pictures from Carmona, Corodoba and Utrera

more pictures from Sevilla

pictures of the family in Sevilla

pictures of Semana Santa in Malaga and Sevilla

Heat Wave

It was unusually warm this week. Strong winds from the south brought up hot air from Africa. It was stifling hot all week long and hot at night too. Everyone was really tired because we weren’t used to the heat yet. The temperature hit 42 one day (108 Fahrenheit) and 38 in the shade (100). One professor took us to his office in the University so that we could take the final exam in a conference room with the air conditioning turned way up. The marble floor felt like ice, it was the only relief.

end of the semester

Another group of students has come and gone. And I’m still here, I feel like I’ve set down roots in Sevilla. It was another great semester, but it went by twice as fast as the last one. I can’t believe its over and I already miss my classes. I had four finals, a presentation and two papers due this week. Last night the program ended with a final party at the University. I saw a few professors and guides from last semester that I hadn’t seen in a long time. Most students are leaving today or later this weekend to travel or return home. A few like me are staying a while longer to finish University classes.

After the party I went out for dinner with a few friends to a tapas bar that is one of the coolest restaurants I have ever been too. I had heard about the place before but don’t know why I’ve waited so long to eat there. Each small table has a Cruzcampo tap in the middle. You pour your own beers and are charged by the liter. The tapas were amazing, fancy but not expensive. After that we went to Plaza Alfalfa were everyone gathered to botellón and hang out one last time. It was a long night of goodbyes although I will be able to see some people over the next few days.

Now that I have more free time I can finally get around to all these pictures on my computer and post some of them.

quick one

Sevilla FC, one of the soccer teams in Sevilla, just won the UEFA Cup (The Union of European Football Associations), a Europe-wide soccer tournament. The city is going nuts.

Yesterday was the Día de Europa, the holiday of the European Union, commemorating the day, May 9th 1950, when France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs made a speech proposing the organization that later became the European Union. My EU professor gave us a bunch of stickers, pens and other little things and instead of a having a normal class we went to a bar together. Tonight I went with that same class to hear a professor speak who wrote a book about the March 11 terrorist attacks in Spain and how it affected the national elections four days later. The professor for the that class is really cool. Otherwise I have a lot of work to get done and final exams to study for next week.

Semana Santa with Mom, Dood, Berg, B and Michael

Here’s my summary of the Delahunt’s visit to Sevilla during Semana Santa. I think the five of them will enjoy reliving the trip through my eyes. Let me know if I forgot anything important.

So the airport shuttle was running less frequently during Semana Santa and I got to the airport later than expected. The five Delahunts had just arrived and were waiting in the arrivals area when I got there. It was good to see some family for the first time in a long time.

María Garoffolo was on her way to the airport too and she was running late. We walked outside and saw her driving past the taxis towards us. As soon as she saw us, she got really excited and veered into the taxi lane, which got the taxistas really upset and they started honking and yelling at her. She finally maneuvered in front of us and slammed on the brakes, parking in a semi-legal spot. There were lots of hugs and it was an exhilarating start to their trip.

She drove us into the city and dropped us off near their hostel. We wandered through some narrow streets on the way to the hostel. There was a perfect bright blue and cloudless “Sevilla sky” and 80-degree weather. Everyone, excluding Mike of course, was thrilled about the hot sunny weather while it was still a cold and gray spring in Wisconsin.

We rested in the hostel and they settled in. We then walked to the river were we had some tapas before checking out the tile shops, which were all closed as most stores where that week. We had a few pieces of cake at another restaurant and then set off to catch some of the Semana Santa processions. We saw one from afar but didn’t have a good spot to stand and watch it go by so we went to another plaza, anticipating a procession that was going to come through soon.

