Andando por Andalucía (Parte 1) - 15

Howdy from the south of Spain! I’m in the middle of that endearing thing that Spainiards do called a puente – a bridge between two holidays (fiestas) that they decide to go ahead and make an even longer holiday. In this case, Monday was Día de la Constitución, Tuesday (today) was the puente, and Wednesday is the Día de la Inmaculada Concepción. So far, I’ve been in Sevilla and Córdoba, and just got into Granada last tonight. Here’s how things have been so far.

Getting to Sevilla: Bear with me, but this is a whole story in itself. For the first time in my life, I went to the airport and left it without having flown anywhere. It turns out that I didn’t actually have a ticket for my Ryanair flight – a major bummer to say the least. I think what happened is that, back in October, I tried to buy my plane ticket and got a page that looked like a confirmation notification (it even said “Payment Due – 0.00 EUR”) that wasn’t a confirmation…! Of course, it’s totally my fault for not checking my flight details more carefully, but the point is that 9am Friday morning rolled around and I was without a flight in a crowded airport full of Spaniards trying to get around the country for puente. I won’t bore you with the details, but after lots of effort I finally ascertained that neither another flight (180 EUR) nor a train (250 EUR) were feasible, so luckily I found a 15-hr bus ride that charged much more reasonable fare..

Of course – having located the bus ticket – I wasn’t able to buy it by phone (you can only buy a ticket over the phone 2 days in advance), so the guy kindly directed me to their great website (that they seem very proud of).. which was having problems for the day and wouldn’t let me buy the ticket. By the time I realized that I needed to bite the bullet and go to the bus station in person, the first bus was full, so I settled for one that left five hours later. All things considered, it worked out well, and I was able do some reading on the way, but by the end of the experience I was quite frustrated with the Spanish way of doing things. As you might be aware from some of my posts, things (and by “things,” I mean government, education, transit, food, EVERYTHING) just don’t work nearly as efficiently or smoothly here as they do in the US. The note I wrote to myself after my travel experience: “NOTHING WORKS IN SPAIN YET THEY ACT LIKE THINGS DO. EMAIL, PLANES, TRAINS, PHONES, WEBSITES - THE WHOLE COUNTRY. CALL ME A SPOILED AMERICAN BUT THE WAY THINGS ARE HERE IS A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME AND ENERGY.”

I will stop complaining now. So Sevilla itself! It’s a really cool town, very mellow and peaceful. It’s much much smaller than Barcelona; you can go almost anywhere in Sevilla within 30 min. walking, whereas in Barca the Metro is a key part of getting around. There are also ORANGE TREES everywhere in Sevilla, which is beyond cool. And the oranges are currently in season. Of course, against my friends’ admonitions, I had to eat a couple of the fruits – very sour but edible. My buddy and I also made some fresh orange juice out of some oranges we picked, which was delicious with a bit (actually a lot) of sugar added to it. We also saw a cool little flamenco show at a bar one night. I’m sure I don’t know enough to appreciate all the intricacies of this typically Spanish dance & musical art form, but nevertheless I was fascinated by the various components that make up flamenco. There were 2 clappers, a guitar player, and a woman dancing. Basically the guitar player strums a light series of chords in a certain rhythym, the clappers add complementary emphases or syncopations, and the dancing is sort of the artistic focal point that the musical background supports. It’s a really cool tradition, and the beat often crescendoes to a frenzy that eventually culminates in a final flair by the dancer that always seems to correspond perfectly to the stopping of the music. Impressive and interesting.

A definite highlight of my time in Sevilla was church on Sunday. Of course, Catholic churches in Spain far outnumber their evangelical counterparts, so it was a bit difficult to find a good place; but, with the help of the clerk at my hostel, I found the location of a church called the Iglesia Cristiana Evangelica that sounded like it was worth a shot. When I arrived at the spot for the 11 am service, drenched and cold from the morning downpour, it was so nice to be ushered into a warm, welcoming, and authentically Andalucian Christian community. The first lady I talked to asked if it was my first time at the church, and when I said that it was, she pleasantly and sincerely said “¡Hallelujah!”, gave me a program, and planted the traditional two kisses on my cheeks. After this auspicious start, I felt right at home! The feeling continued as the praise band led us in a number of Spanish worship songs, punctuated by prayers. A couple of the songs I recognized as Spanish translations of songs I know well in English, and in general the format was very similar to my churches both in Princeton and Barcelona. And then the sermon was great! The pastor was charismatic and engaging; he often interacted with specific members of the congregation and sprinkled his talk with jokes.

I think my favorite part of his talk went something like this: “Si no tienes suficiente comunión con Dios, haz tres cosas: Uno – Ora! Dos – Ora! Tres – Ora!!! Una iglesia que ora puede cambiar el mundo.” The translation is: “If you don’t have enough communion with God, do three things: One – Pray! Two – Pray! Three – Pray!!! A church that prays can change the world.” Simple but powerful words.

It was also neat to meet another American study abroad student in the sea of Spaniards.. The girl I met goes to Brown and actually knew some of my Brown friends who I was in Sevilla with, so she played tour guide for us for an hour or two as we checked out the Alcazar and the city a bit. The Alcazar is a palace with tons of Arabic influence and beautiul gardens, as well as a sweet hedge maze! After we split ways, our group hit up the Catedral de Sevilla, which was huge and ornate. I got to see Christopher Columbus’ tomb, which was especially interesting since I’ve been reading his memoirs about traveling to the Americas for my Literatura Hispanoamericana class. It’s funny because there are so many ridiculously wrought churches and cathedrals in Spain that you almost get numb to their amazing architecture and start taking them for granted. I’m trying to avoid that as much as possible, because I know there will come a point when I’m like “Oh yea, that was incredible” and wish I could see it again.

The only real downside to our stay in Sevilla was that it rained – a lot. But, still a great trip so far and looking forward to the remaining travel in Andalucia the next couple of days. Will relate my stays in Córdoba and Granada next week! And I'll upload some photos then too.