London to Florence 27/28

I don’t think that I have ever found myself in a country where I have so little means of communication. I feel almost fluent in Spanish now that I realize how bad my Italian is. But, unfortunately, this fact didn’t occur to me until I landed in Bologna, Italy, yesterday afternoon. Before I get to that though, I think that, once again, it is worth describing my journey to the said location.

I woke up that morning at 7, got on the right metro for London Liverpool Street and arrived with few troubles. The next step was to get a train ticket for the airport, but, as luck would have it, the train was down for the day due to reconstruction. I asked around and eventually found a bus station with buses headed to the airport that came once every half hour. Of course, the bus pulled away just as I arrived. One thing I am much better at now, however, is not getting too upset when things like this happen. I took some deep breaths, realized that it was all out of my control and searched for means of entertainment until the next bus/train/plane/ect. arrived.

I flew out of the same airline that I came in on – RyanAir. This time, however, I had accumulated another bag, which I was planning on putting under the plane. The bag had some of my snow stuff such as pants, jacket, gloves, ect and weighed all of 2 kilograms. The cost to bring it on the plane? An extra 35 euros. So that meant that I had to get creative. I put my jacket and pants on and found little places to hide the other stuff and, looking like I was about to jump off one of those helicopters and start skiing, I boarded the plane. Upon landing I took everything off and put it back into the bag, but it was a pretty toasty plane ride.

So now we are at where I began this blog, Bologna. Like I said, this was the first time I realized how little Italian I actually knew – two words: gratzi and bonjorno. I knew what I had to do to get to Florence, but like all travel in Europe, that proved to be more difficult than I would have desired. I somehow was able to find a bus from the Bologna airport to the Bologna train station and from there I purchased a train ticket to Florence. The first ticket I purchased was for a train out of a different station, however, so I had to repurchase another one which was 20 euros more. The train ride wasn’t bad though, only about an hour, and this time I actually had the address of my hostel and a map from the station to the hostel. It still took some exploring, but with help from a tourist office, I was able to find it without the help of a taxi.

Last night there were two other people in my room, both of whom were traveling together from Boston. We went out to dinner last night and then explored the city, amidst a good deal of rain, today. Four new people just moved in and they all speak Spanish as their main language, so its pretty cool being able to have conversations with them. Tomorrow I have tickets for the Academia (apparently a pretty famous art museum) and I leave for Switzerland on Wednesday.

Also, I am trying to put up pictures because I have a lot but my camera won’t connect to the computer! I will continue trying because right now this blog looks like a book and is in some serious need of beautification.

Italian words that I now know:

Prego/a – used for everything imaginable

Cerna – can be used for hello

I am learning! Jajajaja

1st photo - The famous Florentine Duomo Cathedral (first to use a dome like structure - which you can't see here jaja)
2nd photo - 2 very strong men... must be gods or something

Troubles with Travel - London, England (23-27)

When I finished writing the previous blog I figured that I had about 15 more minutes before we would begin boarding the plane… I was about 2 hours off. They wrote that the plane had been delayed on the departure screen, but neglected to tell anybody in any way how long that delay would be. I was confused, to say the least, but everybody else seemed to be perfectly ok, and, being that a line was beginning to form, I hopped right in it, figuring that it wouldn’t be long until we left. After about 45 minutes of standing in that same place I began to doubt myself. I wanted to move, to go sit down, but the line behind me was further than I could see and there was no way that I was going to risk losing my position. So I stood there. And stood there some longer. I guessed that it was a combination of two things: Spain and RyanAir. Spain can be a very layed back country and RyanAir can be a terrible airline. So, when you combine the two, long waits with no notice may be quite common. We eventually did take off and I was pleasantly surprised to pass through customs in England in no more than 10 minutes. I got train tickets (the airport is about an hour outside of London) to go into the city and boarded the train with no problems. It was at this moment, feeling quite content with myself, that I realized I had forgot 2 magazines, a book and some traditional Spanish chocolates I had bought for my cousins. I have no idea where I left them – either the plane, the customs desk or the ticket desk – but regardless of the place, I knew that somebody else was going to get an early Christmas gift.

At about 12 that night I arrived at London Liverpool Street. From there I figured that I would simply take a metro that would miraculously drop me off at my hostel. Boy was I mistaken. Maybe I had been overconfident as I knew that I was traveling to an English speaking country, but all I had on me was the name of the hostel,  “Astor Kensington”.  I took a metro that had Kensington on the map, but unfortunately it went in the opposite direction and then, at “Alsgate” decided to call it a night. So now I found myself even further from where I wanted to be, in a metro that had closed for the night with almost no idea of where my hostel was. I asked a cab driver how much a ride into Kensington would cost and he told me 40 pounds if we were lucky. I decided to try to get there on my own. I wandered around for a bit and found a different metro station, read the map with a bit more care, and then, at around 1 am got on a train headed towards Kensington. Only now a new problem presented itself: there were three Kensingtons. High Street Kensington, West Kensington and South Kensington.  I did a short little game of ennie-mennie-minie-moe and got off at South Kensington. From there I asked a cab driver to take me to the Marriot (it was where my cousins were staying and I figured the chances of him knowing of that were better than the hostel) and when we got there I asked him if he knew of the hostel because on google maps it was close by. We drove up and down the street a couple of times and, at precisely 2am I entered the front doors of Astor Kensington.

We would hope that the journey would stop here, and it kind of does, but you know those moments when all you want is a place to put your stuff and a bed to fall in? Well, that’s exactly how I was feeling. Only, to my utter disappointment, the floor of the hostel was covered with bags and clothes and all the beds looked like they had yet to be cleaned. I eventually decided on the top bunk of a bed that looked reasonably neat, threw all of my stuff up onto it with me and passed out. It was by no means easy (I had technically started at 9am that morning when I caught a bus to Santander), but I figure any story that ends with some sort of bed and sleep can be deemed a happy ending.

The next 3 days were exactly what I needed. Time with family, big meals, pools, hot tubs, movies, sight seeing, relaxing, long/hot showers, very little time in the hostel. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend Christmas in London any other way. Thank you Pierce family!

