A History Lesson... Or Five

Upon arriving home from Madrid last Sunday, Eva and Pepe wasted no time in planning the next few excursions for our group. This past week, we visited four major sites in Seville and took a day trip to Cadiz, which is on the coast of the south of Spain. The events planned this past week required us to wake up a little earlier than normal (9 AM), but all of them were worth it in my mind. On Monday, we started by visiting the most beautiful, and famous place in Seville... The Cathedral. The Seville Cathedral is the third largest in size in the world, and the biggest gothic Cathedral in the world. Pepe gave us a tour and began by telling us that the church has 7 naves. He was extremely insightful into the history of the Cathedral as well. From what I could understand in his presentation, the Moors from Africa had taken control of Seville in the 12th century and built several monuments and mosques throughout the city. During the Reconquista, Spain reacquired Seville back from the Moors and decided to build a Cathedral on the same grounds as the original mosque. Their intentions were to make a larger, and more grandiose place for religious worship that would outdo any Moorish monument. Unfortunately, there have been several earthquakes throughout time that prohibited the Spaniards from building their ideal cathedral. It is interesting because a lot of the Moorish architectural characteristics still remain in the Catholic Cathedral. In art and architecture, this is referred to as "mudejar". In art and architecture, the mudejar style is a combination of Muslim and Christian ideals incorporated into one monument or piece of art. Although there were a few tourist groups throughout the church, I still felt like the cathedral has remained a place for prayer and sacred worship. It was very cool to see the chapels and sacristy. I would like to attend a mass while I am in Seville, and picked up a schedule before I left the church. I'm sure I will go during Semana Santa, or Holy Week, when the Cathedral packs all of the Seville residents into one church. When Pepe finished his tour of the Cathedral, he directed us toward the Giralda, which is the church's bell tower. The tower was also adapted from the minaret of the mosque it replaced. We climbed 33 floors to get to the top, but fortunately it was all ramps. There weren't any stairs because the Moors used to have their horses take them to the top to ring the bells and call the city for prayer. I got some great pictures, and had a great view of the city of Seville. On Tuesday, we went to Hospital de la Caridad. Hospital de la Caridad is a charity hospital that cares for the elderly. The reason we went however, was to see the church and the artwork contained within the hospital. The church was full of gold, and had an old-fashion style to it. They refer to this style as baroque, which originated in Italy in the 17th century. The coolest thing about this church was seeing the sculpture at the altar, which depicted the burial of Christ. I liked this excursion because before we went, I read about the Hospital and got some background knowledge on the paintings and the history of the church. The elderly have a very nice church to pray in, and very few tourists make this a point of interest so they are not regularly disturbed. Also, our host mother's daughter got married in this church, which made it especially cool to see. On Wednesday, we went to Real Alcazar, which was built in the 14th century and also contains many examples of mudejar architecture, like the Cathedral. Real Alcazar is full of courtyards and gardens. Pepe told us that lots of students go there to study in the spring because of the nature that surrounds the palace. If you look at the pictures, you can see in the arc's and the buildings that there is some Arabic influence in the construction of the courtyards and patios. When the current King and Queen come visit Seville, they stay in Real Alcazar, but unfortunately we did not get to see exactly where they live. While walking around the palace I was amazed by how large and eloquent the palace really was. Rock was a very popular material used to build buildings and paths alike, and the tiles that connected them were small and colorful. There were a ton of fountains in Real Alcazar, and it was funny to see ducks swimming in the water. I will return back when the gardens are full and the flowers are in bloom. On Thursday, we went to El Museo de las Bellas Artes. All the works in this museum were very religious, and most of them paid homage to the Virgin Mary. There were a lot of different rooms that contained works of art by various painters. This museum contains mostly 17th century art, which I really appreciated given I like the classical antique style. Then, Thursday night we went to a classical music concert. The concert consisted of songs by Beethoven and Piotr Tchaikovsky. The best part about the concert was watching the soloist play his cello. The soloist had rather long hair and played his cello with a lot of force and emotion. When he really would get going on a song, he would whip his hair back and forth. The concert was very good, and I was impressed with the skill level of the orchestra. I have been saving all my tickets and brochures so I can remember where I went and what I saw. Our group spent all day Friday in Cadiz, which is a city about an hour and a half bus ride from Sevilla. We arrived around 11:30 and went to the Cathedral almost immediately. It was raining very hard which kind of put a damper on the afternoon, but the Cathedral was still astounding. We then proceeded to a tower that overlooks the city and were given a demonstration of "camera oscura". The camera oscura gives a full 360 degree tour of the city from a bird's eye view. We were able to see the whole city on a circular panel, while the guide would rotate the camera that was situated above us. We got some very cool pictures, and just at this point in time it started to get sunny, which put everyone in a little happier of a mood I think. Cadiz is a strip of land that is built like a semi-circle around the Atlantic ocean, so a small group of us walked around the path by the water. We tried to walk around town a little bit, but Cadiz definitely partakes in the Spanish phenomenon known as the Siesta. Everything was closed and the streets were entirely empty at 4 PM. I think I will go back to Cadiz if I get the chance for their festival during the first weekend in March. It is famous all around Spain, and March is the perfect time to get ready for summer here and visit the beach.

There have been a ton of other cool things going on in Sevilla this week in addition to the scheduled events. I received my "Sevici" card in the mail, which allows me to take a bike from any bike rack in the city and return it within a half hour. It's kind of a cool system because you can take the bike from any rack you want, and return it to any other station located in the city. It's actually kind of hard to ride on the sidewalks here though because they are made of brick so it is extremely bumpy. It's also kind of annoying when you get to your destination and there aren't any available spots to put your bike because you have to ride to the next nearest one to park it. It was also our host mom's birthday last week, so Justin and I bought her some flowers and a vase. She loved them and immediately called her daughter to tell her how excited she was. Her daughter got her an in-house facial, which she seemed to love as well, so I think she had a great birthday. Lourdes also told me that her daughter, who is in her thirties and married with kids (bummer), might be interested in doing an intercambio with me. That way, she could help me with my Spanish and I could help her with her English. I think it sounds like a great idea, and I am definitely going to take her up on it if the offer still stands. This week we are picking our classes for the university with Eva, and finishing up the cultural seminar. I have learned a lot about Spain and it's history these past few weeks and now I have to show what I have learned in a 3 page paper and another 5 page paper. I already started on the first paragraph and I can already tell how much easier it is to write now that I have been here for almost 3 weeks. I'll update later this week when my class schedule is set in stone. Hopefully it's not as stressful as enrolling in classes at Michigan....