Semana Santa, Feria, y Más

I have a whole lot to write about from the past few weeks, but before I get to that, I have to say that I am absolutely fascinated by watching kids learn English. I just got back from observing a small class of second-graders, courtesy of Karen, the English teacher from the daycare. They weren't doing anything that sounds particularly exciting on paper, but experiencing it is a totally different story. The kids don't know very much English yet- they're still learning basic things like "What is your favorite color?",  "I am from Seville," "What's the matter?" , and "My birthday is in May." Even so, the class is taught entirely in English, which really makes you realize how much we can communicate with body language alone.

It was such a strange feeling, having not just Spanish-speakers but seven-year-old Spanish-speakers be the ones to break the very language barrier between us that I'm always trying to break myself. It's really exciting to watch them learn and use words that I recognize as my own language. Had I encountered any of these kids on the street or in a park today, I would have been the one trying to keep up with them, praying to be familiar with whatever vocabulary they might choose to use. But in an English classroom, they are the brave ones who are there to try to form odd-sounding sentences and words in order to communicate with me. I know that was a statement from Captain Obvious, but it's difficult to describe the feeling it gives you, having a girl who doesn't speak English carefully ask you "Where are you from?," or watching them hop out of their chairs when you say "Stand up!", or pat their tummies and yell "Tummy!" after you silently show them a flashcard with the word on it. IT'S SO COOL THAT THEY UNDERSTAND!!

Okay, moving on from my happy obsessive teacher moment...

Since I last posted, I've basically had two Spring breaks separated with one week of classes. The first was Semana Santa, aka Holy Week, and this past week was Feria de Sevilla, aka the Seville Fair.

Semana Santa is known mostly for its processions through the streets. There are a lot of them- 60 in Sevilla according to Wikipedia- and they each have their own route, beginning from their own church, then passing by the cathedral (usually) and ending back in their church. Though some are accompanied by brass bands and candies are handed out to children, the processions are not at all your typical happy, energetic parades. They are done as an act of penance with a solemn atmosphere. The nazareños typically carry either a candle or a cross, and the costaleros are at the tail of the procession walking under an elaborate wooden float that they carry. Many are barefoot, and as for how they dress...

It's not what it looks like!! They wear penitential robes and conical hats that conceal their faces, but no, they are not the KKK. From my understanding, the KKK basically stole the look from the nazareños and made it look bad.

The robe colors vary based on their cofradía.

It rained here for a lot of Semana Santa, so many of the processions had to be canceled. There was one day, however, where I was out wandering the city and got caught between a bunch of them on my way home. I had to seek alternate routes everywhere I went and ended up getting lost for three hours. (Clearly I inherited my dad's sense of direction.)

On to the cheerier of the Spring breaks...

Illumination of the fairground entrance- the opening of feria

The entrance is at the end of my street. It was packed every night.

Half of feria is what you think of when you think of a fair- overpriced but delicious unhealthy food, games with obnoxious stuffed animal prizes, and rides lacking in the safety harness department. The other half of the fairgrounds is the more traditional, sevillano part. The roads are lined with casetas (party tents, but more sophisticated), most of which are nicely decorated and privately owned within families and such, others bigger and open to the general public. People dress up for the event, usually in traditional flamenco dresses or suits, and do a whole lot of eating, drinking, and dancing. In a way it was the real-life display of a stereotypical image of Spain. There are also carriages all over the streets of Sevilla, with horses wearing jingle bell-adorned harnesses.

Chocolate and white chocolate-drenched gofre.

Feria ended last night with fireworks over the river at midnight, signaling that it's my last week here and time to study for finals. This is enough catching up for tonight, but in the next couple of days I'll be writing again about my trip to Gibraltar, seeing a flamenco show, and all kinds of other good stuff to summarize my views on my semester as a whole!

