Virgin of the Macarena's Lonely Hearts Club Band

So after a good night of sleep, I woke up Friday morning and went on our hostel's free walking tour, which was a lot of fun. The tour guide was this very energetic Moroccan guy, and it was a pretty small tour, so we all kind of got to know each other, which is always fun. There was this other American guy there from Seattle, and also this German girl, there were a couple other people, but those are the relevant ones to this story. So we walked around Sevilla and heard a bunch of cool stories and saw some awesome stuff.

Like this shrine, which is very important for Sevilla's Holy Week. Apparently Holy Week is a big, big deal here, and a lot of people come to Sevilla, and to this shrine as part of it. 

This shrine is also how we wound up talking about the Macarena. This is one of the coolest random bits of trivia I have learned in Spain, so I'm gonna share it. So in Sevilla there is this very important Virgin (there are so many incarnations of the Virgin in Catholicism, I swear.) but this one is the Virgen de la Macarena, which I don't think translates. But there's like, a whole district of Sevilla named Macarena, so that's how important this is. But also, because of this statue, there are a lot of girls from Sevilla named Macarena, and then a long time ago, somebody wrote a Rhumba song about a girl from Sevilla named Macarena. And then somebody decided that it would make a really good dance mix, and that is why we have the Macarena today.

But what the dance mix kind of didn't notice, is that the actual lyrics of the Macarena are actually not the best party song ever.  Here's what the song actually says:

"Macarena had a boyfriend

Whose last name was Vitorino

And when he was away at the war

She cheated on him with two of his friends."

So... yeah. The things you learn in Spain. 

And then we went to the Plaza de Toros

Which is big and pretty and impressive in Sevilla. After the one in Ronda (which is the oldest ring in Spain) this one and Madrid are the two most important bullfighting rings, and apparently there is some rivalry there. But, yeah, I was the only one of the group (besides maybe the guide, but he was anti-bullfighting) who had been to a fight, so it was interesting to hear how people reacted. Most people pretty much agreed that it's inhumane, and I agree too, but I definitely have a lot more respect for it having seen it for myself. 

So then we walked down by the river

 Which was beautiful

 And learned some more cool history. For example, that thing I'm taking a picture of, not Sevilla. Well, sort of Sevilla. Legally, yes, it's Sevilla, but it's a neighborhood in Sevilla called Triana, and they are VERY proud of that. Also, the river used to separate these two parts of the city, and there wasn't a bridge for a long time, just a bunch of boats, so most people didn't cross, so they developed very separate identities. As our guide put it, if you call a person from Triana "sevillano" they will respond with something like, "Your father was sevillano, but I'm trianero!" But there's a lot of history there, and like, their football clubs (soccer teams) hate each other.

 See, that's the bridge they built to finally connect the two sides of the river

Selfie with Triana. 

But also, the Romani used to live in Triana. (When I say Romani, I'm referring to gypsies, but that term is offensive, so I'm going with the more correct name) See, Sevilla has a long history with the Romani. For example, flamenco, something that Sevilla and Andalucia are famous for, comes from the Romani dances. But, despite the Romani heritage of the city being something that the sevillanos market for all it's worth, there's still some... tension there. Because the Romani used to live in Triana, but then in the 60s the government decided to do a renovation project in Triana, and basically asked the Romani to get out, and the Romani were like, "ummm... no." and then the government built massive projects on the outskirts of the city, and shoved all the Romani over there, and basically this is a very sad story, because now that part of the city (not Triana, the place where the government shoved the Romani) is a pretty dangerous part of the city. Like, busses that pass through there have police escorts, they don't deliver mail, and taxis refuse to take you there. 

Sevilla may be beautiful, but it definitely has its own set of issues. 

So then we continued walking along the river 

 Really, spectacular day.

Until we got to this. Nobody actually knows if this should be called "the golden tower" or "the tower of gold." And nobody knows how it got that name, well, we have some guesses, but it's a little confusing. Anyway, at some point this was very important, because back when Spain was the center of a big empire and stuff was coming in from the Americas, EVERYTHING had to go through Sevilla. Everything. Every single ship that came over from the New World had to first stop in Sevilla to be taxed and inventoried, and then it could go elsewhere. This is why Sevilla is important. So the ships would come up the river and stop right near that tower, and, yeah, historical place. But it was actually built by the Muslim rulers of the city as a watchtower. Go figure. 

Anyway, so then we went up to this thing that is now an administrative center for the autonomous community of Andalucia

But used to be a palace. With really massive gardens, which I went to on Sunday. The gardens, not the palace. 

 So then we continued until we got to this set of impressive, if slightly funky looking buildings. So apparently in 1929, Sevilla hosted the International Exposition, and for this exposition, they built these pavilions for each of the South American countries. Like, I think that's Chile above and Uruguay below. And Sevilla was hoping to make a ton of money on this exposition, but there were a couple of problems: 1) Barcelona was also hosting an exposition that year, because Sevilla actually was supposed to host theirs in 1914, but WWI. 2) The stock market crashed in the middle of the exposition. Talk about bad timing.