Spanish Adventures (19-23)

I am currently in the Santander, Spain airport killing some time before my flight to London so I thought I’d start writing a little update on my adventure to this point. So far I have been to Toledo, Madrid and San Sebastian. Marco and I took the overnight bus to Madrid on Saturday night and then caught another bus that morning to Toledo where we spent most of the day. It was a pretty cool little city and, if you don’t like to see other tourists, the perfect time to go. First off, it was a Sunday – always a quiet day in Spain – and second off the temperature was having trouble getting above 1 degree Celsius, which is about 34 degrees Farenheight. The city has the same Muslim foundations as Sevilla, but what makes it so unique is that much of the Muslim constructions remain standing today. It is located on a hill and is enclosed by a “Muralla” in which everything of importance to the Islamic tradition can be found. The streets are narrow, steep and windy – and the drivers are crazy. I think that they rival off-road drivers in terms of spectacularness for the places where they manage to fit those vehicles. We spent the day wandering, getting lost, finding our way back to the cathedral (located in the middle of the city) and then getting lost some more. It wasn’t too big which allowed us to see just about everything in the time that we were given.

We returned to Madrid with no plan for the following night or, for that matter, the next 3 days. Our original idea was to go to take an overnight bus to Bilbao, but that bus would have had us arriving at 5:00 am – a little bit early given that we had no place to stay. We searched other destinations and eventually decided to take the 12:30 am bus to San Sebastian. Accordingly, we arrived at 6:30 am and began our search for a place to stay. We found a bar with internet and from there we booked a hostel for that night. We got there at about 8 in the morning and had to ring the doorbell on and off for about half an hour before somebody finally came to our service. The workers weren’t there, but we slept in the main room for a couple of hours – bed or no bed it felt amazing to lie down – before heading out into the city. And, as luck would have it, it just so happened to be the day of the biggest festival in San Sebastian. San Sebastian is located in the Bask country in the north of Spain and, as we quickly discovered, is a completely different culture when compared with that of Andalusia. In honor of the holiday (I hope) all of the woman wore dresses that reminded me of those worn by the Omish and the men wore little hats like the Scottish. San Sebastian is located right on the coast and receives a lot of moisture making it a very green area. The people combined with the scenery convinced me time and time again that we were in Ireland, Scotland or the 1800’s. The streets were jam-packed with people drinking sidra (a famous type of cider – which is very unsavory) and eating chorizo (which is also ate in sevilla, but is made differently here). From 11 that morning to 12 that night the setting didn’t change. People singing, dancing old dances and talking in their native tongue of Bask. This language, as far as anybody knows, has absolutely no similarities to any other in the world, in fact, nobody even knows where the Bask as a group of people derived from. I at first thought that there were similarities between this and Celtic, but I ran into an Irish person who told me that that was like comparing English to Chinese. We spent the day exploring the city, watching the festivities and doing the recommended sightseeing. We also walked what had to be 10 miles. We both loved San Sebastian as a city itself. The wide, clearly marked streets were a nice contrast to those narrow, curvy ones found in Sevilla and Toledo. It was all incredibly green (one color that Sevilla severely lacks) and the fact that it was located right on the ocean brought it all together- though maybe the summer would have been a better time for taking advantage of such water.

Marco left the next day (Tuesday) but I stayed and spent the majority of my time trying to rediscover the incredibly cheap sandwich shop that we had found the day before to no avail. I met some Australian mates (say in Australian accent or else that looks weird) and we went out to a few tapa, or “pincha”, bars. In San Sebastian they have this technique where they put the little tapas (be it little sandwiches, croquetas, pimientos, ect) on the bar in front of you. The plates are continually full (you aren’t, due to their size) and incredibly delicious looking. The idea is that you eat as many as you want and then tell the bar tender how many you had at the end and pay for it then. In terms of profit making the system is ingenious. A) You just can’t stop yourself B) they’re small enough that you can’t fill yourself up C) they are very good and D) they are ridiculously overpriced. We were in one bar for a grand total of 30 minutes and ended up with a bill of 37 euros between the 4 of us. We could have ate 37 one euro cheesburgers at mcdonalds. That’s almost 10 to each of us. But I guess that you have to experience that local flavor.

So I guess that phase one of the adventure is almost over – the Spain phase. Now its off to England for 4 days followed by Florence. Anybody know some helpful/essential Italian???

- Top left: Me in Toledo
- Top right: Toledo
- Bottom right: Me in San Sebastian
- Bottom left: Marco and I in San Sebastian at some famous (we couldn't figure out why) statues

Also this isn't quite how I would have chosen to arrange the photos, but this program is impossible to work with. And even more than impossible to get how you want it to look.

Bon Voyage!

So I’m about to start my adventure! My friend Marco and I leave at 1 am tonight and take a bus headed for Madrid. From there we are going to visit Toledo, which is only about an hour from Madrid, and then we’re going to head up towards the north of Spain (what’s that saying? ‘it rains on the plains in the north of spain’ or something? Anybody know what I am referring to? Audrey Hepburn I believe…) for a few days. On the 23^rd I leave him and fly from Santander to London where I’m going to meet my cousins for Christmas. I stay there until the 27^th and then things gradually get a little bit less organized. From London I fly to Bologna, Italy and then I’m either going to go to Florence then Milan or Venice then Milan. From Milan I am planning on heading up to Zürich, Switzerland for New Years. I have a 10-day pass (which can be used over the course of 2 months) in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France and Spain. The plan is to travel throughout those countries for about 3 weeks upon which I will return to Sevilla for my second quarter – I have to be here by January 20. I will do my best to keep everybody updated and post pictures from everywhere that I go! If anybody thinks I absolutely have to do something in any of those countries please tell me! Ok, here I go, hasta luego!

Essay Competition

We had the option of writing an essay for our program about a particular experience we had here in Sevilla. The winner got 100 euros! (I am approximately 100 euros richer...) Here is what I wrote!

Starring blankly into his eyes, his face marked with the frustration of trying to explain a simple task to somebody who can hardly understand a word of his language, I tried to find the perfect speed at which to nod my head. Not too slow, that would convey confusion, but not too fast either, because then I would look crazy, and you don’t want your host family thinking that they were given the spaz kid on your first night in the house. No, just the right speed to show that, hey, don’t worry, I think I can figure out how to turn the air conditioner on. Regardless, when my host dad finally left the room I felt as though a hurricane had just pummeled my brain into oblivion, leaving me with less knowledge of both the Spanish language and of your common air conditioning unit. Trying not to feel frustrated, I reminded myself that being abroad wasn’t going to be easy. On the bright side, I thought, at least I have an air conditioner and, as I turned it on and went to sleep that night, I wondered if I would ever call this new bed, in this foreign country, my own.