Mullet count : 27

London: Polite Acentos and Transporte Muy Fácil

This past weekend I met up with Sarah, a friend from home and ISU who’s studying in Sweden this semester, and we spent our Thursday through Monday being supertourists in the land of no language barrier!

Actually, that’s not entirely true.  I was previously well aware that American English and British English have some dialectal differences ( “fries” vs. “chips,” “chips” vs. “crisps,” “garbage” vs. “rubbish,”), but I didn’t know that I wouldn’t be understood when asking for “band-aids,” or that candy bars don’t contain pieces of “cookie,” but rather “biscuit.” I was also surprised to barely be able to tell if a recorded announcement was in English, because the strong accent combined with lots of speed and little breath made all the little words run together and sound like something totally foreign at first. 

I do need to express my love for the British accent though. It just makes everything sound so much more polite. Even when people are swearing up a storm or whining to their family members or yelling at a crowd of people to back up, they sound so much more pleasant! 

We did basically everything you can think of and LOVED IT. The two hours waiting in customs and hostel that seemed a suitable set for a horror movie’s murder scene? Merely minor setbacks. 

We started our adventure Friday morning with the intention of going to Madame Tussauds, the wax museum, but we got there and realized the entrance price was 29 pounds, which is almost 50 US dollars. We quickly decided to save 25 pounds and instead explore the area while eating our £4 amazingly delicious crepes from the stand on the corner.

bananas and nutella!

We then took the tube to King's Cross Station, the train station where the famous Platform 9¾ from the Harry Potter movies was filmed. I'll get to that in a minute, but let me take this paragraph to declare my love for London's public transportation system. IT IS SO EASY TO USE. The maps are easy to read, the lines are easy to figure out, and there are helpful signs in all the right places. It is the epitome of organization, which is a beautiful thing in public transportation. You know what I mean if you've ever had to take the subway in New York City, or are generally half as directionally confused and incompetent as myself. Whoever is responsible for the tube's layout, give yourself a giant pat on the back! And feel free to share your brilliance with the US.

Anyway, Platform 9¾ was filmed between platforms 4 and 5 of the station. Unfortunately, you have to actually buy a train ticket to get onto the platform. They do, however, humor Harry Potter fans with a consolation site cleverly placed between platforms 9 and 10- a laminate brick-patterned wall with the back half of a luggage trolley sticking out under a Platform 9¾ sign. ...Yay?

The pillars between platforms 4 and 5. Look familiar?

We later ventured to the Australia House, the building whose lobby was used to film Gringotts wizard bank, but they only let you inside one day a year and that day did not happen to be April 15th. Oh well, I can still say I've seen the building! After that, we walked through The National Gallery and saw famous works of Van Gogh and Monet, which we didn't even know were in there until they were in front of our faces.

We had tickets for an evening performance of the musical Les Miserables, so we found the theater with two hours to spare, then ate dinner in a restaurant of Indonesian, Malaysian, and Singaporean food. Les Mis was awesome, though I didn't completely pay attention for most of the first act. I know, I know, but I was unfamiliar with the storyline and it wasn't exactly easy to follow. Thankfully, Sarah filled me in at intermission and explained the second act to me before it actually started so I wouldn't have to be the annoying person that asks questions the whole time. Like I said though, the show was amazing, the music incredible, the actors amazingly incredible. It still doesn't beat the Broadway production of The Lion King (because nothing can), but I'd recommend it. 

Sarah being excited outside the theater

We wandered directly across the street and found ourselves in Chinatown, where I bought a ricecake. It was essentially a gummy pink ball with a really sugary bean-ish filling. I approve. 

 

We got up bright and early the next day for a bus tour of the city. Being a passenger where vehicles drive on the left side of the road is a very odd sensation. Every time the bus turned, I was instinctively screaming in my head "WRONG LANE WRONG LANE WRONG LANE" and bracing myself for the head-on collision that would (not) ensue if we didn't move over.  


