I’m not sure how many more of these I’ll write–I’m scheduled to fly out of Seville two weeks from tomorrow.  I feel as though I haven’t posted enough during this semester, and yet when I look back, my posts are long and filled with detail.  I’m surprised at how little time I have had to write, especially since I have wanted to produce quality posts.  There was always something exciting going on, and I would always say to myself, “I’ll write after it’s over.”  But I kept falling behind, and the more I did, the more I had to write.  The task grew bigger every week and so my time to fill in all of the additional details shrunk. That said, here are some updates on the things that have happened since my last post!

Trip to the UK

What a cool week.  It was only 5 days in actuality, but including my travel days I was gone for almost the entire week.  I flew into London to meet my friend Kim from Penn State.  I explored London for a day and a half–just walking around the city, seeing some of the main sites (Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey), eating ice cream on the Thames.  It was cloudy and cool there, which I expected.  But I’m glad I got to see it.

A bustling Trafalgar Square.

At the end of the weekend, I took a train from London up to Stirling, in Scotland, to meet a friend from my Seville program.  We took a 12-hour tour of the Scottish highlands, which was amazing and beautiful and most of which was spent driving and looking out the window at the pretty landscapes.  Our tour was guided by a wonderful driver, who had a microphone attached to his head and who would talk while driving for all of the 12 hours about the names of all of the sites.  It was, however, the coldest weather I had seen since leaving the U.S. (there was snow!!!! I may or may not have mentioned at the beginning of this blog that my goal this semester was to escape the snow.  But, the views were worth it in the end).

The highlands tour included a stop at Loch Ness!

Finally, I ended up in Edinburgh for a night to see one of my best friends from high school who is studying there (hi, Jes!!).  While I was only there for a total of about 18 hours, in that amount of time I got a view of the cityline, tried an ice-cream float, and saw a little bit of what Scottish nightlife is about (hint: cold if you go in March.  But a lot of fun).

Semana Santa

In Spanish, Semana Santa translates to “Holy Week,” and is celebrated in a big way in the days leading up to Easter.  Due to the fact that I was in the UK, I missed the beginning of it, but I purposely planned my trip like that because my host parents told me that the end of the week was best anyway.  I arrived back in Seville on Wednesday night, and some of the more important pasos–the “floats” with representations of Christ and Mary (on separate floats, and usually one of each per church) began to “salir”– to leave their home churches and proceed to the city’s old, enormous catedral.  This is what Semana Santa in Seville is all about: men from each church position themselves beneath these heavy pasos and carry them on their shoulders from their home church to the catedral and back.  They literally shuffle the entire distance, and depending on how far the church is from the catedral, it can take half a day–12 hours.  The men switch off so they can take breaks, but it is an incredibly challenging (and rewarding) job.  Additionally: these men pay to carry the pasos, because it is considered a privilege to do so.  

Though I didn’t take this picture (credit: apartclick.com), it gives you a better idea of the enormity of the celebration and the amount of people who pack the streets to see the pasos.

The Thursday after I got home from the UK, my host mom sat me down for dinner and said we were going to watch the church of La Macarena–another very important and old place in Seville–begin its procession.  Well, they started late, and as it was getting on 12:30, 1 AM, I was wondering if we were still looking for this to start or if it had already happened.  I debated asking my host mom if I could go to bed, since she and I would be getting up at 4:45 the next morning to get a good spot to watch the pasos.  Finally, I said (as politely as I could), “Just wondering, are we still waiting to watch this paso leave the church?  I’m a little tired and was hoping to get a few hours of sleep before we leave tomorrow.”  For some reason the lights in the room were off but I could tell she was slightly annoyed because she didn’t respond right away.  Oh my gosh, I have offended her, I thought to myself.  And we have to spend the entire morning together tomorrow.  She told me we were still waiting for this paso to leave the church, but since it was late, I could go to bed if I wanted.  I apologized and waited a few awkward minutes before leaving the room.  The next morning, however, we were both so tired that we had forgotten about whatever awkwardness there was the night before and rushed into the center of town to see the processions.  We ended up spending a really nice 8 hours together that morning, with a churro/coffee break somewhere in-between.  I have no idea what time that happened, but I do know that we left home at 5AM and came back around 1:30 in the afternoon.  You bet I slept well the next night.

