And here is (the much anticipated, I'm sure ;)) part 2 of my Semana Santa blog post. So we left off on a late flight out of Morocco. After finally getting on said flight and arriving in Seville, we needed to hit up an ATM asap and then we went down to catch the bus into the center of the city. We thought there was no way we were going to get on the bus because there was already a huge crowd standing at the stop when we got there, but somehow we miraculously got on the first one, which was good because they only came like every half hour. We couldn't take the bus all the way to our hostel, so we had planned on just taking it into the city (the airport is a ways outside the city) and then walking the rest of the way. Our plans changed when it started pouring rain as we were on the bus, (especially since some of the girls obviously had not checked the weather and therefore had not packed a raincoat or umbrella) and we got into taxis instead. We told our driver the address of our hostel and he just says "No es posible."...and apparently felt no need to offer an explanation, so Cara asks "...Por que?" and it turns out the Semana Santa processions cause a lot of issues as far as driving in the city, because main roads get shut down, and so we asked him to just get us as close as he could. When he let us out, we had no idea where we were or how much further we needed to go. We had a map, but it apparently sucked because we even asked some locals to show us where we were on it and they couldn't find it (keep in mind, it is still downpouring). Eventually, thanks to Cara's sense of direction and navigation skills, we got it figured out and walked about another 10-15 minutes to our hostel.
The unpleasantness of the walk was made up for slightly by the fact that it was a really nice hostel. It was actually part of a chain of hostels and had a lot of different amenities and services for the people staying there, so it was good. We checked in and went up to our room and met up with another friend of ours who had gotten to Seville and checked in earlier. There were 6 of us, meeting up with number 7, in an 8 person room. We were hopeful that no one else would check in while we were there, but no such luck. More on that later. After settling in, we decided to go get dinner, since it was already pretty late. We asked the hostel for recommendations, but all of the restaurants they named were closed, along with many others, because of Semana Santa. It was definitely a blessing and a curse to travel that week. We got to see a lot of really cool stuff we wouldn't have seen otherwise, but it often made things inconvenient as well, which I somehow neglected to expect or even consider. Along the way we ran into some interesting architecture that we had learned about and then forgotten was in Seville and we all had our little nerd moment together (it's fun traveling with other architecture students :) haha). We eventually found a place that looked good, an Italian restaurant (give us a break, we can't eat Spanish food every night!) and afterwards we went to a place called Yogurtlandia (I kid you not) and got delicious frozen yogurt :). That night we just hung out in the lobby of the hostel and met some really weird, awkward guy who worked at the hostel to earn his room and board. None of us wanted to talk to him much, so we went up to our room, where we met our roommate: a man of about 60-ish years who spoke zero English from what we could tell, in a room with seven 20-something year old girls. I guess it was a little awkward for us, but really I just felt bad for him. My friends can get a little loud.
The next morning was a busy day since it was our only full one in Seville and there was a lot we wanted to see. We got up early-ish to go on a free walking tour through the hostel and met up with our guide, a funny little (really, he was like my height) Italian named Philippo (which I have no idea how to spell). It was kind of funny that the tour wasn't given by a Spaniard, but he was very knowledgeable about the city. The highlights for me were the Cathedral (even though we only saw the outside :( ), the Gardens of Maria Luisa, and Plaza Espanya, but we saw a few other places as well. I very quickly came to the conclusion that Seville is an absolutely beautiful city. Plus: it smells like orange blossoms! The whole city! Much better than the smell of Morocco. It was interesting how different it (and all of Andalucia that we saw) was from Barcelona. It was just a completely different feeling and atmosphere, and really Andalucia is what people typically picture when they think of Spain (bullfights, flamenco, tapas, little white houses, etc.) so that was really fun to experience. After the tour, our guide obviously had a deal with a local restaurant and pulled the whole "Oh, I'm going to go eat here, if you come too you get a discount for being with the tour!" So we went, but after looking at the menu, we weren't impressed. Seville is known for its tapas, but the menu there looked pretty standard, so we just got drinks and then went in search of a better restaurant.