We saw just about every famous site in London you can think of including Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben (which, by the way, is the name of the bell inside the clock tower, not the clock tower itself), the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, and the changing of the guards ceremony outside of Buckingham Palace. (Pictures on facebook!) Our tour then gave us a break for lunch, so Sarah got fish & chips and I got vegetarian "fish" and chips- the "fish" was basically mozzarella sticks. Our tour resumed with a 2-hour coach ride outside of London to the famous prehistoric World Heritage Site that is Stonehenge. We had both already learned quite a bit about its history, so we ditched the pre-recorded audio tour to seize the perfect jumping picture opportunity. We spent a lot of time feeling amazed, happy we could cross this off our bucket lists, bummed that we weren't allowed to touch it, and trying to wrap our minds around the fact that this mysterious man-made stone structure in front of us was over 4,000 years old. Awesome experience, and probably my favorite part of the trip.

We ate Indian food later that night- YUM! - and talked our way out of paying for a six-dollar bottle of water. We attended the Palm Sunday service at Westminster Abbey the next morning and explored Westminster School, which reminds me of Hogwarts to the max. It's also had some cool headmasters, such as John Locke (If you don't know who he is, shame on you. Go take a US government class.) and Henry Liddell, friend of Lewis Carroll and father of Alice Lidell. (See the Alice in Wonderland connection?)

 We later tube'd over to Oxford Street for some Thornton's fudge, and figured out the (incredibly organized and easy to follow!) bus system to get to a pub for dinner that did NOT have scratch n' sniff wallpaper as rumored. We changed our minds and settled on Dominoe's pizza instead (exotic, I know). We talked for hours, mostly about our language/cultural differences, with cool people in the hostel that night- two Canadians, two Italians, and an Irish guy.

Monday morning and afternoon were spent in the beautiful Hyde Park seeing how close the swans would let us get before flying away, and as it turns out, they don't fly away. Maybe they would if you touched them, but we were too scared of how that might go down.

After that it was off to the airport and back to our prospective countries. You can bet I will be returning to the polite, navigable, vegetarian-friendly city of London at some point in my life! I hope you have enjoyed my exceedingly long update, because I am sufficiently sick of writing it. Happy Easter, Congrats to Holly and Michael on baby Joseph's arrival, and goodnight!

Mullet count in England: ZERO (round of applause)
Mullet count in Spain: 25

¡Tú hablas mal!

For the past few weeks, I've been working in the 3-year-old class at the daycare. I LOVE THEM. Though they get into much more trouble, I have to admit they're a bit more exciting than the 5-month-olds. The most rewarding thing I've experienced throughout my semester here has been successfully carrying on conversations with the kids, and understanding them well enough to tend to their needs. It's safe to say I've learned more at the daycare in the past few weeks than I have in my classes all semester.

My favorite (not that I have a favorite or anything) is a boy named Fernando. He has curly, dirty-blond hair and carries around this old blue stuffed dog that's missing an eye. He smiles at everything, he's super ticklish, and he often climbs all over me or throws himself in my lap without warning. When he's explaining something or telling a story, he is quite expressive and dramatic, utilizing swooping hand gestures, facial expressions, pauses for effect, and drastic variations in the intonation of his words. And today I discovered another charming attribute of his: honesty. He cut me off and said "¡Tú hablas mal!" ("You talk bad!"). Thanks for the confidence boost, buddy.

Excitement has been building in Sevilla all week with preparations for Semana Santa. The marching bands are practicing in the streets for the parades, parts of streets are being blocked off, and best of all, my host mom has introduced my roommates and I to an Easter specialty so heavenly you'd swear Jesus made it himself: torrijas.