We got a great view of the entire procession – first some people wearing purple robes and pointy hats walked by, either carrying crosses or holding giant candles, and then the paso itself – an elaborately decorated float carried on the necks and shoulders of young men – this one depicting Roman soldiers whipping Jesus, lumbered around the plaza through a dense crowd of people. The paso was followed by a marching band playing somber music. Once it had passed, we took taxis to the train station to catch a train to Utrera, a small town 30 minutes south of Sevilla where María Garoffolo and her family live.

We were all dead tired and as soon as we sat down in the station we started to nod off. Merb was suffering from severe exhaustion and dehydration and felt sick on the train. She held a folded-up magazine, the best thing we had on us, to use as a barf bag if she were to lose it. She looked miserable and felt like she was going to puke throughout the whole train ride. In Utrera we took seats inside the town’s church. In between dosing off and chatting with María and Nicky (and Merb still desperately fighting the urge to puke), we watched people organize and begin a procession from inside the church. I was starving and had to duck out and find some food so I missed part of it.

Back in Sevilla, we had tapas around midnight and ended up closing the small restaurant that we ate at. We were all on our third or fourth wind by then and everyone had a surprising amount of energy. We felt fine but the lack of sleep must have affected our judgment. We trusted a tall table with shaky footing on the uneven cobblestone to hold our beers. Who would have thought one would fall off? A bump of the table knocked a glass of beer of its high perch and it shattered on the ground, splashing beer all over Dood’s leather backpack. It left a nice big stain.

We got a little lost on the way home – I was too sleep deprived to figure out where we were nor could I focus my eyes enough to read the small text of the street names on my map. When I got home, I was so exhausted, and I think everyone else felt the same, that I was only able to take my shoes off before collapsing on top of my bed and falling asleep fully clothed.

The next morning, feeling fresh and well rested, I met up with the aunts and uncles at the river and we went to a few local car rental places. It was Good Friday and all but one were closed. We rented a huge Mercedes van for the day and while we were waiting for it to be delivered we went to a café for toast with jamón, tomato, and olive oil, churros con chocolate, fresh squeezed orange juice, and café con leche.

We took the main highway east towards Córdoba and stopped in a small town called Carmona. It’s an old Moorish town on a hill next to the ruins of an even older Roman town. We walked around and admired the architecture and huge gates on either side of the town. In addition to the centuries-old buildings and city walls, we observed the local teenagers in their brightly colored clothes and spiky hairdos and mullets as they sat around in the town’s plaza and rode mopeds with drinks in hand through the narrow streets, catching air on the speed bumps.

On the eastern edge of the town there was a field of goats. We hand-fed them unripe figs and water through a rusty barbed wire fence. Some of the females had sagging utters full of milk. There were also some beautiful horses and giant cactus plants. We sat outside at a café and ate a light meal of tapas – gazpacho served in large wine glasses, salad, olives, bread, pipas (plain pretzel things) and tónicas. It started to rain just as we finished eating. So when the rain started to fall we decided to move on to Córdoba.

We parked just outside the old city center in Córdoba and got right into the thick of things. The cordobeses and tourists were all out strolling and shopping. Bewere bought a plate and some small tiles with letters to spell out “mind the toads” to be placed on the driveway entrance at the lake house. I got tiles saying “Samu” – my Spanish nickname.

We walked around the Mezquita – an enormous mosque begun in the late 8th century and expanded on my subsequent caliphs or sultans. It is one of the most important mosques in the world, although now it is used as a Catholic cathedral. It is the centerpiece of Córdoba, a city that for four centuries was the capital of the Moorish caliphate that ruled the Iberian Peninsula before it fell to the Catholic Reconquista, leaving Granada as the last stronghold of the Moors.

We saw two pasos entering the Mezquita. A Catholic cathedral was built inside the Mezquita in the 16th century. So we had the rare, and likely singular, experience of witnessing a procession of Catholics carrying a statue of Jesus into a mosque on Good Friday. We picked up a few really tasty toasted bocadillos on the way back to the car and then I was given the keys to drive back to Sevilla in a rainstorm.