We found another restaurant and sat outside to enjoy the rare sunshine we were getting (it didn't last), and it, on the other hand, had very good tapas. As we were sitting there, we had a good time watching all the adorable little Spanish kids in their Sunday best outfits, the siblings matching of course. I guess since the whole week is a religious holiday, they have to wear their church clothes the whole time? Either way, it was really cute. Everyone was heading in one direction and we thought maybe it was for a procession, so after finishing lunch and getting ice cream (of course) we headed over there, but it seemed as though we had missed it. It turns out it was just cancelled because of the possibility of rain, like they all had been since we'd arrived and were the whole time we were there. However, we did still see some of the people walking around in the costumes, so that was pretty cool. They're creepy. I took lots of pictures of them. I was kind of surprised they cancelled the processions because of rain. I thought that because of their religious significance, they would occur rain or shine, but that was not the case. It wasn't actively raining, but once we realized we weren't going to be able to see a procession anytime soon, we decided to do a little souvenir shopping and see some more sights. We tried to see the inside of the cathedral, but they closed the doors literally as we were walking up to them :(. We considered taking a horse carriage tour of the city, they were everywhere (just adding to the charm, of course), but decided against it in the interest of money.
Instead, we went and visited the Alcazar palace. Two of the girls didn't go because they didn't have their student IDs on them (silly girls) and didn't want to pay full price. To be honest, I feel like they missed out and it would've been worth the full price. The palace itself was huge and absolutely beautiful, and the gardens were probably twice the size and just as stunning. And on top of all that, there were peacocks roaming the gardens! I would expect nothing less. Unfortunately, we probably barely saw an eighth of the gardens before we saw some storm clouds rolling in that obviously meant serious business. We called the other two girls and we all decided to just meet back at the hostel (as it was already thundering menacingly) before the storm started. We literally made it back just as it started to rain, and it stormed ferociously for an hour or so. We hung out in the hostel while we made dinner plans. We had two more friends arriving in Seville via train that night and they wanted to meet us for dinner, but only Cara, Vanessa and I wanted to go. The hostel was having a paella event that night for 5 euro, so the other girls ate that instead. The three of us willing to brave the rain (not really, we took a cab) headed to the restaurant and Joe and Ava met us there. It was a good restaurant, but the really exciting part of the night was afterwards.
We met up with the other girls (and our new roommate, Diego, who was not in his 60s and who the girls had befriended) at a bar for a flamenco show! I was so excited, and I was not disappointed. We were advised to arrive early and the place really filled up by the time the show started. There were three people in the performance: a guitar player, a guy who sang and clapped, and a woman who sometimes clapped as well, but also danced :). It was incredible, I was so impressed. I've never heard anything like flamenco before, and the typical flamenco of Seville is really like intense and sad-sounding. It gave me goosebumps, for sure, and in the words of Joe, the dancer was "so fierce!" I'm really glad I got to go, it was one of my goals to see an authentic flamenco show. After the show we headed back and went to bed because we had an 8 am train to Cordoba to catch the next morning and our busiest day of the trip ahead of us.
We got up around 6 to head to the train station and had breakfast there while we waited for our train. It was a really fast train and we got to Cordoba in just a little over half an hour. We only had a few hours to spend there so we headed right to the main attraction, La Mezquita mosque/cathedral. I've always thought of it as a mosque, and it was a mosque first, but technically now it's a cathedral. Brief, somewhat accurate history lesson time (for context): Spain used to be completely controlled by Arabic people, many from Morocco, and it was during this time the mosque was constructed from an old Christian church. Then during the reconquest of Spain, the Christian conquerors decided, after reclaiming the city, to keep the mosque and just plop a cathedral right in the middle of it, and that's how it stands today. Yes, there is a cathedral right in the middle of the mosque, and both parts are actually really beautiful and stand alone as such, but the history makes it more interesting, I think :). After our visit to La Mezquita, we decided to go see the old Jewish quarter of the city, and the old Medieval synagogue (one of only three remaining in Spain), and then we took care of our mandatory souvenir shopping and had lunch. By then, our time in Cordoba was up. It was a really cute city, but there's not much to do there and we were aware of that; we had visited just for the mosque and it was totally worth the detour. Now it was time to head to the bus station for our ride to Granada.