How do I begin to describe these? They're slices of bread cooked and fried and soaked in all kinds of stuff- milk, sugar, cinnamon, eggs, honey, and white wine. I guess you could say they're the Spanish version of french toast, but they're served chilled and they have sort of a custard-y taste and a denser consistency. If I come back to the US weighing twice as much as when I left, it will be entirely the fault of las torrijas. I'm not sure if they look quite as appetizing as they sound, so trust my words over their appearance:

More roommates have been moving in and out of the apartment, as usual. The two Italian girls, Sara and Fabiola, left Sunday morning and later that night we got a new girl from Germany, Alex, who is staying until the end of next week. Living with people from other countries and learning about our cultural differences has been pretty fascinating to me. We've spent hours after dinner discussing differences in daily routines, media, school systems, food, holidays, and stereotypes.

Fabiola, Sara, and myself in Parque de los Principes on their last day here

 I would love to elaborate on the previous paragraph, but I have to be at the airport in a few hours and I still have to finish packing and print my boarding pass. That's right, I'm going to London until Monday.

¡Hasta luegoooo!

Mullet count: 23

Babies, Granada, and Taylor Swift

Look, I'm still alive! Sorry for the month-long gap in between posts. Classes are still going well-- easier than ever for the most part, and I just finished up midterms. I kind of miss feeling productive in the schoolwork department, but I'm not complaining too much.

A few weeks ago I started helping out in a daycare called "Pato Donald," aka Donald Duck. I've been going for three and a half hours every Tues/Thurs, and five hours every Friday, and I LOVE IT! I normally work in the baby room for right now, with babies from 4-14ish months old. Twelve or so babies in one room is a lot of tears and a lot of diaper changes, but it's not nearly as overwhelming as you'd think. Last week, I migrated to the two-year-old room to watch the English lesson they had. This was basically a half hour of a lady from Michigan dancing around with a monkey puppet that spoke to them in English, and several familiar songs such as "The Wheels on the Bus." The kids seemed to love it, and it was strange but adorable to watch.

Our group took the last of our weekend trips on the 11th to the city of Granada, which means "pomegranate" in Spanish. It is situated in the mountains and has tons of Arab influence from when the Muslims ruled Spain (711-1492). A lot of the architecture, restaurants, and markets look like something out of Aladdin. The main must-see site of Granada is La Alhambra, an ancient Arabian citadel and palace. On the first day we were there, we walked around the city and hiked up a little to where we had an excellent view of La Alhambra and all of Granada.

The next day, the group went inside the Alhambra. I would've too, but the whole hike down, I wasn't feeling too well. Sickness hit me once we got back to the hotel, and let's just say I'm never eating chocolate hazelnut ice cream again. I spent the next day sleeping off a fever and watching TV in between naps. I may have missed all the planned activities that day, but I'm proud to report that I can clearly understand Malcolm in the Middle and Room Raiders in Spanish.

The following weekend, Nicole and I caught a cheap bus to Madrid (only a six and a half hour ride! haha) for the Taylor Swift concert! It turns out that my immune system hates me, because I got sick again, but I decided there was no way I was going to miss the concert and my queasy stomach and achey knees/head would just have to pretend they were made of steel this time. Once the show started, the adrenaline was enough to feel 110% better. We had standing room tickets and managed to push our way pretty close to the stage:

The show was incredible! I had so much fun! It was also interesting to stand in a crowd of Spanish-speakers that were singing along in English (or trying to). Taylor Swift herself has a Spanish vocabulary limited to "Hola," "Gracias," and "Mi español no es muy bueno, pero me encanta Madrid." I was a lot sicker the next day, but the trip was totally worth it. 

There's not much else to report! The weather here has been consistently in the 70's, we're getting two Italian students in the house tomorrow, and my immune system has fully redeemed itself. I hope everyone is still wonderful back home, and I promise I won't wait another month to blog again!