It was my first experience driving in Spain and I navigated my way to the west side of the Sevilla where we ate at a really good tapas restaurant. We shared tapas of garlic shrimp, potatoes with three different sauces – ali oli, roquefort cheese, and a spicy tomato sauce, olives, salmorejo (similar to gazpacho), and the “large” gazpacho, which turned out to be gazpacho in a huge beer mug instead of a smaller glass.

Dood learned the difference between “adios” and “hasta luego” – she left the restaurant thinking she had committed a cultural gaffe by saying “adios” to someone, which literally means “until God,” as in goodbye for good and see you when we meet in the afterlife. “Hasta luego,” (see you later), is the most common farewell expression but “adios” is ok to say too. At first Dood thought that she had made a huge blunder. We all got a good laugh out of that.

We set out to drive across the Calatrava bridge that spans the Río Guadalquivir on the northern end of the city. It’s a minimal yet stunning white bridge, with a single inclined tower on one end that supports the entire bridge with dozens of white cables (it looks like a harp turned on its side and vaguely resembles the Milwaukee Art Museum). I had run across the bridge before on a pedestrian path that runs down the middle in between the four lanes of traffic. I didn’t realize that to drive across it you have to first get on a highway that feeds into the bridge. So we had to search for the highway for a while before we finally found our way onto the bridge.

We were really lucky to find a spot on the street right outside the car rental office to park our huge van for the night. We got ice cream at a place across the street at 1:30 AM and were kicked out as they closed down. The aunts and uncles complimented themselves for closing two different places two nights in a row. Their other accomplishment was adapting to the Spanish daily schedule so quickly. That day they woke up at 10:45 in the morning, due to two consecutive days of a lot of traveling and little sleep, and then ate breakfast at noon, lunch at five, dinner at midnight, and finished the day with ice cream at 1:30 in the morning. In other words, five people in their 50s living like teenagers.

The next morning they went tile shopping and I meet them in the early afternoon by the river. We walked through a big food market and bought olives and fresh strawberries and clementines and then walked along the river. We stopped at a grocery store for bread, cheese and drinks and then had a picnic lunch in a big park on the other side of the river. We headed back to their hostel for a siesta, walking by the Cathedral and Giralda on the way, and then walked to my family’s house around dusk.

They saw the first two floors of my house, including my bedroom, the kitchen, the dining room and living room, and they met my host mom right away. While they were hanging out in the living room, the rest of the family came down the stairs one by one and was introduced to everyone. Nine of the ten kids in my Spanish family (the oldest brother was in northern Spain) were there along with the fiancé of the oldest daughter. We gave them a few gifts and then the parents took us to meet the grandparent’s at their place around the corner.

The grandparents have a huge apartment that also houses the offices of my host dad and the grandfather, who are both lawyers. The grandparents were pleased to meet a big American family and they showered us with praise and hospitality. They gave each of the three sisters a silver bowl and a brass elephant.

From there we walked a few blocks to a little restaurant where we met up with the kids for a huge dinner. Alicia, the oldest of the kids, and I had picked the place out and pre-ordered the food a week before. We stuffed ourselves with aged Spanish cheese, smoked Iberian ham, meatballs, several different types of fried fish, squid, fish egg salad, whiskey marinated pork, french fries and pitchers of sangría. It was home-style cooking and the most typical of Andalucian fare (fried fish, ham, and potatoes - all prepared with lots of salt and olive oil, and plenty of wine). We sat outside at one long table. There were a few other small tables of people eating there so the restaurant’s one cook and two waiters were super busy. Merb showed off pictures and movies on her iPod to all the kids.

Like most meals at home with my Spanish family, there was lots of lively chatter and laughter. One glass was broken from overzealously clinging glasses when we toasted. It was the first time this year, and likely will be the only time, that I ate out with my family. It was also the first time that they attempted to speak English at length around me and it was difficult for the parents and the younger kids, who have limited English skills, to communicate. But the language barrier never kept any of us from having a really fun time and it was an unforgettable night.