It wasn’t long, however, before I woke up that night in what I first suspected to be a hot tub, but soon realized was a bed drenched with sweat. I turned to the air conditioning unit and changed the setting from medium to high and somehow, amidst that pool of water, fell back asleep. The next time I woke up it was if I had just finished running a marathon wearing a wet suit and a football helmet. Sweat was pouring down the sides of my face, my pillow was nothing short of drenched and water creatures were starting to grow on their newfound pond.

I will never forget the reaction of my host dad when he walked into my room that morning. The look on his face was a combination of shock and complete horror, like he had unexpectedly walked into a blazingly hot place. He looked at me, losing body water at what had to be record pace, went over to the air conditioning unit and burst out laughing. He called his wife in to have a look and I heard the first word I actually understood since arriving at my home stay – “sauna”, the same as in English. “Sauna!” they said, louder and louder between their uncontrollable spurts of laughter. And then it dawned on me. I hadn’t turned the air conditioner on at all that night, but the heater. I could have roasted marshmallows on it, or used it to stay warm in the middle of an Antarctic winter, or, as I so wisely chose, put it in a room that was already hovering around 38 C. I couldn’t help but join in. It was our first family experience together and, as I have since realized, would be an analogy for my time abroad.

We arrive here with the very basics. We know what language is spoken, but whether or not we understand that language is a completely different question. We know where we want to travel, but getting to the desired destination is an adventure in itself. We might know what kind of food is common or what sports are played, but that’s all we are equipped with; the bare minimums. It’s the details, like how to work a Spanish air conditioner, that you can only learn through actually being here. We start off as foreigners, but by the end we are all part of another culture, a different society, a new family. Its not always easy, there will be days when the simplest of tasks seem like the greatest of accomplishments, but through each experience we grow, we learn, we adapt and we become. Everybody came here with different goals, different objectives, but we all will leave with something in common, we all will return home with a little piece of our new home, with a little piece of Spain. The next time life makes me sweat, the next time I feel completely and utterly confused, I know that I will think back to that first night in Sevilla, remind myself that its all part of the journey, and have a little laugh.

Spain Delay

So, as is apparent by the lack of recent updates, I haven't partaken in any blogging in a while mainly due to the fact that I haven't done any significant traveling the past 3 weeks. But then it dawned on me on one these beautiful Sevillan mornings, that that doesn't mean I don't have anything to report to my base of dedicated readers! Its like this author I really like; I started reading his books probably about 4 years ago and I read the first 3 books back to back to back. And then I had to wait about 5 months for the 4th one, so not to bad. But that 5th one! Its been three years and as far as I know hasn't even come out yet. I've forgotten the name of the author, the characters - in fact I couldn't even tell you the first thing about the series other than that I remember enjoying it to some degree or rather. Until it abruptly stopped. Worst of all I remember that the 4th book had an ending like this: ..... - as in, to be continued, or omg what is going to happen next, I can't wait to see! Anyways, in an attempt to avoid putting you guys in such a  dire fate that I still find myself dwelling in today, I decided to present everybody with a nice little update.

First, school. Its in all honesty, been a bit too much like school. As in things like class. And work. And tests. I think that we all come here with the kind of impression that its going to be a semester or year long vacation with a couple little cosas to do on the side. But this past month its most definitely taken a turn to the escuela side of life. Since Dublin I've had two presentations and 5 midterms. Which leaves me with one more presentation, a couple of Spanish papers and finals to worry about this coming month. This has kind of hindered me from taken advantage of being in Europe, but the good thing is that it has reminded me that I'm in Spain. I'm in Sevilla. Those first couple of months I did so much traveling that I completely forgot to take advantage and appreciate all of the things that I have around here to do. So since then I've been aimlessly wandering the city, looking at whatever looks interesting, going to coffee shops and picking up newspapers in attempts to like a local (using the newspaper to hide my map of course - it is a little bit embarrassing, but I still haven't grown out of my getting lost in Sevilla phase), participating in Flamenco and yoga classes, and I just started a volunteer job that involves teaching kids english. The Flamenco class is offered through the school and its once a week. Unfortunately its a bit pricy so I've been sneaking in (there have only been three classes) but I think my cover is beginning to blow over being that I'm one of three guys, the only American - and the only one who has no prior Flamenco experience. I think I'll try to get in there for one more class then I'm planning on taking my winnings (or my "learnings") and leaving the dance floor before they take the dance floor from me. In addition to this fun little class, my gym offers yoga classes and the other week out of some persistent lower back pain, I decided to go check it out. I walked in to the room about 3 minutes late and was greeted by the glaring eyes of 20 old, spanish ladies. At Flamenco I might have been the only American, but here not only was I the single American, but also the only guy (other than the instructor) and the only person below about 60 years of age. The first thing the instructor told us to do was close our eyes, which was the last thing I personally wanted to hear because I had no idea how I was going to last a whole class doing something I had never done in a language that, well, isn't exactly my native tongue without being able to see what everybody else was doing. But I snuck some peaks here and there just so I wasn't completely lost, hustled out of the room when class was over, and made a vow to just stretch out my lower back in the privacy of my own room from here on out.

Lets see what else has happened recently.... hmmmmmmmm.... well there's a film festival here in Sevilla so I went to see a movie that was made in Denmark with spanish and english subtitles (its a great way of becoming familiar with a language) called "When Heaven Falls". And it was incredibly depressing so I don't want to go into many more details about it. I met the producers of a new Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz movie thats being filmed here in Sevilla and is scheduled to come out in theaters July 2, 2010. I offered my acting services free of charge and they said that they need to do a "running of the bulls" reenactment and might need some replacements. Unfortunately I didn't have any business cards to give them so it looks like my days of movie stardom are still somewhere off in the future.

O ya, I'm going to be traveling in Europe for about a month over Christmas so if anybody has some ideas or recommendations about places I should go I would love to hear them. I've always had a sort of fascination with Switzerland and Austria so I'm going to those places for sure and I would love to do some skiing if thats at all possible. And if anybody wants to tag along feel free! haha

Darn, I can't think of anything else right now. I feel like there was more but then I get writing about one thing and forget about the other and find myself here, stuck in this little writers block rut. Well, if I remember I will be sure to put them up sooner rather than later. Tomorrow my goal is to get some more pictures up here as well so we'll see if I follow through on that one. Ok, thats about it. Im going to go click the publish post button now, alright, here goes nothin....

