The lovely land of Andalucia

Barrio Santa Cruz of Sevilla

Sevilla's cathedral, the biggest Gothic cathedral in the world

the Alcázar, a 10th century Moorish palace

Sevilla's Plaza España

Flamenco dancing!

Barrio Santa Cruz again

Beautiful Granada

The Alhambra!

Generalife Gardens of the Alhambra

Me and Kristen with Granada in the background

Last weekend Kristen and I visited Andalucia, Spain’s southernmost region. We didn’t have class last Thursday because it was Spanish father’s day, so we spent our four day weekend touring Sevilla and Granada. I now know why, according to the vintage postcard I bought, Spain is “the country of sunshine and joy.” Andalucia is full of palm trees, orange trees, sun, and happy tourists, and is quintessentially Spanish. We left for Sevilla after class on Wednesday and got into our hostel around 2am. After a nice breakfast on the roof Thursday morning, we set out to see the sites of Sevilla. We started by wandering through the Barrio Santa Cruz, the old Jewish quarter of the city. It was full of whitewashed buildings, flowers, wrought-iron gates, and shady narrow lanes dubbed “kissing lanes.” Then we toured the Alcázar, a 10th century Moorish palace that still functions as a royal palace, which was beautiful. We had lunch around 12:30, extremely early for Spanish standards, at an outdoor table at a café. I got some authentic Andalucian gazpacho, and Kristen and I split a liter of sangria. It didn’t take us long to realize how strong it actually was! After lunch, we headed over to Sevilla’s cathedral, and as we walked through the cathedral we kept giggling to each other about how tipsy we were—in the middle of the afternoon. The cathedral was very impressive; it’s the third largest church in Europe, and the largest Gothic-style church in the world. It was originally a mosque, but the Catholics tore it down in the 1400s and built the cathedral instead. The only thing that remains of the mosque is the bell tower, which has a ramp going up instead of stairs because back in the day a horseman would ride up five times a day for the Muslim call to prayer. Well, we were hiking up this ramp when all of a sudden a horde or rowdy schoolchildren came down the other way, and Kristen tripped on a brick and smacked her head against the brick wall. She fortunately wasn’t in so much pain that she couldn’t laugh about it, and I’m pretty sure the sangria had more to do with her tripping than the annoying kids did. We finally made it to the top and got to see a great view of Sevilla. Before we left the cathedral, we also got to see Columbus’s tomb, which was pretty cool. After the cathedral we bought some picnic supplies at the Corte Inglés grocery store and had a nice coffee break at a café. Then we meandered over to Plaza España, stopping to take a peak at Sevilla’s bullring. The plaza was stunning; it was originally constructed for the 1929 World’s Fair and was massive. It was completely different from any other Spanish plaza I’ve seen. We had a picnic dinner there of bread, cheese, jam, and strawberries, our go-to picnic foods. After dinner we got to see a flamenco show! It was really really cool, and it was incredible how the dancers, musicians, and singers all stayed in such perfect rhythm.

Friday morning we did some more wandering in Barrio Santa Cruz then visited an old 18th century mansion with lots of antiques, which was frankly really lame. It took us forever to find, cost 4 euros, and there was really nothing to see. We had some time to kill before heading out, so we checked our email at the hostel, got sandwiches at the bus station, then spent the rest of the afternoon in transit to Granada. I absolutely loved Granada; it’s definitely now one of my favorite cities. It used to be a Moorish stronghold, and there is still a lot of Middle Eastern influence there. It kind of made up for the fact that I’m not going to get to go to Morocco this semester, like I had hoped to do. I also really wish I could make it back to Sevilla at the end of April for the April Fair, which is the traditional festival the city puts on every year. They set up tents—the most exclusive tents, for the really rich people in town, have bouncers—and the entire city eats, drinks, dances, and sings nonstop for the entire week. It sounds so fun.

Saturday morning we woke up and hiked up to the Alhambra, the last great Moorish palace in Europe before the Crusaders kicked all the Moors out, and Granada’s main attraction. Celia, our program director in Salamanca, has a brother who works at the Alhambra, and he was going to get us tickets since it can be a kind of tricky process. So we got there at 9am Saturday morning, and he wasn’t there, and neither were out tickets. We were pretty mad, and spent the next hour or so frantically trying to figure out if we could still get tickets for that day. Fortunately we were able to get some for the afternoon, and Celia called us later telling us that her brother had gotten the dates mixed up and felt really bad. But everything worked out just fine in the end. We hiked back down the mountain and hiked up another mountain across town to San Nicolás church, which has the best view in town of the Alhambra. Back in town we did some souvenir shopping in all the little Middle Eastern shops, and I bought some really cool gifts. Then we saw the cathedral of Granada, which was possibly one of the most beautiful churches I’ve been in. We were planning on also going to the Royal Chapel (Capilla Real), which is where Ferdinand and Isabel are buried. We thought it was included in our entrance fee to the cathedral, but it wasn’t, plus we weren’t sure if we would have time to see it and still make our assigned time for the Alhambra, so we decided to skip it. Well, apparently it’s one of Granada’s top sites and really incredible. Darn. If I had known it was so worthwhile, I would have made more of an effort to see it. Instead, we dodged the ever-present Granada gypsy women (they try to give you a sprig of rosemary, read your palm, and demand 5 euros for payment. We knew this in advance and knew to avoid them!), grabbed some yummy falafel sandwiches for lunch, and hiked up the mountain—again—to the Alhambra. The palace and gardens were breathtaking, and it took us about 2 ½ hours to see everything. The architecture was amazing, and it made me really want to travel to the Middle East! Once we got back into town, we had tea and crepes at a cute little tetería, then relaxed for a while at the hostel. We had delicious Moroccan food for dinner—Kristen and I have become quite tired of Spanish food and rebel whenever possible—went to a couple of bars, then headed home. We spent Sunday on the bus back home, transferring in Madrid, and by that point I had gotten really cranky. I was tired of being on the bus, didn’t want to go to class the next day, was exhausted after two consecutive weekends of traveling, and just wanted to be home in bed. As much as I love traveling, and as sad as I get every time a trip comes to an end, it really wears me out! I’m glad I’ll be home this weekend. I also really wish we could have made it to Córdoba, the city in Andalucia where the beautiful Muslim Mezquita—with a cathedral right in the middle—is located, but there just wasn’t time.

More roommates came while I was gone—three little French girls, 13 and 14. They were definitely better at Spanish then the last batch of 14-year-old French girls! Plus they knew some English, so I was able to help them say things in Spanish. They left yesterday, and three French boys came right after, all 13. Tuesday was Kristen’s 21st birthday, and we celebrated by going out to eat with Mary Kathryn and having cake in the Plaza Mayor. That’s one of the annoying things about living with a host family: you can’t exactly invite your friends over whenever you want. But it was fun, and we’re going to be celebrating more, American-style, this weekend!