It was really cool because it was a really nice bus. When you got on they handed you a bag with water, snacks and headphones, I had chosen a seat on the side where the row was only one seat across, so I got to sit by the window and the aisle :), and the bus had wifi! It was a little sporadic, but still, wifi on a bus! It was about a two hour ride, and I slept for awhile, but the scenery on the way was so pretty! There were rolling green hills and snow-covered mountains, and little hilltop villages and the whole landscape was covered in groves of olive trees (the Spanish sure do love their olive oil). It was just like a postcard, it was so picturesque. When we got to Granada, we had to hurry because our tickets to La Alhambra were for 6:30, we were advised to be there at 5:30, and our bus got in at 4:30. So we left our bags in a locker at the bus station and taxi-ed straight to La Alhambra, with, again, a little trouble due to Semana Santa processions. We got there with plenty of time and even got to check out some of the gardens before our entry time into the palaces. I was seriously giddy, I was so excited to be at La Alhambra. It was number one on my list of things to see in Spain, so I felt like a very accomplished tourist afterwards. Some people from our program who had already been had said it was overrated, but I didn't think so at all. I loved it. Maybe I'm easily impressed, but I don't mind. I'm happier that way. It was kind of a bummer because one of the most iconic parts was under construction :(, so I bought a postcard of it instead like any good tourist would do. After seeing the palace, we went and saw the Alcazaba, which had been the military defense area, and the views of Granada were beautiful. We found out later that what we were seeing was the Albaycin, which was the Arabic neighborhood and it was full of pretty little white houses. (The next day we were up there and saw the opposite view of La Alhambra :).) And finally, I went and saw the rest of the gardens that we hadn't seen earlier. We went back to the bus stop and collected our things and then took a bus to our hostel. Again, it didn't take us all the way, but this time it wasn't raining so we were able to walk. After not being able to see any processions in Seville, it totally made up for it when there was one passing by literally directly in front of our hostel when we arrived. It was nighttime and it was almost completely silent and very somber, so it was really neat. We checked into our hostel and it, again, was pretty nice, but very different from the one in Seville. It was called Funky Granada and we had a whole little apartment to ourselves. We went and got dinner and then went to bed.
The next morning we got up and went on another free walking tour through our hostel. I've decided I really like free walking tours because they're a good way to kind of get acquainted with and oriented within a city, especially if you only have a short time to do so. Like I mentioned before, the tour took us up to the Albaycin and we walked around that neighborhood, slowly making our way up the mountain. When we got to the top, there was a great lookout and we could really see how huge La Alhambra is, it was impressive. Afterwards my group decided to split up. Two others and I wanted to go see the Sacromonte neighborhood, which is comprised of gypsy caves, since it's up on the mountain with the Albaycin and it made sense to go then when we were already up there. The others decided to go get tapas and do some shopping in the main part of town. Ava and Joe hadn't been impressed with Granada, but we couldn't see why. We all really liked it and thought it was a really nice, cute city. Sacromonte was pretty neat. You couldn't always tell that the buildings were built into the mountain, but sometimes it was more apparent. It was just very different from anything I've ever seen before, it was cool. Afterwards, my half of the group went back to the Albaycin for lunch and then headed back down towards the city. On our way, we were walking down little streets full of shops and teahouses that were all very Moroccan-inspired. We saw a lot of knock-offs of the things we had seen in Marrakesh, but of course they had some neat things too. The weather kind of sucked, again, so we decided to stop into one of the really cute little teterias (tea-shops) and we had some tea and crepes. Afterwards we met up with the rest of the group and it was time to head to the airport. We got there pretty early and had dinner there. We were a little worried about our flight because there were some really dark clouds rolling in and a flight to Madrid was delayed, but ours was okay, it only left like 15 minutes late. We got back to Barcelona around midnight, took the Aerobus part-way but then had to take a taxi because the metro stops running at midnight. I got back, unpacked, and went straight to bed, I was so exhausted from our trip.