But point being, now they have all these buildings that they kind of don't have a purpose for after the exposition, so they sort of use them for whatever now. But they're cool to look at.

This is the pavilion that Sevilla built for itself in the exposition. It's now a theatre, and a cafe, and it used to be a casino. 

So then we went to the "pavilion" that they built for Spain. it's now known as Sevilla's Plaza de España (Plaza of Spain) and like, every city has a Plaza de España. Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, Lisbon. But Sevilla's wins. 

 Oh, yeah I should have mentioned, Triana is important and famous for its ceramics, so they acknowledged the contribution of Triana in the ceramics on the walls of the Plaza.

 But yeah, this is what it looks like.

 and this is what I look like.

 It's... impressive.

 Actually was used as a location shoot for the new Star Wars trilogy.

 OH! Oh! Spanish history bridges! Right, so see those bridges, there are actually four of them, and they represent the 4 kingdoms that came together to make up Spain (Castilla, Leon, Aragon, and Navarra) and each one of them has the symbol of that kingdom on it and it's really cool.

 And there's a lovely fountain

 And towers

 And a plaque commemorating the exposition.

 See, cool bridges. This is Aragon's, because I live in the former Kingdom of Aragon, and I feel some loyalty.

 So they have these ceramic things for each of the provinces of Spain all around the base (each autonomous community is divided into provinces. I know. it gets confusing. Think of them like counties in states) and this is Granada's.

 Each of them shows something that was important in that province. This one is from a province in La Mancha, and it shows Don Quijote.

 At the top they also have famous Spaniards. Or people related to Spain, because they also have Columbus (who in Spain is called "Colón" so...) and El Greco (who is, in fact, from Greece.

 Chillin' with my bros.

It's a cool place. 

So then we went past a big, important hotel, and this statue

which was decapitated a few years ago when Spain won the world cup, because it was in the middle of the crisis, and they needed something to celebrate. So they decided to go jump around in and climb on this fountain, which was a lot of stress for that poor head, and so it broke off. Oops. 

But then we went to this big building which is now part of the University of Sevilla, but used to be the royal tobacco factory. I mention this mostly, because if you have seen the opera Carmen, this is where she worked. Apparently Sevilla is actually the city most written about in Opera. So go figure. But, yeah, it used to be staffed by Romani women, because they worked cheaply. 

But, the problem is that Carmen has this song in it, La Habanera, and it is one of the catchiest songs on the face of the planet, so when our tour guide was trying to get people to think of the opera, he sang a little bit of it. And instantly, it was back in my head. It was stuck in my head for a month last semester when UGA did Carmen. A month. And when I told the tour guide that it was going to be stuck in my head, he came up with an excellent solution: the Backstreet Boys. Apparently his cure-all song for getting anything out of your head is "I want it that way" and so the Moroccan tour guide, the American guy, and myself wound up singing it at the top of our lungs as we walked through Sevilla. 

So then our guide led us over to the cathedral area, and at this point, we were all pretty hungry, so the American boy (Cam) and the German girl (Marina) and decided to all go have lunch together. We were all traveling alone, and had just spent over two hours wandering around together, so lunch sounded nice. We had a great time. We went to this tapas restaurant and I helped out with ordering and such since I spoke Spanish. We shared dishes and traded travel stories. We talked about national stereotypes, and learning languages, and what we wanted to do with our lives. 

After lunch we were having so much fun, that we all decided to go to the Alcazar together. Yup, another palace. I think this one is mudejar too. Wait, do you know what mudejar is? Ok, so there was the whole Moorish occupation, and the Moors were the Muslims when they ruled the peninsula, but then when the reyes católicos took over the peninsula, there were still Muslims left, and they were still important in art and architecture and stuff, they just get called mudejar after they are no longer in charge. 

So mudejar is something built during the Christian rule, but with a ton of influence and assistance from the Muslims. 

Anyway, mudejar palace. 

 It's so detailed

 CEILINGS!

 I'm dead serious. If you go into a Moorish or mudejar palace and don't look up, you're missing half of it.

 Though the doors are nice too.

 Selfie in a courtyard.

 I love the details.

 The courtyards are so nice. I want a house with a courtyard.

 See, look how happy I am int he courtyard!

Lots of gold. 

 And then they have this nice little shade thing with the flowers.

 right before you get to the gardens out back.

 See? gardens!

 I even got someone else to take the picture for you. (the advantages of running around with Cam and Marina)

 but I still selfied. They did give me a bit of crap for that.

 I especially love all the water in the courtyards and gardens. It's nice.

 So, at some point Marina went off to have a coffee (is that something we say in English? I can't remember.) and Cam and I continued to explore as much of the alcazar as we could.

Including an exhibition of really impressive fans.

 and lots of ornately decorated rooms.

 and the inevitable courtyards

 I just love this style.

 FOOT PICTURE. We actually spent like 10 minutes here trying to find squares and figure out the pattern of these tiles.

