Andalucia, Part 2b: Sevilla

Is it even worth catching up at this point? Meh, well, I'm almost there, and I hate leaving things unfinished. Someday, I suppose I'll look back and appreciate the fact that I wrote all of this down.

Well then, Sevilla. Obviously, we got in late Thursday night (Thursday being May 29th, wow), and if you don't remember why it was so late, let me refer you to Part 2a. Friday morning, even though we intended to sleep in and take a slow day, I ended up waking up a little before 9, so my dad and I decided to go for a run. It was a nice way to get our bearings of the city. We ran down to the Guadalquivir river:


Until we got to the Torre de Oro, an old military watchtower built in the 1200's. I thought I had some pictures of this, but apparently not.

After we came back, my mom was mostly awake, so we showered up and headed out to grab some breakfast. It was about 11:30 by then, and we headed over to a bakery down the street, which, while excellent, was absolutely packed. It took us a while to finally get what we wanted, and in the meantime, we discovered that May 30th was actually Sevilla's patron saint's day, i.e. another holiday, meaning all of the stores were closed. Tough luck but probably better for the sake of our wallets, and in any case, we found enough stuff to do. For example, we found San Diego (street),

and got to check out all of the really cute streets with mosaic tiles all over the walls, which are fairly typical of Andalucia:


We also took a tour of Sevilla's bullring, and checked out the bullfighting museum that they have as well. It was a very pretty structure, elegant, regal, exuding tradition, but really, the whole concept of a bullfight... you people know that every single bull dies, right?? Supposedly they sell the bull for meat later, in which case, 6-8 bulls per stadium per day across Spain maybe isn't that many bulls (I have no idea what the typical rate of slaughter for cattle is, if anyone cares to englighten me, I'd be much obliged), but the whole spectacle and process and advtanges given to the matador all seems a little cruel. Anyway, well, I'll leave it to the Spanish to sort out whether or not this is going to be a tradition that lives on or eventually gets phased out. (Actually, speaking of which, the festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, aka running of the bulls, starts today. Now talk about crazy...) For now, I'll just continue with my show-and-tell:

Inside the bullring.

Dad by the puerta principal. Only WINNERS leave from this door.

Outside the bullring. Have we noticed yet that Spain's colors are red and yellow?

So later that evening, on Friday, we went to Tablao El Arenal for a flamenco show. Wow. I read somewhere there the New York Times rated that tablao (aka place where they dance flamenco) as the best in the world, and I don't doubt it. We made a reservation for a dinner show (actually, tapas) and it was incredible. Amazing. Enthralling, riveting, impressive, magnificent... I mean, dang. The music is one thing. I actually really like flamenco music--the guitar, the rhythms, the powerful voices (when there is signing), it's very rich and moving, to begin with.

But then... but then they start dancing. There are actually many different types of flamenco music and dances, characterized by the tone, dress, history, etc. For example, some are about love, some about pain, some involve bright dresses and some dark, some include much more stomping while others use the castanetes, etc. (Side note, I forgot to mention that my mom and I went to the flamenco museum in the afternoon, hence my ability to provide this rudimentary background.) Anyway, so there are lots of different types of dances, and at this show, which lasted about 90 minutes, about 10 different dancers (one male, who was involved in both a partner dance and a solo) went through a dozen or so of these styles. It was superb. Normally I'm not a dance person, but you can't help but appreciate how incredibly talented these people are. There's a particular strength about all of it. Their moves are so direct, there's no swooping or gliding or leaping, they just cut from one position to another very quickly, stop on a dime (or a Euro-coin), clapping and tapping their heels or their toes all the while. And when they want to move a part of their body, for example their hips, or their shoulders, they move that part and that part alone; it's just so exact. They also make a particular effort to lift of the bottoms of their dressed every once in a while to show the audience exactly what their feet are doing, which I think is really amazing, and also has the added effect of placing a particular emphasis on their calves. And I like nice calves, hehe. So yeah. Flamenco = way cool. I would most definitely recommend both seeing a show to anyone traveling through Andalucia, and I would also give my highest recommendations regarding the Talbao El Arenal in particular. It seems expensive at first (55 € for show+tapas), but really, people drop hundreds of dollars on Broadway shows to sit way further away, see something that (in my opinion) is way less cool, and not get fed. Soo.... DO IT.

Well, hey, I think I'm basically caught up! Because that was the last thing we did on Friday, and on Saturday, we didn't do much in particular (at least, I have no exciting photos). Basically, we slept in, went for breakfast again at the same bakery (which was much less crowded this time), and did a little shopping, since the stores weren't open the day before. I'm pretty sure lunch was involved somewhere thereafter, and some walking, and then the drive to Córdoba, fairly early in the afternoon. A great trip, all in all, and I really enjoyed the whole Andalucian atmosphere, even if it did take me a bit of effort to understand the "Southern accent."