a lot easier. As we walked along the boardwalk we saw crew teams rowing down the river, floating bars and restaurants, boats, the setting sun and as we continued to walk we heard a rumbling that grew louder and as we walked around a river bed we saw the boardwalk open up and covering the benches on each side of this plaza was a couple hundred people, all our age, just sitting around, drinking, playing music and getting ready to go out for the night. We spent a little time checking out the area, talking to a few people and then had to go, unfortunately, because we had to meet up with the other two girls. We did dinner, the girls got ready to go out, and then we went to the bars around or hostel again, only this time we were only at the bars to kill time before the discotecas. Carolyn and her friend wanted to go to a big dance club to celebrate her birthday. We headed over the club district around two, arriving 20 min later. We got in line at the most popular club in Sevilla only to find out that after 2am it was a 30€ entrance fee! HA, that's a good joke... That is more than our Ryanair round trip flight cost! We walked down the street to another giant dance club only to find out the same thing was true there. Although Sevilla is an amazing city, this made me pretty happy to be studying in Alicante. We ended up settling for a large bar/ smallish discoteca and having a very good time. The next morning my four amigos left for the airport and I set out into Sevilla to enjoy a nice, peaceful day alone. I went to the palace and toured its grounds and then went over to a park that a waiter had told us about the day before- something about it having 3000 trees and lots of fountains. He wasn't kidding! It was a pretty cool place. Afterwards I walked back to the center of the city and then down to the riverfront where I was going to kill time until my friend Lauren from Washington and Lee was done with her and intercambio. She showed up to the tapa restaurant about an hour after me. In the meantime, I had made friends with the waiter and cook at this little place (where they only had one other table to worry about). They were both native to Sevilla and had lived their entire lives there. As we made small talk they kept putting free tapas in front of me. Of course I had ordered one with me beer when I had first gotten there (Spaniards rarely drink without food), but they told me that they liked me and about four free tapas later Lauren showed up. I think the restaurant workers like how much I enjoyed their food. I'm a poor college kid traveling on his own €- nice meals are few and far between when I'm not having Stella put them in front of me. Lauren and I had beer and ordered another tapa but the restaurant was closing so we paid and moved on to another place. After macadillos we split ways and I headed back to my new hostel (closer to the airport because I had a very early flight the next day). I went up to my room, which I was sharing with 9 other people to relax a little and found four Italians who had just arrived. None of them spoke English but were all more or less fluent in Spanish, so we could get by. They invited me out to dinner with them and although I was full, I went anyway. It was a good opportunity to practice Spanish and also get out of the hostel with people rather than just alone. It was a Sunday night, so nothing big was happening, but we still have fun.

Granada

The final exams of our “intensive Spanish period” courses finished Friday mid-afternoon and the entire CC-CS group boarded a bus bound for Granada, Spain.  Granada is a very important city in Spanish history.  It was last Muslim stronghold in Spain before the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, conquered it in 1492, ending the ~800 years of Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula.  Upon arriving in Granada, we checked all 50 of us into the hotel and then those of us who had signed up before hand went to Cueva de la Rocia.  Cueva de la Rocia is a very famous flamenco tablao.  Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, Antonio Banderas and many other famous people have visited it.  Cueva is “cave” in Spanish, and that is exactly what this little place looked like.  It was a long, skinny, arched corridor with chairs down each wall.  The decorations were peculiar- all white walls, pots hanging from the ceiling, pictures of notable guests on the wall, and a red tint to the lighting.  As we walked into the cave to take our seats adjacent to the entrance, Hill (one of closest friends in the program), pointed out a section of the floor that was very worn.  In the middle of the “U” shaped outline of chairs was a wooden dance floor.  It wasn’t elevated and almost blended into the rock floor.  After everyone had taken their seats the lights dimmed and the dancers and band entered through the same door as the crowd, situated themselves on the set of four to five rounded stairs that we had just descended and started clapping in rhythm.  A microphone was set up and one of the ladies started singing in a very throaty voice and shortly after, a guitarist accompanied her.  Once the music was flowing, a man wearing black boot/shoes with large heals on them stood from his seated position on the stairs, walked to the middle of the U of chairs onto the worn dance floor and started clapping and tapping his feet to the beat.  The rate of his foot tapping increased to a very impressive rate and the snaps and thunks of his shoes created a whole new element to the flamenco music.  A lady dancer joined the male and they tapped and clapped together in a synchronized fashion- wrapping around each other and never missing a beat.  They alternated between dancing solo, in pairs, or even as many as four at a time.  When they took their break in the middle of the performance, we were all given a tall glass of sangria and we chatted about how amazing the performance was.  The dancers came back, finished with very impressive performance- selecting audience members to join them for a laugh- and then we left.  