Home of the Irish (Oct. 15-18)

I don’t know if it was the fact that they spoke English or that we were just really, really uncharacteristically organized, but this seemed to be the trip with the least amount of confusion and, therefore, the one with the least amount of funny things to relay to the readers of this little blog. Soooo I’m going to adopt a new kind of strategy here and talk about a few of the places we went in Dublin and the corresponding lessons on history we were given in that funny little accent of theirs.

Dublin Castle

The groundwork’s for the famous Dublin Castle were constructed by the Viking’s in the 800’s, but the Dublin Castle as we know it wasn’t officially constructed until 1204, though a fire burned it down in 1686. The ammunition chamber?? of the castle caught on fire proceeding to explode,  taking the rest of the castle down with it.  The castle was reconstructed but never returned to its natural state. Today it is used to host foreign ambassadors and as a meeting place for Ireland's president.  The tour was pretty entertaining. We learned that Margaret Thatcher stayed there in the 80’s but only at the insistence that they build a new bathroom for her (because she didn’t want to stay in the old kings bedroom).  One of the rooms had painings of all the ‘great’ Irish politicians, but one of those paintings was about 2 feet lower and partly hidden behind a door. The guide said that this was the portrait of the last holder of American territory (unfortunately I forget his name, but probably "Mc" or "O" something or rather) and upon losing the colony he came back to Ireland where he took his anger out on the people, ruling with a heavy hand. Today he is, to say the least, not the most popular of Irish figures and the tour guide had some pretty strong feelings about it even being up on the wall, stating that maybe if the handle of the door slammed into his face every time then he would be ok with it.  One of the most interesting parts of the castle was the tiny remains of a moat that used to run around it. In the 1300’s, with the Black Death sweeping the continent, it was decided to cut off the moat from the castle (before this point it had apparently run into the castle). It was though that water was the primary cause of the disease, so the taxpayers were granted custody on the inside while the non-taxpayers were left to rot on the outside. Well, it turns out that the cause of the disease was actually rats (and fleas were the vectors) and with the draining of the water the rats were trapped inside the castle. 60% of the population within the castle walls died within 2 years and, although the numbers don’t exist, those on the outside faired far better; the result: if you pay your taxes in Ireland, death will be your reward.

Chester Beatty Library

This library definitely wasn’t your common, everyday, "lets check out a book" library. There were two rooms, one dedicated to the beginnings of language and the other dedicated to the beginnings of the worlds most prominent religions (east and west) and each of the rooms contained some of the earliest, most important texts of those particular religions/languages. I thought that the “religion” room was amazing. It was divided into 6 sections, each focusing on the beginnings of their religion, and it was a great way of learning and seeing the relations that exist between them all. I was most interested in the eastern religions (such as Buddhism) and their appeal as a way of life. The higher being that they worship is within ourselves, it is our mental capacity, and through meditation one can rid the brain of all negative thoughts, freeing it to explore, to be truly happy and to help transmit that happiness, that positive energy, unto others. Islam, another religion that I want to learn more about, directly translates to mean, “submission” and that’s really what the whole religion is based on. Submitting to the will of god, to the command of god. Islam, Christianity and Judaism are essentially progressions of one another; Islam calls itself the most refined and flawless of the three because it is the newest. Although they see Christ as an incredibly inspired religious figure, he is not as important to their religion as Muhammad, the one and only true prophet.

Viking Museum

I have always had a kind of fascination/very limited knowledge of the Vikings, so I was pretty excited to stumble upon this little historical documentation. The word Viking comes from the Old Nors word “Vík”, which means bay, or inlet. The Vikings, renown for their sea faring abilities, first arrived in Ireland in the 700’s. They worshipped 3 gods, Odin and his sons Thor and Fey. It was said that if a Viking died a glorious death in battle he would go to an eternal party with Odin, but if the Viking died a calm and peaceful death he would forever remain in a cold, dark after place. Vikings rarely wore armor, but would dress in the way that they depicted the warrior god Thor – in bear fur. Before and during battle the Vikings were known for rilying themselves up as a way of inspiring fear in the opponent – the modern day word “bersurk” comes from this practice, derived from the “bear shirt” that the Vikings wore in battle.  The Vikings, due to the superior design of their ships that allowed for faster travel and superior docking, were known to be excellent traders. When the slave trade came around so many people came from the Slavic states that it is though that the word “slave” is derived from the word “Slavic”.

While walking back from the museum, I happened to stumble on a couple of tents that were part of a Viking reenactment. These guys are Ireland's equivalent of left-over hippies. I'm pretty sure that they still live like this on an every day basis, or at least they were just very convincing. One guy was making jewelry and it was actually really fun to watch him, sitting there with his tools from the 800's; I would have bought a piece... but I didn't, I guess I don't really know why. They also had a "battle reenactment" that they tried to turn into a comedy show. Let's just say it didn't work out too well.

Kilmainham Gaol

The final place we went was one of Ireland's most famous prisons (now a museum) - something the equivalent of the San Franciscos' Alcazar. It was said that kids as young as 8 used to go to the jail to serve labor sentences for crimes as petty as stealing a bite of bread. At one point, during the potato famine, the government announced an initiative that anyone caught begging would be immediately sent to jail. Well, being that jail was one of the few places where food could actually be found, it was said that as many as 9000 people occupied a mere 128 cells.

Alright, thats about all of the information that I can remember regarding this little island! Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to make it out into the country side or to the Cliff's of Moher, but I guess that gives a reason to go back in the future. Cheeros mateys

Moroccan Me Crazay! (Oct. 9-12)

(Rabat: by far the prettiest, coolest part of the city)

Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, New Zealand, England, Spain…. These places, though obviously different from Colorado, don’t constitute culture shock. If I thought that before, I changed my mind precisely 4 days ago. Morocco, a Muslim nation, is about 35 minutes via ferry from the Southern most tip of Spain – Gibraltar (a place with a wealth of history that my Dad could tell you much more about than I can). Despite this short distance, Morocco is as stark a contrast to Spain as you will find. You leave the beaches of Gibraltar (where it is common to see women but not their bathing suit tops – not that I ever look or anything, it’s just what people tell me…) and arrive in Morocco (in a city called Tanger) where it is almost a rarity to see the full face of a woman, and never any other skin aside from her hands. I mean you see this on TV all the time, but actually being there, right in the middle of it, is a completely different experience.  In Spain, as you all know by now, the nights really don’t get going until 11 or 12 pm and alcohol is almost a way of life. In Morocco everybody is in bed, or at least in their house, by, at the latest, 9 pm and alcohol is forbidden according to Islamic law. The streets are cleared out, aside from the vast amounts of trash that litter the ground as though the use of trash cans is looked down upon, the house is quiet and everybody is in bed or headed in that direction (I guess that this shouldn’t be too big of a culture shock to me, being that it is what happens at my home – where 9 o’clock is pushing it - but for some reason it seemed to me a very odd concept). To sum things up, I guess that it is easiest to say that Spain is by far the most liberal country that I have ever been to and Morocco is by far the most conservative.

