Grazalema (check this city out on GoogleEarth for more photos)

This weekend 4 guys and I rented a little Peugot and drove to the pueblo of El Bosque (translated literally – the forest). It felt great to get out of the paved city for a little while and do some hiking. The plan was to do an overnight hike to the little town of Grazalema. Unfortunately a patroling park ranger put an end to that plan after about 3 hours of hiking because the trail was not only closed for fire danger, but also a private hiking trail. So we had to retrace our steps back to El Bosque and decided to drive to our destination. This whole area is beautiful – it reminds me of Yosemite with all the rock formations and mountains. And when we arrived in Grazalema that evening, we were blown away by the scenery. It’s a little town up in the mountains with incredible views, streets too tight to drive an American car through, and everything is built in typical old Spanish style with tiny little restaurants and bars surrounding a central plaza, and little homes, cafés, and shops extending out from there. All the buildings are white – giving the pueblo a unified, welcoming look. There was a wedding there that night, so everyone in the streets was all dressed up and on their way to a little restaurant on the side of a cliff where the reception was taking place. It was a beautiful little town to explore, and we’re going to try to come back sometime during the semester.

P.S. My new passport and debit card finally arrived here in Sevilla, which was a huge relief. Thanks for your prayers for that.

Cordoba

Sala de Oracion
El Mihrab

Last Thursday, I got to experience a meal of Spanish “tapas.” A couple of Spaniards who are friends of the school took out small groups to have a typical Spanish dinner of tapas, which are basically smaller appetizer-like plates. When the Spanish go out for tapas, they typically go to two or three different tapas bars and order a tapa and a drink at each stop. So that’s what we did. I really enjoy this type of dining, there’s a lot of variety in both the food and atmosphere of each restaurant, and it’s a pretty slow, enjoyable process (we met for dinner at 9:00 and by the time we’d finished with tapas and ice cream it was nearly 1:00 am).

The next morning we met at school at the very un-Spanish hour of 7:50 am to drive to Cordoba. We visited the mosque that was constructed there during the 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th centuries. However, now it’s now known as the cathedral of Cordoba instead of the mosque, and parts of the original mosque have been torn down and replaced with Christian/cathedral-style architecture. When the Christians took over Cordoba from the Muslims in the 12^th century, they built their cathedral right in the center of this ancient mosque, as a symbol of the triumph of Christianity over Islam. It’s kind of a shame. The mosque is beautiful, but the cathedral in the center and room full of Catholic relics just seem odd and out of place.

This trip to the mosque of Cordoba was unlike any tour I’d been on before, because the past two weeks in History of Spanish art Class, we’d been studying Cordoba, and the construction of the mosque. I got so much more out of the visit, and was able to understand the mosque in a way that would have otherwise been nearly impossible. For example, being able to distinguish which parts of the mosque were built in which century under which rulers and their motives for building, why the construction material varies in different sections of the mosque, why there are some columns that vary in their design, the significance of the “mihrab” at the far end of the mosque, and all the symbolism built into every aspect of the mosque. It was a great excursion, and I was able to appreciate it so much more with what I’d been studying these past weeks. I miss you guys… but it’s been cool to read you comments. Hope things are going well back in the US!

New Home

My New Room

I switched homes this week from a little apartment a 30 minute walk outside of the city to another small 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment that’s about a 2 minute walk from the city center. Ian (my roommate who also goes to Westmont) and I both moved on Friday. We now live with a sweet little old lady named Anna, who is a very gracious host, a decent cook, and she’s excited to have us living with her. It's a huge improvement over the home we'd been living in (I don't our old Señora liked me very much).

Spanish meals are great… not so much at breakfast (which is just toast with jelly and chocolate milk every morning), but lunch is the big meal of the day, eaten around 3pm, and it usually includes a main course, salad, and bread. Today we had a rice dish with vegetables and shrimp that was kind of like a paella and a Spanish melon for dessert. In my home we eat dinner at 9:30, and then after dinner, usually go out to get a coffee, ice cream, or drink at one of the hundreds of little bars scattered all over the city. It’s weird for me to see families with little toddlers out at midnight out for a walk along the river, but it’s perfectly normal for them. All the stores including grocery stores are open from 10:00 – 2:00 and then 5:30 – 10:00, so people go home for a big lunch and siesta from 2:00 – 5:30 to catch up on sleep. Work is a less important part of the culture here, and people take time to rest and spend time with friends.

Tomorrow is the last day of class for the week… Friday our group is going on trip to Cordoba, to see the mosque that we’ve been studying in art class the past two weeks.

Noche de chicas

Yesterday was the “Noche de chicas” (a.k.a. “girls night”). All the girls on the program (40 of them) got together and went out on the river that runs through Sevilla in paddleboats. Luckily, I got wind of this plan, and after trying 3 different stores, I was finally able to find water balloons at a small shop that just has piles of miscellaneous items all over its floor. My roommate and I filled up 30 – 40 balloons, and I text messaged all the guys on the program (there’s 7 of us) that we needed to meet at the school in 20 minutes for some male bonding time. There were 5 of us in total, looking for a pack of 40 American girls out on the river… not a difficult task. Our plan was to find them and drop the bombs down from the bridge as they passed underneath. However, as we walked past the boat rental shop, the two female leaders of the program spotted us. “Hey guys! What are you doing here? What a surprise!” Yea, what a surprise… we said we were just out for a walk and innocently asked what they were doing here. “It’s noche de chicas, so all the girls are out on the river… hey, we have 2 extra boats that we’ve already paid for, but some of the girls left early, so they’re just sitting here… would you guys like to take them out?” That’s right… the girls even provided the boats; it couldn’t have worked out any better. We boarded the boats with our backpacks full of amo, and took off to find our targets.

The good thing about paddleboats is that you can’t really go anywhere quickly, so even after we’d hit the first two girls boats, the remaining boats couldn’t escape, they had to just sit and wait for their turn. Some held out cameras, or tried to protest, but it did them no good, we were merciless. After about 45 minutes, we’d hit all the boats (pretty good time; that’s about 1 girl per minute) and were returning to the dock where the two leaders were standing helpless after observing what their generosity had let to. Anyways, the semester is off to a good start.

Sevilla

Tiny streets of Sevilla
Café con hielo (Iced Coffee)
Eating bon bons
Plaza de España

Today is my first day of school here in Sevilla. This past week has been really rough, and internet access has been pretty limited, now that classes are starting, I should be able to update this blog more regularly. However, because of the tomato fight in Buñol, I no longer have a passport or wallet. Luckily nothing was charged on my credit cards, though, so that was a huge relief, but I’m still working on getting a new passport and fixing things up from that incident. If you guys could keep me in your prayers that everything will work out OK with this, that’d be great.

Sevilla is a beautiful city. The architecture is amazing, the people are all incredibly friendly and can talk for hours (which is good for learning Spanish, but sometimes a little much), and they eat a lot here. I’ve spent the past few days registering for classes, taking the bus to the beach, visiting all the little ice cream shops and cafes (the Spanish coffee has so much more flavor and sugar than anything they serve in the US), and walking everywhere (my house is a 30 min walk from the center of the city). There are 5 other Westmont students here in Sevilla on the same program, and in total, there are 47 students from all over the US. I still don’t know most of them, but those that I’ve met so far are great and lots of fun to hang out with.