After a not so satisfying breakfast of a hard roll the size of a dinosaur egg, warm orange juice, and Cocolacao (nesquick Spain style... it is impossible to mix into cold milk, though BTW) we were off to see the city- the 4th largest in Spain.
Our first stop was Alcazar- a muslim style palace near the Sevillan cathedral. It was so pretty! Wow I could hardly believe all the details in the plaster, stucco, and every single piece of tile that lined the doors, walls, and ceilings. It was truly remarkable.
Our next stops were in a really pretty Sevillan garden, and then it was off to the Cathedral. The coolest things about this cathedral were that it has a HUGE tower you can climb up, (back in the day when it was a mosque someone had to ride a horse to the top 5 times daily to sound the prayer bells) it is the 4th largest in the world, and a portion of Christopher Colombus is buried there. (yes, only a portion haha)
When the touring was over, it was free time, and we were oh SO thankful. Its still kind of hard to eat at 8 AM and then not eat again until 2 PM, so when our tour was over at 2, we all raced to find a restaurant. Thank heavens there were restaurants close by, and the food wasn't half bad either. Me and one of my friends split Spanish tortilla and Spinach alfredo (meh, about as good as Spanish Italian food can get) and then finished it off with a little ice cream because you can never have enough ice cream.
We finished eating with a little free time left, so we spent the rest of it walking around Sevilla, stopping by the river and the Plaza de Toros, which is where they have the bullfights. It was so hot- I am getting a nice farmer's tan, and all I really want to do all day is jump into one of the many fountains! So far, I am doing well at restraining myself.
Later we went to the Flamenco Dance Museum here in Sevilla. I was not that excited to go at first, but it ended up being on the the COOLEST THINGS EVER. Seriously, in my next life I could consider being a gypsy. Here is what I've learned about flamenco:
-there's three parts: the dancer, the guitar/musician, and the singer. All parts are equally mindblowing
- it's a gypsy dance, and to demonstrate the somber feelings, dancers scowl the whole time.
- Flamenco originated in Andalucia, and the gypsies migrated here from northern India many moons ago.
Anyways, after learning a little, we had a rhythm demo with a gypsy man, which basically consisted of us sitting on hollow boxes and tapping them to a beat while he did his cool gyspy singing. Talent. After our "beat boxing" (haha funny) we went to see the flamenco museum, and then got to see actual live flamenco dancing. If you have never seen flamenco, had the dancers seriously 2 feet away, and felt their sweat a couple times, you won't really get it. But flamenco is awesome. They musicians are so talented, the dancers so nimble, and everything is so intense, and when I say intense, I mean that I don't think I breathed over 5 times during the hour performance, it was just that captivating. When we got out we all felt like we had a flamenco hangover... and we wanted more.
Our last stop of the day was at Plaza de España, which is basically just this amazing building that isn't even used, but is great to look at... sort of the Eiffel Tower of Spain? Anways, it was great and we got some good pics.
The end of the day brought a lot of hunger, and that hunger made us take a 10 PM pizza run to telepizza, and then it was all polished off with a McDonalds 1 euro ice cream cone. It was delicious... or maybe that was the "7 hours without food" feeling talking?
tomorrow= Granada in the morning. Ciao
1 comment:
Ha my spanish teacher was obsessed wtih flamenco and even took her son to Spain so he could take some guitar lessons with a famous flamenco-er. Ha. I always thought the clapping people in the background were kinda random/weird.
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