 We actually just stopped in this room and stood under this dome for a while. It was breathtaking.

 All of it.

We found an arrogant peacock in one of the gardens. So we took stalker pictures.

 pretty fountains

 It was just a fun walk around the gardens.

 Oh! This was so cool! I don't know what it is, but it was cool!

 Like a fountain-cave thing.

 There was this cool wall/balcony thing that we wanted to go up in, but I don't think it's allowed.

 We also found this weird underground thing that was supposed to do something in the hot summer.

I don't actually know, but it felt like I was in Phantom of the Opera.

 Old walls. Lots of those in Spain.

 Oh, yeah, at some point we wound up in this maze, but we couldn't figure out the goal of the maze and people had made shortcuts, so it was kind of messed-up, but Cam did share a pretty good strategy for getting out of mazes, and we talked about corn mazes for a while.

 nice little pavilion.

I feel like that tower is important. So after the Alcazar, we decided to go to the Mushroom, but first Cam took me to this alley he'd found earlier. 

which is the location of an important scene in Carmen, so that was cool. 

Anyway, the Mushroom. Is...

Well this is a model, but it's kind of...

 much bigger.

 also, made mostly of wood.

 Yeah, that's one of the pedestals.

 and this is the view from the top.

 It was really fun, actually, we got to go up and look out at the city and run around the top of this big... whatever it is.

And Cam got to mock me for taking selfies. 

 But yeah, that's the cathedral.

 and that's another picture of the mushroom.

 and there's a little bar/restaurant on top, which was nice, because they give you a drink with the price of admission,

 so I got to sit up there and sip my fanta (which is SO much better in Spain than in the US.)

 and enjoy the view.

 I know I've mentioned before, in Barcelona, but I really love being above cities.

 It is both exciting and calming at the same time.

 and then there was the added benefit of getting to run around those ramps, which was a lot of fun.

 But yeah, we chilled up there for a little bit, enjoyed the view, chatted, had our drinks, ran around,

and then headed back to the hostel. 

I wanted to go see a flamenco show that night, but the earlier one was sold out, so I went for the later one, which meant I would be wandering around the streets at like 10:30 by myself, which I was not the happiest with. However, I got really lucky, and when I was trying to arrange to go see the show, there was am American girl who teaches English in Paris checking in. She also apparently wanted to see flamenco, so we wound up going together.  

And we had a great time! We wound up getting horribly lost on the way to the show, and having to ask for directions like twice, and my map was breaking, and we arrived at the show just a little bit late, but we didn't miss any of the dancing, so that was good. 

The show was spectacular. They didn't let us video, but I took some pictures. A lot of them didn't turn out too well, but here's what I've got. 

So there are a bunch of different styles of flamenco, and the first one they did they did as partners (because this was a very small flamenco show, and they just had a male dancer, a female dancer, a guitarist, and a singer) and it was the Sevillana style.

 Look at that skirt.

 Yeah, it was fun. I didn't really know what to expect, but I enjoyed the first dance.

 But then there was a guitar solo while the dancers got changed, and I swear, that was one of the most impressive parts of the night. Like, most impressive guitar I have ever heard.

 Then the woman danced alone in a style called "alegria" which means "happiness" or "joy" and it was really fun, and really impressive, because that dress weighs a ton, and she's all parading around in it.

 And then her feet moved so quickly.

 But also, at some point, her dress ripped. Not a lot, but just a little, a piece of fabric from the underside of her skirt had come undone, and I spent the entire performance freaking out that she was going to trip on it and die, and at some point it became apparent that she knew about it, but she handled it like a pro. As a performer, it was fascinating (and nerve-wracking) to watch her handle it.

 So then the guy came out and danced in his shiny red shoes, and his style was the opposite of hers. I don't remember what it was called, but it was all about sadness and anguish. It was also impressive.

 And I think his feet might have moved faster than hers. It was... they were actually a blur when they got going.

 So then the singer had a nice little solo, and then everybody came out and they did a "fin de fiesta" (end of the party) dance, which was fun, and cool, and great to get everybody out and having a good time.

 So then we went back to the hostel and I went to bed. I also did a little bit of planning, because Cadiz was Saturday, and I realized that I didn't actually know what to do once I got there, but the lady at the front desk of the hostel gave me some great suggestions.

But, yeah, Friday was a great day, and a lot of it was because of the people I spent it with. I love traveling alone, but even I like to have people around. And the people I meet when I'm traveling alone tend to be a lot of fun. We all seem to like to get together and have someone to talk to and do things with, but when we get tired we can part ways. It's very stress-free. I am so happy to have been able to spend that day with Cam and Marina and the other girl's name that I forgot. They really made my day, and I had a fantastic time hearing about their stories and their travels, and getting suggestions, and comparing notes. Like, Cam had been at Fallas before he came to Sevilla, and it was fascinating to hear what he thought of it, and getting to talk to someone who has been living abroad for a couple years now and hearing what she is doing was an incredible opportunity. So all my (unheard) thanks to the people who I got to spend that day with who made it so awesome.