Day 3 - Seville
We made our way to Seville today, which turned out to be a much more cosmopolitan city than Cordoba, and the capital of Andalusia. El Arenal is the local full fighting stadium, and their were ads everywhere for a local fight going on that day.
The city is also famous for Migual de Manara, who apparently is the guy who could be the real Don Juan. My friend Jeanine had pointed out that I would see the abbreviation No8Do everywhere which I did... turned out that it stood for "no me ha dejado"... "she has not deserted me", which was supposedly said by a former ruler Alphonso the wise after the city stayed loyal to him during a dispute he had with his son.
Today we visited:
-- Seville Cathedral (also used to be a mosque), and famous for La Giralda (its bell tower), its Patio de los Narajos ( a large courtyard filled with orange trees), and the tomb of Christopher Columbos. The cathedral itself took over a century to build. Looking at all the columns of the cathedral I made a comment comparing them to the halls of Moria from Lord of the Ring... my bro comes out with "actually dwarfish architecture is based on more geometric designs" :P... we're nerds!
-- Real Alcazar -- a royal palace with extensive amazing gardens that seemed to go on forever. Build by a Christian King, all the workers were Moorish, so lots of arabic influence -- the calligraphy was really surprisingly interesting, I think I have an idea for new tattoos.
The streets surrounding the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes were a little surreal: horse drawn carriages, orange trees, religious buildings, street musicians...
That night at the villa there was some sort of festival honoring the Virgin Mary. The villa also shared a courtyard with the local church, so coming back from walking to the store, Sal and I got caught in a procession that was making its way through the streets. Didn't realize there were that many people living here. They had set up small altars to her along the streets with flowers and grasses strewn around each one.
Went to Paci's to pick up some supplies... it was funny. At one point couldn't figure out what the other was saying, so she brought in her son, who was taking English at school... except he apparently had no clue what to say. Then an old man who was a customer thought if he spoke real loud, I'd understand lol... finally between what I and the kid knew, and with sign language it got straightened out.
Tonights tv included watching the Eurpean music contests, where each country (about 25) sent a contestant and each country voted on their top three choices (couldn't vote on their own). Some were ridiculous, some very out there, and some really good... my favs were Armenia, Israel, and Russia (which ended up winning).
Also watched a little of the bull fighting... guess I hadn't realized what exactly it was. I'd always had images of a guy waving a red cape, which is pretty much the first part. The rest is him hitting the bull with spears, getting it angrier until he finally killed it. Not gonna go see it in real life. Really struggling with this book.
The city is also famous for Migual de Manara, who apparently is the guy who could be the real Don Juan. My friend Jeanine had pointed out that I would see the abbreviation No8Do everywhere which I did... turned out that it stood for "no me ha dejado"... "she has not deserted me", which was supposedly said by a former ruler Alphonso the wise after the city stayed loyal to him during a dispute he had with his son.
Today we visited:
-- Seville Cathedral (also used to be a mosque), and famous for La Giralda (its bell tower), its Patio de los Narajos ( a large courtyard filled with orange trees), and the tomb of Christopher Columbos. The cathedral itself took over a century to build. Looking at all the columns of the cathedral I made a comment comparing them to the halls of Moria from Lord of the Ring... my bro comes out with "actually dwarfish architecture is based on more geometric designs" :P... we're nerds!
-- Real Alcazar -- a royal palace with extensive amazing gardens that seemed to go on forever. Build by a Christian King, all the workers were Moorish, so lots of arabic influence -- the calligraphy was really surprisingly interesting, I think I have an idea for new tattoos.
The streets surrounding the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes were a little surreal: horse drawn carriages, orange trees, religious buildings, street musicians...
That night at the villa there was some sort of festival honoring the Virgin Mary. The villa also shared a courtyard with the local church, so coming back from walking to the store, Sal and I got caught in a procession that was making its way through the streets. Didn't realize there were that many people living here. They had set up small altars to her along the streets with flowers and grasses strewn around each one.
Went to Paci's to pick up some supplies... it was funny. At one point couldn't figure out what the other was saying, so she brought in her son, who was taking English at school... except he apparently had no clue what to say. Then an old man who was a customer thought if he spoke real loud, I'd understand lol... finally between what I and the kid knew, and with sign language it got straightened out.
Tonights tv included watching the Eurpean music contests, where each country (about 25) sent a contestant and each country voted on their top three choices (couldn't vote on their own). Some were ridiculous, some very out there, and some really good... my favs were Armenia, Israel, and Russia (which ended up winning).
Also watched a little of the bull fighting... guess I hadn't realized what exactly it was. I'd always had images of a guy waving a red cape, which is pretty much the first part. The rest is him hitting the bull with spears, getting it angrier until he finally killed it. Not gonna go see it in real life. Really struggling with this book.