After taking some group photos outside the restaurant, we went back to our house and sat down in the dining room. The dinner table was moved out to make room for dancing. They gave us oranges for dessert and Jesús, the dad, offered each of us a generous splash of his super cheap, super pungent cologne from a giant shampoo bottle. With Pepe playing the acoustic guitar, Amancio on the flamenco drum box, and everyone else clapping along, we had our own little fiesta de sevillanas. Only professional dancers dance flamenco, everyone else in Sevilla dances sevillanas, the local and simpler form of the classic flamenco.

The Spanish kids danced in pairs and then it was our turn. With our inhibitions long gone, we all winged it and each of us invented our own personal style of flamenco/sevillanas. No one was brave enough to try his or her hand on playing the guitar, so we attempted the drum box instead. Sitting on a box and slapping the side looks easy, but I think we all sounded awful. You could tell that none of us have any musical talent.

They brought down an old flamenco dress, and Merb, always the one to try anything, put it on over her clothes. Also the one to continually take it too far, Merb put on a black brimmed hat, grabbed the guitar and made a fool of herself dancing around. I almost wet my pants from laughter and died of embarrassment. So that was another terrific day. My Spanish family undoubtedly saw that my American family is one-of-a-kind.

On Sunday I met the Delahunts at their hostel and finished their uneaten croissants and orange juice in the breakfast room before we took two taxis to the train station. We picked up their rental car, a small European minivan. We loaded the luggage in the back and the six of us squeezed into the two rows of seats for the short drive to Utrera.

We parked in the center of the town and Maria meet us in a plaza. She then walked us to her house, where we met Nicky, her husband Pepe, her daughter Antonia, her son Vincent and his partner Juan Antonio, her niece Samara, and their giant dog. Nicky showed us his bedroom and the roof of the house and later on Pepe showed us their indoor well and pulled up a bucket of groundwater.

Maria was ecstatic over the Delahunt’s visit. They all reminisced about their time together in New Mexico and Granada and she told us the story of her genealogical search in southern Italy. Earlier this spring, she and her sister went to Italy and called up the only Garoffolo’s who live in a small town near the tip of the “boot” where one of their ancestors had emigrated from. The Italian Garoffolo family housed and fed them for several days and they were able to prove a family relationship when they discovered that they and the other family had a copy of the same old family photograph.

Anyways, we had a great Easter lunch with the Garoffolo/Morales family and parted ways – I went back to Sevilla on the train with Vincent and Juan Antonio while the Delahunts headed south to the sherry-making town of Jerez and the coastal port cities of Cádiz and Tarifa, and later, Morocco, Ronda and Granada. You’ll have to ask them about those places.

Twenty-one

It’s a national holiday today because it’s May Day, the equivalent of Labor Day, and everything is closed. Turning 18 is a big birthday throughout Europe, it’s the drinking age and also the legal age for voting, smoking, gambling, driving etc. Turning 21 just means you’re old.

here's a quick post on my night in Málaga, in between London and Sevilla with the Delahunts.

Málaga

Alan drove me to the airport and I flew to Málaga. I got to the bus station in Málaga around 8:30 pm. The 9 and 10 pm buses to Sevilla were sold out, so I got a ticket for next available one, at 3:30 in the morning. At first I went to a café to eat and read and waste a few hours, but then I realized that Semana Santa was going on in Málaga so I decided to check it out. I followed the crowds towards the river and ran into a wide street that was packed with people of all ages. It didn’t matter that it was midnight on a Wednesday night, everyone was out. I saw a few processions go by. It was interesting to see them in Málaga because they are done differently there than the way they’re done in Sevilla. So after a long night in Málaga, I took the red eye bus home and arrived in Sevilla at 6:30 am. I collapsed in my bed, slept a few hours, and then woke up and headed to the airport.