Sevilla
We departed from Granada at 4 in the afternoon, and hopped back on the bus. Our hotel in Sevilla was not in the best part of town, it was on a tiny street in a random neighborhood full of Chinese stores. Chinese stores are everywhere here. Basically, they are owned by Chinese immigrants who sell literally, everything,. Silverware, school supplies, body wash, sweatpants, make-up, food, lawn mowers, hair dryers etc. All of these items are so inexpensive it forces you to second guess the origins of the products being sold. Anyways, I was assigned to room with my friend Janice! Our room had two huge windows, which we immediately opened after smelling the pungent odor of I-have-no-idea upon our entrance to the room. We were pleasantly surprsised to find our window opened up to a lawn at eye level, full of glow in the dark mushroom lights. (weirdest thing I’ve seen in Europe thus far – not really, but close). After dropping our stuff off in our room, my friends and I walked around Sevilla and tried to find the better part of town. We found a neigorhood full of restaurants and American students. Hoping to avoid them, we started walking around curvy dark streets and found an Argentian restaurant. We decided to eat there because of the amazing paintings inside and were pleasantly surprised by the delicious food. My first Argentine meal was a good one. After dinner, a few of us went back to the hotel but two of my friends I kept walking around. Walking around new cities at night is a really challenging way to be introduced to a city but the next morning everything makes so much sense and you gain a feeling of confidence knowing where everything is. The next morning, we all got back on the bus and went to the ruins of Italica. () AMAZING. Roman ruins from the 4th and 5th century. The ampitheater was first used for watching fights. There are bomitones which are almost underground structures every few feet which were used for people to throw up their food into after they ate too much, which was what only the rich people could do. The idea was that even when viewing the theatre/humiliations going on inside the ampitheater, you could always have a view the rest of the world nearby. The ampitheater was later used for theater, the Romanos were really into comedies.
The structure is in the shape of a circle, with one huge gap at the entrance. The idea was that during the espectaculos, a view of the rest of the world was always within eyesight. Surrounding the ampitheater are remnants of the old city that once stood there. Mosaics dating back to the 5th century are still there with beautiful portraits of women and nature scenes. The first sewer system was in the Italica ruins, which made this civilization far more advanced than any others at the time. They were able to communicate far distances and share their assets. With the sewer system came increased hygiene, therefore healthier citizens. It was not until the 20th century that Europe recovered the sewer system. After the ruins, we were dropped off in the middle of town to get lunch and explore for a few hours. A big group of us started exploring the city and found the Plaza de Espanya, a huuuuuuuge semi-circle plaza which has beautiful tiles every few feet with detailed maps and paintings of tons of Spanish cities. After asking 3 drunk Spaniards who loooved Barcelona to take a picture of us in fron of the Barcelona tiles, we continued our walk around Sevilla. Sevilla is a beautiful city. Every street is so well-kept and clean, and all of the people are polite and well dressed. There is a huge sense of maturity, cleanliness and stability throughout the town. A few of us decided to splurge 6 euro and get an hour and a half tour of the original Bull Fighting Ring. I knew I had to do it after hearing how much Grandpa Paul loved bull fighting. Bull fighting started in Sevilla and is a huge part of sevillian culture. The staium is beautiful and can sit 14thousand people, the top rows are reserved for Spanish Nobility. Bright white, yellow and red are the three colors of the stadium, which contrasted beautifull that day with the bright blue sky. After hearing some facts about the history of bull fighting and how it works we were able to tour the inside of the structure. We got to see the old and new infirmaries where the hurt matadors are taken care of. Unfortunately, no infirmaries exist for the bulls. There were galleries upon galleries of beautiful paintings and sculpture influenced by the fighting of the bulls. We were able to see all of the matadors’ costumes throughout the years and plenty of famous bulls’ real heads stick out from the walls. The last matador to die there was in 1995, that year 2 men died. There is one female matadora who has been really successful so far and should be pretty famous if she survives the next few years. After our tour, we realized we were 5 minutes late to meet at the bus with the rest of the group and we hadn’t eaten lunch and wouldn’t be able to eat again for 4 – 5 hours when we would be done with our tours of the Palacios. We ran back to the hotel and grabbed some food at a random store and thankfully made it to the bus on time.
I don’t ever think about my wedding, besides BC stuff(mama)HAHA. Butttt now I know where I want to get married(now I just need to figure out to whom). The gardens at the Royal Alcazar in Sevilla are sooooo amazingly, outrageously, beyond beautiful…The gardens were placed there in the 19th century and are of the Romantic period.. There is a huge maze of 6 foot tall shrubs, wild peacocks roaming around, hundreds of tiny courtyards with beautiful fountains, orange trees everywhere, all surrounded by brick walls covered in ivy. The actually palace is of the Renaissance period, 15th century. 1st the palaee was Christian, but has some Arabic architecture as well. The arabs and the Christians were friends. There is a sala de la justicia de la epoca del arabo. They used poor materials(gesso and concrete), there is some blank space, geometry and calligraphy and is in the form of a cube. THIS contrasts with the CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE. El mudeja is the name of the art that the arabs made for the Christians, has elements of both religions. On the outside of one of the palace buildings “The only one that is the King is Ala” is written in Arabic. The Christians had no idea what it said until hundreds of years later when a Christian who could read it let them know that the constructions workers had written this on their belived palace. My notes on this are so scrambled, so sorry for the scrambled egg description. But basically , the palace is a mix of Christian and Arabic architecture and design. The Christian aspects are of the Renaissance style – with half point arches, jonico columns, and lots of faces. The Arabic aspects have more blank spaces, lots of calligraphy, Arabic arches(lots of little arches on top of one another). It is a beautiful contrast between the two and the fact that the two groups of people were amigos makes it all that much more moving. Our 2nd night in Sevilla, two friends and I went to an Italian restaurant. (really going international while in Seville). It was amazing. Thinc rust pizzas, with fresh olives and tomatoes. Yum… we spent four hours talking, went back to the hotel and watched a really depressing movie about a dog dying(never okay) and cried and fell asleep four of us to two tiny beds haha