We all went on a surprise walking tour of the area around the tablao (to the dismay of some of the tired, unenthusiastic complainers), and ended up at a little church with an amazing view of a fully illuminated Alhambra!  After we got back on the bus, we were given two options:  one group was going back to the hotel, and the other was going to be dropped in the center of the city so they could get tapas and see a little bit of the nightlife.  I went with the second group, of course.  We split and went to different places to eat.  When my group walked into our restaurant, there was a group of Spaniards who, by the amount of empty cups and plates on their table, we could tell had been there a while.  They started clapping when they saw us- clearly a foreign group.  They invited us over to sit at a table next to them, but there wasn’t room for our pretty big group.  The place was small and we sat across the main entranceway from them.  They kept breaking out into spits of clapping, singing and flamenco dancing and were inviting us to join them time and time again.  Finally, the girls convinced me to get up and try my hand at a little flamenco.  Let’s be honest, it really didn’t take that much peer pressure.  They guy and girl pair who had been doing most of the dancing took me into their group, got the clapping and singing going, and told me to just try my best.  My best was obviously not very good, judging by the amount of laughing I received from the whole place, but they wouldn’t let me sit down, so I learned a couple basic steps and claps and kept going.  I convinced the rest of my table to get up and join us and the pair (please keep in mind I did not say couple) took turns dancing with each of the Americanos.  We sat back down, ordered round after round of tapas, and enjoyed some food and drink.  When the group of Spaniards was getting ready to go, two of the guys came over to our table.  The “leader” of their group, Antonio, started talking and somehow the conversation switched from a friendly goodbye to very forward compliments directed at me.  “Hay que guapo.  Que bonito tu cara…” The friend of the leader had taken an empty seat next to a girlfriend of mine and they were talking.  After a few minutes, and before I knew what exactly was happening, Antonio was giving me a piece of paper with his phone number and telling me exactly how to get to his hotel.  He also, in very broken English, was telling the entire restaurant what he wanted me to do to him.  I’ll let you use your imagination for the details.  The girls at my table (keeping in mind that the guy to girl ratio in my program here is roughly 1:5), thought it was hilarious and actually encouraged this.  I don’t think my face has ever been redder in my life.  I didn’t know what to do besides tell him repeatedly that I am not gay.  I found out later that Antonio’s friend who had sat down next to Steph had been asking- or rather pleading with her- to tell him that I was gay and single.  Apparently I look exotic?  Single yes, gay no.  Sorry Antonio… After tapas it was already 2am and we had to be up and at breakfast very early, so we checked out one bar briefly on the way home and went up to our rooms to rest up for the Alhambra. 

The Alhambra is an amazing palace/ fort/ church in Granada.  Words can’t really do it justice.  It’s a fortified city with a palace and cathedral in it and overlooks Granada and the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains.  The intricacies of each wall, ceiling, garden, statue, etc. are amazing.  The mix between the Arab architecture and, later, the Catholic renovations make it a very unique place.  After the Alhambra we took a bus to the center of Granada and had a few hours to explore and eat before meeting up to go into the Cathedral of Granada.  The Cathedral took over 200 years to complete and is a hodgepodge of different eras of architecture, but is started out as gothic.   In a part of the cathedral are the mausoleums of Ferdinand and Isabella as well as Juana la Loca and her husband. 

After tapas we went to a hookah bar to further or arab cultural experiences for the day.  After Kabob, hookah and some drinks, we left and went to a club that we had heard nothing but good things about.  Granada Diez was unfortunately a cab ride away, but it had been built up so much that we decided that it was worth it.  And OHHHH was it worth it!  This was the kind of huge club that you’d see in movies about Europe in which people listening to house music and dance the night away. After rolling back to our hotel around 7:30am (it’s the Spanish way), I slept through breakfast, crawled to the bus in the morning and reminisced about how great Granada was the whole way home.  

Salsa

I went to my first salsa dance class last night!  There is a very popular discoteca right on the rambla in Alicante that offeres free, yes FREE, dance classes monday nights and I just found out about them!  Not only do they have a dance instructor, but you get free sangria as well.  Apparently a few girls from my study abroad program have been doing them since we got there.  Thanks for not telling me, ladies... I only stayed for an hour last night because it got progressively harder and I found myself tripping over my feet, and others, by the time we started up again after the second pause.  I feel like I was a little bit of a spectacle for the class because other than the instructor I was pretty much the only guy with around 30 girls.  I seem to be finding myself in groups of this ratio pretty often here in Spain.  Im not complaining!!!  I'm looking forward to next week, though!  Now I just have to find a place to take flamenco.