However, it was totally worth it. I absolutely loved it and had a great time. I saw so many things I had wanted to see and it was a lot of fun, even if we had terrible weather. I think Seville might be my favorite city in Spain, it was just so pretty and green (unlike Barcelona) and it smelled so good! Emma, if you read this, it smelled just like your Tocca perfume! You would love it. I wish we had had another day or two there, but we had to do our traveling quickly because Cara's family flew into Barcelona for a visit on the same day we were getting back, so she needed to get back to Barcelona by Thursday. They're here now and they're staying until Friday. I spent most of the day on Friday alone in the apartment (host family was at the beach house, Cara was with her family) just organizing my photos, getting them on Facebook, and writing the first half of my blog, but then I got to meet Cara's family when they invited me out for dinner, it was fun :). She has two younger sisters and one of them could be her twin. Her family is really nice, I like them :).
I got to see them again yesterday when our host family invited us all to come to lunch at the beach house. I met Cara and her family at Plaza Catalunya and we got on a train to take us out of the city to the beach house. When we got to the station, Juan and Juan were there to pick us up. It was a really nice day, so we sat outside and had appetizers and then went inside where Helen served the paella. I've had her paella once before and it's very good, if you like seafood. She knows I don't however, so she just gives me the rice with some calamari, which I don't mind (I mind the ones that are whole creatures still looking at me!) It was a really good meal and afterwards we went for a nice little walk around the villa that the beach house is part of and then Cara, her sisters, Juan and I let the adults keep walking while we went to the garage and had a ping-pong tournament. I'm pretty terrible. I lost significantly to Cara's younger sister and was out. The championship match was Juan against Cara (Cara had beat both her sisters to get there, Juan was just there automatically) and Juan won. Then, Cara and her family headed back to Barcelona and I decided to just stay here at the beach house rather than be in Barcelona alone (Cara is staying in another apartment with her family). I did some homework and we had dinner (not much, since we had eaten so much paella for lunch) and then at like 10 pm, my host family decided to watch Avatar, a 2 and a half hour movie, in Spanish. So that was super fun, I went to bed immediately afterwards, I was so tired (I think I have a bit of a cold and it's making me super sleepy).
Today (Happy Easter/Feliz Pascua!) a bunch of family members came over for Easter lunch. We had lamb (which I had never had before, to my knowledge) and potatoes, and cake for dessert. (Another plus of staying with the host family instead of in Barcelona alone: the food is much better.) It was a typical family gathering where I sat quietly and tried to follow their rapid-fire Spanish conversations. I do feel like I've improved, though, since my first family gatherings here. I still just struggle a little when they all speak at once, as is typical of Spanish conversation, and a lot of times they talk about things I can't really contribute to (Spanish politics, economics, family members or friends I don't know) so I tend to zone out a little and then Juan (Jr.) asks me if I've understood and depending on how ambitious I'm feeling I either just nod enthusiastically and say "si!" or I'm honest and tell him no, and then he explains it to me. After lunch, everyone sat outside a little longer as it was another beautiful day, but I hid inside and did some homework (after asking Juan to make sure his family wouldn't think I was being rude). I only have 5 days of class left, but I am going to be super busy up until the last. Juan went back to Barcelona tonight and my host parents are out to dinner with friends (they invited me but I needed to stay and work, plus I'd feel like a party-crasher, plus I'm way too tired). So it's just me here. I did some homework and watched some American tv shows dubbed into Spanish. Good times. Now it's time for bed.
Thank you again for reading this and congratulations on making it through another novel of a blog post. Only two to go! How sad. I mean, I could continue blogging, but then the title would be irrelevant and plus I don't really want to ;). Happy Easter, friends and family! I wish I could've been there, but I'll see you all again pretty soon, only 11 more days until I fly home!
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