Travel break

The weeks in-between Semana Santa and the next holiday week, Feria, were spent in Sevilla.  I was so relieved to not be traveling for a while, because after that week of returning from the UK and watching all the Semana Santa activity, I was wiped out.

…then back at it in Rome

The weekend before Feria, I went to Rome for a few days.  It was fantastic!  I had been there once before, when my family went to Italy, but had actually not spent too much time there since we were mostly traveling around Tuscany and did not stay in the city for more than a few nights.  Notably, the first night I was there I ate an entire pizza by myself.  I’m pretty proud that I did that.  This time, again, I only spent a few days in Rome, but I didn’t make an agenda.  I just walked around and took streets not knowing where I was going.  My friend from my Seville program joined me on Saturday (I got there on Friday) and we saw more things we wanted to see and ate things that we wanted to eat (pasta and gelato).  Two awesome things that happened on this trip: a) we climbed to the top of St. Peter’s basilica and I had a really breathtaking moment when I looked down at the church with music playing and b) also at St. Peter’s basilica, it started to rain while we were outside in the square but the rain was glittering in the sunset and a rainbow formed.  It was a cool moment.  

I feel so lucky to have seen this happen.

Feria

The second of the holiday weeks, called Feria, originally began in the mid-1800s as a gathering for farmers to trade animals and other agricultural things (technical term).  After a few years, the casetas–the little temporary houses set up for Feria where traders could do business–became really popular not for the animals and other agricultural things but for the drinking and eating and merriment.  Now, over 150 years later, the only animals present at Feria are the horses that drag along the carriages.  I spent a lot of time at Feria, as I wasn’t traveling any more that week; I probably spent between 20 and 25 hours there, over the course of the week.  There really isn’t too much to say about it other than that it is a delightful mix of dancing, drinking (rebujito–a mixture of 7-Up and a wine called manzanilla), eating, and more dancing.

A view of the street during Feria

The “portada,” or entrance gate, to Feria. This is a temporary structure and a new one is designed each year.

Paris, France

The weekend after Feria, I took a spontaneous jaunt to Paris with my friend from Scotland.  It was so great, but there was truly an endless amount of things to see.  We spent two and a half fairly busy days making our way around Paris in the rain, seeing of course the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre but also walking along the river, visiting a section of town called Montmarte (making a stop at the Sacre Quor, which gives you a great view of Paris) and sampling crepes.  While it was rainy and we were exhausted, I’m so glad I was able to visit.  

This photo was skillfully “auto-awesomed” by Google. 

This post is a little shorter than the others, but is also chock-full of my activities, which included so many other moments of laughter and coffee-driven craziness.  I wish I could recount them all.  Two quick funny and sad stories to part.  First, the funny one.  About a week ago I was watching a Spanish celebrity-pranking show (like Punk’d, but better).  There was a really funny moment when one of the celebrities ended up having to unexpectedly host a funeral, and the family kept making her do increasingly weird things, like watch a strangely upbeat polka band perform and taking a picture with the casket (“I don’t know if I should clap,” she said after the band stopped playing.  Then in regards to the picture: “I don’t know if I should smile.  I have never taken a picture with a casket before”).  My host mom and I were laughing so hard that we could not breathe.  We both had tears coming out of our eyes  Oh man.  I still laugh thinking about it.

Now, the other story.  The night before I left for Paris, I got back late and was very tired, especially since I needed to wake up the next morning at 3:45 to catch a bus to the airport.  When I got in, my host parents were still up.  I had just been to see a flamenco show, and they wanted to hear about it.  “Come on!  Come in!  Tell us about it!”  No, I said, I’m very tired and I need to get up early tomorrow.  But they made me come in anyway.  I told them a little about the show and then all of a sudden my host dad started saying, “Why do you have to leave so soon?  Can’t you stay here a little longer?”  Again, I said no, my date was already set, it costs a lot of money to change it.  I could feel the tears welling up.  He kept pushing me and asking why I couldn’t stay, and as I tried to explain that I wanted to, the tears started flowing.  “Oh no,” I said out loud, and laughed through my tears as they handed me a tissue.  “Look, she’s crying!” they said, also laughing.  “All of the students cry when they leave.  We cry with them.”

Well, now, why did they have to go and tell me that?  Goodbyes will be so hard this time around.

Location: Paris, France