(above: ridin' some llamas! 

right: the house, apparently a typical muslim house)

The first two nights we stayed in a home stay with a Moroccan family in the capital city of Rabat. This experience was one of the most revealing and mind opening  of my life. Sure, there are the little things, like a literal whole in the ground that serves as a toilet, which is in the middle of the shower, which makes up just about all of the bathroom. There is the food – a big bowl of kuskus or chicken or spaghetti – that is placed in the center of the table from which everybody eats using their right hand only (its very bad manners to use the left). Lunch and dinner are also strictly for eating, not for socializing – the only conversation we engaged in focused on how to get the coke from one end of the table to the other. Then there is the house itself, which was actually very beautiful. From the outside it looks like nothing, but the moment you step in it opens up to a big courtyard type structure with four pillars shooting up towards the ceiling. From this room there are five other rooms that branch off: the kitchen, two living rooms (which have built in sofas lining each of the walls) and two bedrooms - our room was the only one with actual beds – the others just had the sofas that doubled as beds. (There was a second level to our house, which another family lived in.)

The thing that impressed me the most about this new culture, however, was how open everybody seems to be. We had many discussions with Moroccan students and each time they made a point of saying how they never judge people based on race, color or religion. Who knows how true this is actually is, but based on the actions of the people around us it seemed to be the case. We went to some small, rural cities where we had to be the first Americans that the people had seen in a long time, if ever, yet they treated us as if we were as normal as the calls for prayer that you hear five times a day (the first one is at 4 in the morning). They never stared, never seemed to be talking behind our backs, and if they spoke to us it was to welcome us to their country and ask how we liked the tea (which was delicious, and full of sugar!). Another thing that impressed me about the Moroccans was that, at the minimum, they know at least 2 languages fluently (Arabic and French) though the majority that we met knew either Arabic, French and English; Arabic, French and Spanish; or all of the above. In our host family the two brothers (whom were 26 and 32) spoke all 4 languages more or less, but the mother only spoke Arabic; either meaning that multilingualism seems to be a rather new concept or that it is something that more men learn than woman.

(old roman ruin: Chellah)

By far the most local, authentic experience we had was the hammam – a Muslim bath house.  The hammam is comparable to a sauna in the United States; comparable in the sense that it makes you sweat, everything else is a little bit more strange. There are three rooms going from coldest to hottest and the idea is to sit in the hot room (something like 51 Celsius, which I would say the equivalent of in Farenheight but it just sounds too hot) for 15 minutes then move to the medium room where you can either chose to wash yourself or hire somebody else to do it. Three of my friends and I, thinking that it was probably one of those rare, once in a life time “opportunities” decided to hire somebody else to do it. Communicating this proved to be very difficult and eventually a worker arrived who was able to translate the following sentence to us in his broken English: “Who here wants the old man to rub them down?”  I don’t know if anything has ever sounded more awkward in all my life, or actually was more awkward, but we went ahead and did it anyways. The old man was indeed old; he had at most 4 teeth, was wearing underwear and nothing else, was incredibly hairy, but could scrub the body like nobody’s business. He had us lie down and then took a coarse rag – comparable to sand paper – to our skin and went to work. By the time it was over I had rolls and rolls of dead skin pilled up at the edges of my limbs – on my hands, my ankles, my feet. I think, that with the loss of dead skin and sweat combined, I lost a minimum of 5 pounds that night, and I’ve definitely never felt so clean in all my life.

                                                                    (Mausoleum of King Mohammad V: side note; not like by many, his son, the current king, is far more popular - helping the poor, a big problem in Morocco)

Another very interesting part of this weekend was a conversation we had with a couple of Moroccan Peace Corp volunteers. They have both been in Morocco for about a year and you could tell how excited they were to be talking in English to Americans in what probably was the first time in as long as they could remember.  It sounds like it can be some lonely work at times, imagine landing in a completely foreign country such as Morocco, then driving for 2 days to about as remote a village as one will find where you will be spending the next two years of your life. It makes me reconsider how “hard” I think it is being in Sevilla, Spain for a year. I have a tremendous amount of respect for those guys. I’ve considered the Peace Corp before and though I don’t want to rule it out I don’t think that I could do what they’re doing, maybe a village in South America, but a middle of nowhere place in Morocco is just a little too “middle of nowhere” place for me.

On the third day we went to a one of these middle of nowhere towns and had lunch with a local family. It was like one of those places that you can find in South America where the chickens out number the dogs, which outnumber the cats, which outnumber the people. Lets just say that an afternoon there was sufficient for me. After that we drove to a village called Chefchaouen, which was by far my favorite place in Morocco and probably one of the most beautiful places I have been. It is way high up in the mountains and a river flows right through the town where you can find kids jumping off rocks, ladies doing laundry and people simply enjoying life. The town itself is a maze of narrow streets, barely wide enough to walk in, much less fit a car, and the buildings are all some shade or another of blue or white. It really was an incredible place and I would love, if the opportunity ever presents itself, to go back there someday. Soccer jerseys were also 6 euros there (or 60 duran) as compared to 60 euros in Spain, so lets just say I put my newfound purchasing power to some good use.

The one thing that Spain and Morocco both have in common: Neither have the DENVER BRONCOS!!! The best team that this universe has ever known. My goal here is to, by the time I leave, have this city, or at least my house, decorated in the Orange and Blue (or should I say brown and, like, a very odd yellow) that represents the everything that this world should be.

¡Aqui Estoy! (Oct. 2-4)

¡Hola Todos!