P.S. Mullet count: 17

Ha pasado un mes

It's hard to believe that I've been here for a month already, because sometimes it feels like I'm still just getting started. I've been in class for three weeks now and I am absolutely madly in love with Phonetics & Phonology. The other three classes are survivable, especially since there are no Friday classes in my program. The university itself is a gorgeous building called La Real Fábrica de Tobacos (The Royal Tobacco Factory). It was originally used as the first tobacco factory in Europe, built at the start of the 16th century after the Spanish discovered America and brought over tobacco from the New World. It's had a couple of other uses since then, and it became la Universidad de Sevilla in 1948.

Enough about school. Since I last blogged, the group has taken weekend trips to Madrid, Toledo, and Ronda.

In Madrid we stayed in probably the nicest hotel I've ever seen the inside of. The powerful double showerhead and heated towel rack in the bathroom were certainly a welcome change from the Sevilla apartment, where the water pressure is equivalent to a drizzle. The first day in Madrid, we toured the city on foot with our awesome guide, Paco. We walked through Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol, neither of which had any shortage of street performers. Plaza Mayor is the main square of the city. Bullfights were held there back in the day, but there was one little problem- it's a square. The bulls could very easily corner the matadores and do some serious damage. Thus, they switched to the circular bull rings we see today. We also saw the royal palace, where royalty does not actually live. According to Paco, the royal family "doesn't really do anything anyway."

Plaza Mayor

El Palacio Real

While in Madrid, we also visited la Reina Sofia and Museo del Prado, two very famous art museums. I went to both of these last time I was in Spain, and I'm happy to report that they were slightly more enjoyable this time around. (Maybe because it wasn't 100 degrees out and I hadn't stayed up packing the entire night before this time.) Lily and I scanned the Reina Sofia pretty quickly. I made a point to see Picasso's "La Guernica" because I had learned so much about it in past Spanish classes. Aside from that, we took silly pictures with all those oh-so-impressive contemporary types of paintings- you know, the ones that appear to have been painted by lazy preschoolers. A squiggly black line on a blank white canvas with a yellow splotch in the corner. I suppose I'm not worldly and philosophical enough to understand true art. We saw works in the Prado that had much more history- paintings by El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. Paco made it interesting by sharing his wealth of knowledge and fun facts on the paintings and their painters.

In Toledo we did lots of stair-climbing, bridge-crossing, and stopping to take pictures. The city is very old-fasioned looking, and it's basically built on a hill. There are sections of stairs that are more like a series of small platforms. They were designed this way so horses could climb and descend with greater ease. We also saw El Greco's "El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz." I've learned a lot about this painting in past Spanish classes as well, but I will spare you all the long history lesson and just say that it's an important, historical, impressive, huge mural in a church of Toledo, and I enjoyed seeing it in person. During our free time in Toledo, I tried marzapan and it is definitely on my list of top ten favorite things in the world now! Oh, and the final adventure of the Toledo trip is that we all thought our train left twenty minutes later than it actually did. We realized this just in time to run to the train station. As if we didn't already stand out just by being American, our group of twenty or so people literally sprinted like maniacs through the streets, down the stairs, and across the bridges. It was dumbfounding to the Spaniards, but hilarious to us.

Toledo

View from bridge in previous picture

Ronda is a place I had never heard of before this semester, but it is hands down my favorite place in Spain so far. We had beautiful weather with perfect views of the most amazing, picturesque scenery you could imagine. A giant mountain gorge runs through the town, and there are tons of cafes, houses, and terraces built on the edge of the cliffs. We also saw the ancient Arab baths and the oldest bull ring in Spain that is still in use. All of this was shown to us by our tour guide, Jesus, who was also guide to Michelle Obama when she visited Ronda.

Here in Sevilla, not too much is new. I'm still completely in love with it here. One of my roommates, Franziska, who had been here since September, left a few weeks ago to go back to Germany. A new student (also from Germany) moved in last week, but she's only here for three weeks. Her name is Katrin, which is pronounced by Spanish speakers exactly the same as my name. We had a four day weekend because today is El Dia de Andalucia, and she and I went to the the beach in Cádiz yesterday. It's been a really relaxing weekend with amazing weather, but it's supposed to start getting colder again. And by colder I mean it's still going to be warm.

