Anguilitas

The other day I was perusing the fridge, trying to get a heads up on what outrageous foods to expect in the next week and I discovered a package of what seemed to be baby eels. It was labeled "anguilitas" and sure enough, when I looked up eel in my handy dandy pocket sized spanish dictionary it said that anguila meant eel.

You may be imagining that when I opened the fridge I was greeted by something like this:

Had that happened, I would not actually be alive to write this blog, as my heart would have stopped right then. They actually looked something more like this (still frightening if you know it will end up in your stomach at some point):

So imagine my joy when I came home for dinner tonight to find a salad made of shrimp, tuna, baby eels, and tomatoes (oh, there was a little lettuce too, but not much). I, being the intense world traveler that I am, tried one and then proceeded to scoot the other ones away from the rest of my food. It didn't taste awful, but the texture was just too weird for me to willingly eat. Luckily Ana (my host mother) had also made me a tortilla francia (omelet style eggs) and left me to eat all of the fruit and yogurt that I wanted. (She did say that the rest of the salad was for me and Jabi...needless to say, I hope Jabi was hungry when he got home).

Southern Spain Part 3: Sevilla y Italica

Thursday morning we found ourselves back on the bus headed for Sevilla. When we arrived it was once again raining. We checked into the hotel and then left for the Cathedral. Sevilla's Cathedral is the largest in Spain and one of the largest in Europe. It was quite impressive with its high vaulted ceilings.

One of the most exciting things about the cathedral is that Christopher Columbus is buried there. Here is his tomb:

The other awesome thing about the cathedral is the Giralda tower, which remains from when it was a mosque. We climbed to the top, which was quite a work out, but worth it for the view.


After seeing the cathedral, we wandered the streets in search of a place for lunch. Luckily the rain had stopped and it had started to warm up. We got kebabs, which were delicious. The man working there took about 10 minutes to make each one, so it took forever. Afterward Mark and I went back to a tapas bar we had passed because we had seen enormous chocolate croissants in the window.

We split one because we weren't sure if they would be good, but it turned out to be in the top three croissants I have tried so far. When we went back to find the rest of the group they had disappeared, but we found Kimball and Tim coming out of a McDonalds, so the four of us decided to check out La Plaza España. By then the weather was super nice, which was great because the plaza turned out to be amazing. It is one of my favorite things we have seen so far in all of Spain.

A quick aside about Spanish culture: PDA is very common in Spain. Everywhere we go, if the weather is decent there are couples making out and sitting on each other and just displaying a lot of affection. We have discussed this a lot and come to the conclusion that we think it is so common because no one hangs out at people's houses, so it is normal to just be very affectionate in public. A typical example:

The plaza was beautiful, especially the bridges crossing the river that ran through it.

For any Star Wars fans, this should look familiar. It is where part of episode II was filmed, when they were on Naboo.

A sweet jumping picture in the plaza (Mark, Tim, and I):

After the plaza, we went back to the hotel to meet up with other people. Then Mark, Tim, Lara, Kami, Ali, and I went out for tapas and then flamenco. Here's the view as we crossed the bridge by our hotel on our way out.

The Giralda tower that I mentioned us climbing earlier:

The flamenco show we went to was a free one in a bar. It was really cool to see, thought not as awesome as the second show we went to later. It was fun to see the contrast between the two. The point of flamenco is for the singer, guitarist, and dancers to create the most intense experience they can for the people viewing it. Awesome.



After flamenco we headed back to the hotel. I was rooming with Courtney that night, who had already gone to bed, but left the door of our room open for me. Before going in for the night I popped into Kiley and Kami's room and we ended up chatting until 3 in the morning, at which time I tried to go back to my room. Unfortunately when I went to open the door, someone else had already closed it. Even worse, I had been informed that Courtney was a very deep sleeper. This proved true after I pounded on the door several times and she did not wake up. After going through my options in my head...sleep on the floor in the hall, pull the fire alarm, ect...I ended up spending the night on the couch in Kiley and Kami's room.

The next morning we went as a group the the Alcazar, which is the palace in Sevilla. It was similar to the Alhambra.

The gardens were especially beautiful. Here is Bryanne and I in the gardens:

After the Alacazar some of us hit up a bullfighting museum/arena.

The arena is cool, but the sport/artform itself I find repulsive. Somehow watching people kill a bull does not sound entertaining to me, but I a willing to accept that it is part of the Spanish culture.

After that we got some lunch and then Mark, Lara, and I headed back for more chocolate croissants because Lara had had a bad experience with one the day before and needed to redeem it with a good one. We stopped in at a different pastry shop first and split one. I happened to notice this fabulous bread that reminded me of the alligator bread I used to make with my mom, so this picture is a shout out to her.

Yay for never having too many chocolate croissants (we each got our own this time).

Then we headed back to La Plaza España to meet up with more people. On the way we found a park and played on this sweet balancing type seesaw thing.

The sun continued to grace us with its presence, which was marvelous.

Lauren, Lara, and I in the plaza being crazy.

That night we headed out for another flamenco show. This one was outstanding. It was one of my favorite moments so far in all of Spain. I managed to get a little clip of it in the end, but this was not even the best part. It's pretty much indescribably awesome though, so that means everyone should come to Spain and see a flamenco show in Sevilla.