Man, I got off to such a hot start there on those blog updates! I think I was somewhere along the lines of 5 for 5; 5 weeks, 5 blogs. Thats 100%! Rather than look at these past couple of weeks as losses, however, which would put a dent in that rather pretty percentage, I think I'm going to take them as though they were by weeks. And really its only been one by week. Or maybe one and a half. But anyways, here I am! And I have stories! The more time off the more stories generated! Jajajajaja

This past weekend I made plans to go to Granada. And this time I actually made it! (I don't know if I ever mentioned it in the Almuñeca blog, but I was under the impression that we were actually going to Granada then, which never exactly happened.) My friend Marco and I took the train there on Friday afternoon and came back Sunday morning. The train, if it were the same one I took to Madrid, would have taken about an hour, but being that they reserve those old fashioned, cargo looking trains that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid once plundered for the shorter excursions, the trip was about 3 and a half hours. Bus and car are about the same length of time though, and trains allow for reading and writing so I would chose them any day. We arrived in Granada at about 7 friday night and fortunately, or so I thought, I had written down the directions/bus numbers that we would take to our hostel. When I pulled them out and started walking towards the bus, however, mi amigo Marco looked at me as if I were crazy. I mean, who uses directions to get to a desired location in a city in which they have never been to? I guess I liked his spirit though so i put them in my pocket and we proceeded to walk. Not only did we not know where we were going, but we didn't even bother to look at street signs; I guess we just assumed that some force was guiding us or something. But, as we would find out, such a force did not exist. We walked in what we later discovered was the completely opposite direction for about 30 minutes, but it was a fun way of seeing the other part of the city and we were in no hurry. When we knew we were close we decided to use the directions and this is what they consisted of (the final part, at least): "Big wooden door on the right". Maybe if we were in New York or something such a description would have worked, but its a little bit less helpful when all the doors are relatively big, and most definitely wooden. We started off at the biggest of the wood doors, which turned out to be somebody's house, then we attempted to decipher which of the four wooden doors on the street was the most wooden, if that is at all possible - for one wood to be more wooden than a corresponding piece of wood. (Wooden/wood is looking like a very odd word now, after writing it so many times. Test it, after the 6th time it starts to look really funny.) Anyways, that attempt failed as well - it was some sort of meat factory or something - so we turned to the smallest and least wooden of the four doors and, obviously - I mean it probably should have occurred to us sooner, that was the hostel.

The next day we had tickets to the Alhambra - one of the seven man made wonders of the world, also, as we would soon find out, one of the seven most complicated and confusing things of the world. We had tickets to the 8:30 entrance (each ticket gives you half an hour to enter the Alhambra, so we had from 8:30 to 9:00) that I had printed off of the internet. When our turn came up, feeling relatively proud of ourselves for making it on time, we were turned away because we were supposed to have exchanged the internet ticket for one that they give at the front. Ok, a little bit frustrating, but not too big of a deal, I mean, how hard can exchanging tickets be? Well, I guess it depends on if your a distance runner or not, because it was like running a marathon. At a full out sprint. In sandals. Ducking and weaving through people the entire time. Which reminded me of football. Which I miss a lot. We had to run up one hill, only for them to tell us that we were at the ticket office for purchases, not internet exchanges, so we had to run back down the hill and up the one on the opposite side, were we discovered that, although this was the actual entrance, the exchange office was back down, then up and around behind where we were. So we ran again. By the time we got to that office it was 8:51. Fortunately, they took us to the front of the line to exchange our tickets and we somehow made it just as the second hand on my watch was about to force that big hand to change the hour. (A fancy way of saying it was almost 9:00).

The Alhambra was well worth the run. It was originally built by the Muslims and later conquered by the Christians, so it retains aspects of both religions. Although its technically a castle, its much different than one would imagine a castle to be. Each room is beautifully and uniquely decorated witch Islamic scripture covering the walls. It is a very open structure with many courtyards and outdoor walkways leading from one room to the next. In what I thought was the prettiest and most unique room it is said that a Christian leader hosted an extravagant dinner party in which he killed all his guests. Right before dessert none the less. Probably not quite what the guests had in mind when they received the invitation. There is a winter part to the Alhambra and a summer part, or "vacationing spot" in which there are gardens are everywhere - probably similar to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, though I have never been there. In my opinion what makes the Alhambra so beautiful, so majestic, is its location. Granada itself is impressive to take in. Its reminds me a little bit of Aspen, only its an actual city. Mountains rise up on all sides and then unexpectedly drop down into far reaching valleys which the highways shoot over, painting a sort of futuristic looking scene amidst an old, muslim founded community. The Alhambra looks over all of this and gives one an amazing view from all angles.

Wow, this has been an excessively long post. I guess that I felt as though I had to redeem myself a bit but I'm sure everybody is getting a little bit tired of reading this. Or maybe I'm just using that as an excuse due to the fact that I'm getting a little bit tired of typing, but to sum things up, we wrapped up our tour of Granada by visiting the Catedral of Granada and the Arabic community that is on a hill side close to the Alhambra.

I'm going to try to get back to this again this week to put up pictures and give a brief update on life at school. ¡Hasta luego!

Almuñeca (Sept. 19-20)

So I have been in Spain for over a month now, but in many ways I feel like I still haven't gotten away from America. I'm sure the Internet has something to do with that, but I love being able to stay connected to everything and everyone that has been such a big part of my life for so long (Plus, life without Internet is like the even more modern day equivalent of Cast Away, i.e. you can be in the most beautiful, modern, civilized, populous part of the world, but without Internet, without that connection to your home, you still feel as isolated and alone as ever.)  Rather, I think that this feeling of still being in America has more to do with always being around Americans. I was under the impression that from the moment we arrived here in Spain we would be with Spaniards. Granted, we see them all around us, but rare is the occasion in which we actually socialize with them (hopefully part of this will change when they start school on the 28th). Anyways, in an attempt to get even more away, I went to a little beach town called Almuñeca with a Spaniard I had met on my first night in Sevilla and two of his friends. They are crazy. Loco. I don't think I've ever been so confused or turned around in my entire life, but I loved it! Listening to them talk to each other was an experience in itself. I closed my eyes at one point during their conversation and literally thought that I was on another planet amongst 300 or so shouting Martians. I've always wanted thought it would be cool to be abducted by aliens! I'm sure it can't be much different than that experience lol. One of the amigos of my amigo Eduardo (or Principe Naranja as his friends call him because he is always wearing orange) owns a beautiful, very spanish apartment over looking the beach. (I was relieved upon pulling into the parking lot because I thought we would be sleeping in the car or something.... I literally understood nothing about what was going on lol).