Fun fact- peanut butter is a rarity over here. If you can find it in the grocery stores at all, you can bet it's expensive. And you certianly can't find Reese's.

Leave a comment or email me or write me or facebook me and let me know how you guys are doing over in the US!

Hasta luego.

P.S. Mullet sightings since arrival: 9

Las primeras semanas en resumen

Hello hello! I'm still very much alive and enjoying myself here. The atmosphere of the apartment is a lot of fun since so many people are staying here. There is never a dull moment, especially with the dog who is treated like a person, thinks he's a blanket, and gets snot on everything. Everyone is at different levels of Spanish, but we all know English, so they prefer to speak it when our host mom isn't around. The same goes for the people in my program-- the majority of them are taking all their classes in English and are more concerned with observing the culture rather than living it and learning/practicing the language. That was an adjustment for me after having done the insanely immersive IU honors program, but at the same time I understand, and I've gotten used to it for the most part. I just have to get creative in finding ways to practice my Spanish. Sometimes I'll go into stores and ask for directions even if I know where I'm going, or ask questions about merchandise even if I don't really care about it, just so I can keep practicing with native speakers.

The weather is still awesome. It’s been rainy today and yesterday, but up until then it was all sunshine. I've been going running along the Guadalquivir River with a friend. Everyone in Spain is always out and about, and the river is a pretty popular spot to walk, run, ride bikes, or just hang out. Even at 10:00 at night or on a Sunday when everything is closed, the streets and paths of the city are always filled with people of all ages. But like I said in my last post, the atmosphere is laid back and comfortably busy, not at all rushed or stressful. (Traffic is the exception.)

Last weekend was our group's trip to Córdoba, which is a comfortable 45 minute train ride away. We met up with our tour guide in a plaza and she took us to the more ancient part of town. Córdoba is one of the hottest cities in Spain in the summer, so all the streets and pathways that weave between the whitewash buildings are very narrow to provide shade. (The opposite of useful in February, however.) We saw las paredes de flores (flower walls. doesn't sound as great in English) and patio areas with fountains and tiles with intricate geometric designs. We visited a leatherwork shop that smelled amazing.

Then we visited the synagogue, which was built in the 14^th century. The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, and the synagogue of Córdoba is the only ancient one left in Andalucia (the region of Spain I’m in), and one of the three left in all of Spain.

After the synagogue, we visited La Mezquita, the ginormous mosque-turned-cathedral. The site was originally home to a Roman place of worship, then turned into a Visigothic cathedral, then the mosque was constructed in the 8^th century. It’s huge, cold, dark, and beautiful. 24,000 square meters with rows and rows of red striped horseshoe arches, supported by over 800 pillars of granite and rose marble, most of which were taken from the Roman temple that previously occupied the site.

The mosque was captured in the 13^th century and turned Christian. They left most of the architecture as it was, but constructed chapels and shrines within certain areas of it. The architecture is incredible—I never thought I could be that amazed by a building. The altar, intricate wood carvings, and incredibly high arched ceilings literally make you gasp.

Aside from Córdoba, I started classes last week and our group spent the weekend in Madrid and Toledo. This post is long enough, so those stories will have to wait for another time.

Hope you're all enjoying the plethora of melting snow and ice back home.

Hasta pronto

Picture time! It's hard to post them side by side so you're just going to have to do a lot of scrolling.

my street

street performer in Sevilla

Bowe on Paulina's bed

The bridge I cross every day going to school

Hanging out along the river

more Guadalquivir River

La Plaza De España in Sevilla- part of a Star Wars movie was filmed here.

Cordoba- paredes de flores and the bell tower from the mosque/cathedral

synagogue of Cordoba

inside La Mezquita

part of the original floor from when it was a Visigothic church

more columns and arches

In the main church part of La Mezquita-- look at the ceiling!