Oh, and did I mention the man was so sexy?

After a wonderful stay in Sevilla, we had to head home Saturday morning. We had one final stop in Italica on the way back. Italica was a Roman city and currently contains the remains of the third largest Roman Ampitheater.

A Roman mosaic:

The trip was fantastic overall. Despite the weather we managed to have tons of fun and see so many awesome things. Basically, I love Andalucia (southern spain), but especially Sevilla.

Souther Spain Part 2: Cordoba

As we pulled into Cordoba the sun was shining, which we were happy about after the rain in Granada. The bus dropped us off several blocs away from our hotel so we grabbed our luggage and started making our way over. Less than five minutes later the sun vanished and the clouds released what seemed to be an entire ocean on us. By the time we got to the hotel five minutes later, we were rather wet as Lauren and Kiley are demonstrating in this picture:

The rain of course did not stop us. We dumped our stuff off at the hotel and headed out to see the cathedral. What's interesting about Cordoba's cathedral is that it used to be a beautiful mosque and then the Catholics came and built a cathedral right in the middle of it. Charles V said when he saw it "you have destroyed something unique to build something commonplace." I must say that I agree with him. The central cathedral part is beautiful, but nothing compared to the parts of the mosque that remain on the sides. These arches (which I called the 'candy cane arches' in order to remember them on the AP art history exam) are part of the old mosque:

Tim, Mark, Lara, and I in the mosque:


After the cathedral we went to check out an old Roman bridge. It was beautiful, even in the rain.

Tim and I on the bridge:

Our director told us that we needed to find this statue and rub his foot because because it would bring good luck.

Then we went to find a bull fighting museum; however, when we found it we discovered that it must have been closed for several years. Here it is:

After the disappointing museum Mark, Tim, Lara, Kim, and I went in search of chocolate croissants and Doner Kebabs. We found the kebabs, but not the croissants. For some reason, Cordoba seems to be the only city that does not have a pastry shop on every corner. Regardless, it was fun just walking through the city.

After dinner, we were all at the hotel and some of us decided to go out and find a pub. On our way we heard music coming from a bar, so we went in to check it out. We stayed there for about an hour, drinking our cokes and fantas while we listened to a group of Spaniards singing and playing the guitar. When we left, it had started raining, but none of us had umbrellas because it wasn't raining earlier. We ran home in the rain and got rather wet.

Then we decided why not embrace the rain and go for a walk. Kiley, Lauren, Kimball, Ben, and I headed back out and walked to the Roman bridge. We were soaked, but had a good time because we were walking through the streets of Spain in the rain after midnight.

Southern Spain Part 1: Granada

Tuesday morning we headed off to southern Spain. We were supposed to meet at a parking lot near the train station at 8 in the morning. This meant that Kiley and I left our house around 7:30 in the morning to take a bus there. We all arrived and waited about 20 minutes for the bus to come, but it never showed. Finally our director called the bus company and discovered that they had no record of our reservation, but that they could send a bus over at 10. This meant that we all ended up hanging out at the Brown's house for two hours wishing that we were still asleep.

When 10 rolled around we headed off on our adventures with renewed spirits because the bus had arrived. Our first stop was at some la mancha style windows like the ones that Don Quixote thinks are giants. Kami read us chapter 8 of book one of Don Quixote as we drove up to them.

It was rather windy.

So windy in fact that Lara and I blew away.


Our next stop was Granada. Before arriving there we made a stop in a random town so that our bus driver could eat. What's funny is that we happened to notice him drinking a beer with his meal. To say the least, we all felt a little sick by the time we arrived in Granada. I don't know if the roads were windy or the alcohol was kicking in or maybe he was just a crazy driver like everyone else in Spain.

We arrived in Granada and checked into our hotel. Because of our late start that morning we missed our chance to see the cathedral, so we all just headed out to explore the city. Here's a shot of the Alhambra from across the city:

The weather was certainly less than ideal in Granada. It was rainy and a bit cold, but that didn't stop us from wandering through the streets. It also didn't stop this person from making street art like in Mary Poppins, he however was smart and used sharpie so that it didn't get washed away. We need more things like this in the states.

We also need more awesome graffiti. Graffiti in Spain is nothing like what I have seen in the states. Maybe I have just lived in the wrong areas for good graffiti, but in Spain it comes off as much more of an art than just dirty words written on a wall (it may be because we don't know what it says usually). But it also is everywhere, which makes it look much cooler.

We went out to dinner and then stopped in at a pastry shop for a chocolate croissant (the goal is to have one in every city we visit). This time Lara and I split one since it was right after dinner and we knew we were hitting up three cities within five days (the other goal is to not get fat).

The next morning we went to the Alhambra as a group. I've heard it said that if you are going to see one site in Spain, the Alhambra is the one to see. It was incredibly beautiful and full of intricate plaster carvings and mosaics such as this ceiling:

There were tons of gardens in between all of the buildings. They were beautiful and we definitely lucked out with good weather.

Lara, Kami, and I posing in some arches:

Kami and I in a courtyard:

Me at an overlook on a tower in the Alhambra.

After the Alhambra we got back on the bus and traveled another uncomfortable 3 hours to Cordoba.