We arrived at the apartment at 1:00 am (really 9:00 pm by their standards as I would soon find out) and sat out on the patio for a couple of hours. We went to bed around 3 am upon which the Spaniards all commented on how early it was, especially for a Friday night, but, obviously embarrassed with themselves, they went to sleep. (I, on the other hand, was ecstatic - almost to the point where I couldn't fall asleep - for this was the moment that I had been waiting for since 11 that night lol). The next day we got up at around 9:30 and went down to the beach. The water was cold but we rented a paddle boat and made our way into the open seas. The 3 spaniards and the american. Bound together by what would deem to be about an hour of solid pedaling and sufficient burning in the legs before we would make it back to shore.

That evening would prove to be another late one (or should I say early) as we got to bed around 6 am. The night consisted of tapa bar after tapa bar after tapa bar leading to, when it was all said and done, about 40 euros worth of food and drinks. I, unfortunately, had no say in what I wanted as my new amigos consistently brought new plates to me begging me try the food and then laughing as they saw my often not-to-pleasant reactions.


When it was all said and done the weekend passed by in the blink of an eye, or the sentence of a Spaniard, and I had heard more spanish than ever before in all my years of life combined - which is precisely what I came to Spain for. They want to do it again next weekend, but I need at least another month of recuperation and, apparently, more adjustment to the Spanish lifestyle. I need to catch up on sleep now! And how about them Broncos! All the way baby!

Mi casa, mi cuarto, mi habitación

(El Baño... I still haven't figured out what the toilet type structure between the sink and the actual toilet is used for. One of the many mysteries of this foreign country)

(my room, I know I should have cleaned it a little bit more before I took these pictures, but for some reason I have the hardest time cleaning this room so I decided to show it in its natural state)

(The House itself: (Alonso Cano, Casa 12)

La Universidad: UPO

(First impression of my new University.... ¿¡Dónde está el césped?!)

School..... Escuela.... It is here. Ha empezado. The language might be different, but those two words, school and escuela, they don't differ in any other way. For some people it is those overwhelming thoughts of the long hours of work that lie ahead, the end of the fun, worry free days of summer that they have grown so accustomed to. For me, it is the dreaded opening week. See, I seem to have this uncanny nack for always finding myself with a class schedule that represents as stark a contrast as you will find to those classes that I thought I had signed up for. Something as different as, say, Santa Clara University to my new Pablo De Olavide University (which we will get to later). This makes those first 4 days of school a stress filled, lets take as many classes as I can because the world is going to end (and obviously thats what I would want to do if the world were going to end) week. And this one proved no different. The first three days of school I sat in on about every class offered and some more than once. I was consistently running from one building to another and I don't think I've ever walked into so many doors in such a short period of time in my entire life (as I always seemed to be looking down at a map of the school when a building suddenly sprung up before me). Aaaanyways, I'm good now. I just called my university to make sure all my classes fulfill requirements there and, gracias a dios, they do. I also had my school send me an email saying that same thing just in case they try to hold onto me for another quarter when I return by saying that these classes actually don't count - which, I've heard, has happened before.

I am enrolled in 5 classes at Pablo de Olavide Universidad: Spanish (por supuesto), The European Union, International Marketing, History/Religion of Spain and The European Economy. It seems like a pretty solid course load and the final two classes are taught in Spanish so either I will learn a lot more Spanish as well as history/economy, or nothing at all. When we first saw the campus I'm pretty sure that we all had the same thought: "we are going to jail... or at least to a mental institute... I knew that this whole Spain thing was too good to be true".

(Left: The "watchtower"

Right: The hallways - reminds me of those California highschools I                                               used to see in the movies/disney channel)

It was made even funnier that on the first day of class two of my teachers made a point of reassuring us that we are not in jail, we did not do anything wrong in coming to Spain, and that we will be allowed to go home at the end of everyday. The school consists of an outdoor hallway running for the length of about 3 football fields with buildings springing off to the sides every now and then. The buildings are all yellow and orange with bars on the windows, but the classrooms themselves are just like any classroom you would see at a university back in the states. The thing that I miss most about Santa Clara as compared to this school is the grass. In Santa Clara everything feels so inviting. The freshly cut grass calls your name - whether it is for sports, a nap or just some good, clear thinking. The flowers create an aura of warmth and acceptance and the beautiful architecture makes you want to pull out your camera everywhere you go. Not to say that you don't feel a desire to take some pictures at my new university, its just for the complete opposite reasons; like, hey, look where I go to school, its worse than yours haha not really though; its just going to take some getting used to but I know that I'll love it, im not worried. (I don't have pictures right now, but I'm planning on putting some up in the next couple of days so be sure to check back!)

(This is definitely the kind of picture that you would find in a brochure... a solid use of the only green grass found on campus... though it does look more along the lines of an all-girls boarding school with those pink buildings..)

Over the weekend about 30 of us went to the beach town Huelva. There isn't a whole lot to report from there other than we found a football and got in a good three hours of playing time. Man did I ever need that. Ok time for some tarea! I hope that the United States is still united and very states-like. I read that Obama's latest health care speech was his best since president but I wasn't able to see it. Also everybody from Spain enjoys bragging about how there economy is worse than ours.

Madrid

(One of the first things we saw in Madrid... though we never figured out what the name/purpose of that building...)

¡Caramba! It is absolutely amazing to me that I have already been in Spain for 3 weeks. I feel like I should be fluent in Spanish! I'm not, but the past two weeks sure have bumped me up a couple of notches. On the Friday following our final exam I took a train to Madrid to meet up with my girlfriend and one of her friends. It wasn't until I was on the train (I guess because I had been so focused on the final) that I realized three things: 1) LoLo doesn't have a cellphone 2) I don't know the name of her hotel - I had somehow misplaced that information in route to the train - and 3) Madrid is the biggest city in Spain. These thoughts, combined with the anxiousness that I was already feeling, obviously caused me a bit of worry; but "Marley and Me" was playing on the tv in spanish and that substantially distracted me for a couple of hours. Just as the train was nearing its approach I received the phone call that I had been resting all of my hopes upon - LoLo was able to use the hotel phone and from there we took advantage of Madrid's highly effective metro system to meet up with each other relatively painlessly. We walked around the city a bit - me the experienced foreigner as they were still overcome by the jet lag a day and a half of traveling can give (not to mention the 8 hour time difference).

The next day we went to the Palacio Real - the official residence of the royal family of Spain. It really instils a new idea of what "big house" means. With 3000 rooms, a dining table for 180 people and an armory the size of a football field, the massive structure structure makes those so called mansions in Aspen look like little ant hills.

