It's been several weeks now since I last updated this thing, and consequently I now have more to write about than anyone ever thought possible. But I will try to cram in the essentials in a vaguely reasonable number of words/posts, and I'll even try to go in chronological order, but I'm not making any promises.
I had a total of three weeks in my cozy apartment in Sevilla. The week by week breakdown went more or less as follows: Week 1- relax, unwind after months of travel, explore Sevilla, walk around, hang out in internet centers, read. I think that was also the week I took a day trip to Cordoba. Week 2- plan Sara's visit, read Wuthering Heights, Sense and Sensibility, Breakfast at Tiffany's and most of Absalom, Absalom, write some crazy poetry, mostly inspired by said Faulkner book, wait for Sara to arrive. This was the week I took a day trip to Granada. During those two weeks I prepared almost all of my own meals (though they all truly stretched the lower limit of required preparation) and ate a shocking amount of muesli/granola, which I find to be delicious, and appropriate for breakfast, dinner, dessert and snacks.
Week 3 was the week that Sara finally arrived (Hi blog readers! -- Sara), something I had been looking forward to throughout the whole trip to that point. Week 3 resembled the two weeks preceding it in that it was low-key, involved a lot of sleeping and rest and was far from a flurry of activity, but we did get around to visiting the main sites in Sevilla, such as the giant Gothic Cathedral and the Moorish Alcazar palace, which I had been putting off until then. I also got to try a lot more local cuisine that week, since I could use having a visitor as an excuse for going out to eat / eating real meals like a normal person. That was the week I finally tried paella. Twice. And lots more tapas. Including octopus. On Thanksgiving. But before I get carried away with all that, a few words on my day trips.
Cordoba
A fascinating city, full of history. It took about 1.5 hours on the train each way. The whole city is surrounded by this crazy medieval fortress wall that the Arabs built when that whole section of the Iberian peninsula was under their control. Basically I spent the day walking around inside that Brown class I almost took last semester- "Living Together: Muslims, Christians and Jews in Medieval Iberia." I started the day by touring some ancient Caliph bath ruins, then I found one of three synagogues in Spain remaining from before the expulsion of 1492, went to a teeny museum on Spanish Jews and briefly visited the giant Mosque Cathedral. I didn't go inside because it was too expensive, but I could tell it was impressive and beautiful and cool all the same. The orange grove courtyard was nice. Apparently, the Arabs were big on those--I found more at the Alhambra, the Sevilla Catedral and the Alcazar.
Granada
I saw a wild pomegranate tree while I was illicitly tagging along behind a group of people who had paid for a tour guide (and bus) at the Alhambra. I've gotten really quite good at free-loading on this trip. Anyway, I recently discovered how delicious these things are, and after looking at the tree I started having a craving, and when I went back to Sevilla I bought myself one, only to discover that the Spanish word for pomegranate is in fact "granada." Coincidence? I think not. The main thing I did in Granada was tour the Alhambra, which is this crazy and amazing and huge old Arab palace. Really incredibly beautiful, with massive and extensive gardens. I also learned a lot about Washington Irving, one of America's earliest famous writers, who (lucky bastard) actually just got to chill out and live and write in the Alhambra for a few months at one point. That's when he wrote most of this book "Tales of the Alhambra" which originally put it on the map as a tourist destination. Pretty wacky stuff. And it's the 150th anniversary of the book this year, I think. Hence the museum exhibit.
I also had a tiny misadventure with a gypsy who caught me unaware as I approached G's cathedral (these Spaniards really like them some church). She stuck a piece of rosemary into my hand and proceeded to read my palm in mostly Spanish with some English thrown in now and then. At the end she asked put a cross on my forehead and then put her palm out and said "money." I was a little peeved. I had no interest in paying this woman for an unwanted, solicited, mostly incomprehensible and generally silly service. What's more, I didn't have any bills smaller than a 20 and although she offered to give me change, I didn't really want to go down that road. So I handed her the only coin I had, a meager 10 cents, and accepted her look of disdain gracefully.
Granada was also the trip upon which I was almost forcibly ejected from a train for the first time. It wasn't the first time I pushed my luck on a train, I spent a lot of time looking over my shoulder for fine-giving train officials in Scandinavia. In fact, this error was pretty innocent. When I went to Cordoba I took slower smaller older trains to avoid paying the really obnoxious main-line Spanish reservation fees. I just flashed my Eurail pass and rode. I figured I could do the same thing to Granada. But it turned out I was supposed to get a reservation, and wasn't allowed to ride without one. So the conductor held out his hand for 4 euros. Unfortunately, at that particular moment I was putting off a return to the ATM and had only 3.10 in currency on me. I wasn't sure if he was going to insist on throwing me off or not (because he didn't speak English, and I only kind of understand Spanish), but at the end of our talk he threw up his hands and never came back, so I can only assume he decided to let it go. He was pretty grouchy though.
I later chatted up and made friends with a middle aged San Franciscan couple who had been sitting a row or two behind me during this altercation on the train, and were waiting across from me for the train back to Sevilla later that night.
The best parts of the Sevillan cathedral, in my opinion, were the tower (formerly a mosque's minaret) that you could climb and see all of Sevilla from, and the tomb of Christopher Columbus, which I had no idea would be awaiting us there. It was also generally big beautiful and impressive. The Alcazar was cool, although I was less impressed than I might have been if I hadn't gone to the Alhambra first. The gardens there were also quite spectacular. And there were peacocks!
On Sara's first night in Sevilla we went out to dinner across the river. This was before we decided to purchase a small phrase book, and they had no English menu, so we picked items at random from the menu and hoped for the best. An excellent culinary adventure. We ended up with a really yummy tomato based stew with salty cod in it, and some meat we later discovered to be ox. Possibly ox calf. It was quite good. On our way back we saw a rat down by the water, which I thought was cool and Sara thought was terrible and upsetting. Especially when it started swimming. Then someone above our head started throwing small loaves of bread. We thought it might be AT us, but I think this restaurant just throws their leftover bread into the river for the fish. It was really crazy--the river positively started swarming and churning with fish. You could see thousands of them, right up at the surface, charging this bread and fighting over it. Exciting stuff.
And that pretty much covers the events of my latter two weeks in Spain. Except for our delicious, extremely non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner that culminated in me frequently stating "I'm a pirate and can drink as much as is needed," subsequently downing a bottle and a half of wine and, well...let's say I lived to tell the tale. Then of course there was the tragic saga of attempting to do laundry at my apartment. I think it's all dry now, but it took a good 4 or 5 days and several border crossings to get there. Soon I will write about my life post-Sevilla. It's been great, but despite a few landlady frustrations, Sevilla was a fantastic place to live, a beautiful city and it will always hold a special place in my heart, especially as it was technically the locale of my very first apartment. :)
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