(Above: In front of the Palacio Real. The Statue is a representation of King Felipe IV)

We toured the Palacio with a handy little microphone type thing as our guide - you press the numbers corresponding to the room you are in and then the microphone gives you the history of that particular room. Unfortunately, I had misread the order of the numbers and therefore was intently  listening to the descriptions of the room completely  opposite of where I was. Everything looked too similar for me to distinguish via the audio description however, and, acting as the tour guide, I relayed all of the information to LoLo and Kandace under the impression that it was factual. We would oo and ahh and it wasn't until one of them took over audio duties that we found out that we should go ahead and forget everything we had just "learned". Needless to say, I was no longer allowed to be the official tour guide and we had to go back to number 1 on the map. (Towards the end of the tour, just to put the icing on the cake regarding my relationship with that microphone, I was swinging it around on the cord when it went flying off, hit the ground and ceased functioning all together).

(Plaza de Mayor - one of the most famous plazas in Madrid, famous for its tapa bars and street performers)



That evening we waited in a line with the hope of receiving discount tickets to a ballet that night. Maybe the fact that we were the last ones in the line, the fact that we were the only Americans or the fact that it seemed as though we were being laughed at for an abnormally long amount of time should have warned us, but by the time we got up to the front they were fresh out of tickets. So much for the hour and a half wait I guess...

(Left: A picture of some of the food served at tapa bars in Spain, though this was the nicest one I have been too.  Upon pushing and shoving your way to the bar to order they heat up the food and then bring it to you.)

The following morning, Sunday, we went to the Prado - one of the three biggest art museums in the world. There we saw drawings by Vazquez (the most famous Spanish artist - born in Sevilla, my new hometown - thats my claim to fame) Goya and about 400 other artists. It was entertaining for about 15 minutes, but I did my best to feign interest for the remaining hour and a half lol. Eventually they all start to look the same to me. Its not that I'm not interested in the paintings or the history behind them, its just that I know absolutely nothing about them. If anybody has any recommendations on books I should read regarding the incredibly broad topic of "History" (particularly that of the Romans, Greeks or Christianity) I would love to hear some suggestions.

(Somewhat random picture of a church outside of the Prado... seems as though scooters are just catching on in Spain... they've been out of style for about 10 years now in the U.S.)

I don't know how I'm supposed to end a blog. If it were an email I would say "I hope Colorado isn't too cold yet!", or, "I look forward to reading any responses!", or something along those lines, but I feel like blogs don't require little sign off messages like that. Rather, I think that they just kind of end. Like I talk for a while, write everything that is on my mind, and then just kind of dwindle off. "Until next time." Maybe thats a good one. I really don't know. If anyone has any words of advice regarding my new predicament that would be greatly appreciated. Also if anybody knows how I can watch American football in Spain I will grant them with the grandest of all honors - dedicating this blog to them..... Adios! (I had to say it haha)

Update Numero Dos

Wow, if last week was spent getting to now the basics of the city, this one was all about immersing ourselves in the language and in the culture. When we weren’t at our home speaking with our families, we were in class for 3-4 hours a day studying\learning\and taking tests. We were also thrown into the city a couple of times on so called scavenger hunts where the aim was to find Sevilla students, talk to them about their school, and try to understand at least a word or two here and there to write our reports off of. Learning Spanish where the language is actually spoken by everybody around you is completely different from Spanish in the United States: you go to class for a couple of hours every week, but the second you leave you don’t think about the new grammar or vocabulary until you have the class again or until a test somehow creeps up on you that you requires a bit of studying. Here, however, you can take what you learned in class and immediately put it into action. At home, in the streets, wherever. It gives a new incentive to concentrate and really try to learn the material. More than just getting a good grade, you want to improve for the sake of your life outside of the classroom. Sometimes, when I’m walking through the city by myself, I do my best to look like a native Sevillan. The other day I was sitting down eating a sandwich, or a bocadillo, and a couple of tourists asked me in English where they were. I looked at them in confusion, replied that I only speak Spanish and they were then forced to use body language to ask the question. I explained to them in Spanish where they were, but when they asked me how to get to a point on the complete opposite side of the city I was forced to give up my cover and revert to English. The look on their faces was pretty funny when i suddenly became fluent in English, but I think I had them going for a couple minutes!

Adapting to the Spanish lifestyle has been quite the adjustment. At home I was an early bird - one who ate ALOT of worms for breakfast - active all day long, small lunch, and ready to go to bed by 11 at the latest. The best way to describe the Spanish and their daily routines is to take my old routine and then do the exact opposite. If I didn’t have class in the morning, like today, things really wouldn’t ever get going until around 12; they have incredibly small breakfasts (sometimes just a glass of milk and tiny muffin), absolutely massive lunches, siesta time after lunch (which can last anywhere from 2-4 hours; when i wander the streets in this time I get the feeling that I am the only person left in the world, which is pretty weird to have in such a big city), dinner at 10 or 11 and bed at, on most nights, 1 or 2. When we go out at night I’ve discovered that the bestroutine for me is go to bed at the same time i would at home, sleep for 4 hours, then wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and get my evening started.

Earlier this week we went on a little field trip to the Catedral. Its a gothic cathedral (the 3rd largest of its kind, when it was first constructed it was the first largest) built upon Muslim foundations – the Muslims had a presence there until they were forced out of the country in 1248). This gives it a very unique look in which the courtyard and the outside design are Muslim, but the cathedral itself is Christian. The king who had it built loved the original Muslim construction so much that he ordered the church to be built upon and within the original Muslim design as opposed to tearing the whole thing down and starting over. Walking around the church from the outside takes a good 10-15 minutes to get back to your starting point. The inside is absolutely massive, the walls just shoot skyward – very fitting as it resembles the streets of Sevilla. 

(Looking down on the Catedral from the Giralda)

When it was first built it was the tallest standing building in the world. It also claims to be the burial place of Christopher Columbus, though there is a fair amount of controversy regarding this claim - they won’t know for sure until 2041 when a DNA test with Christopher’s brother (who is also buried at the catedral) and the “other” Christopher Columbus (who, I believe, is in the Dominican Republic) is completed. My favorite part of the church is the 36 story tower (Giralda) from which you can see all of Sevilla.

(Man, did those pools ever look enticing)

Anyways if you ever get tired of American politics and talk about Heath Care then i hate to inform you that espana is not the place to come to escape it. They love talking about it, or at least my family/their friends, and about all of the things that we do wrong and they do better.