The most wonderful time of the year

I fell even more in love with Sevilla last night. At midnight started the lighting of the portada or the entrance to Feria. I’m not even sure really how to describe Feria. I think it is one of those things you have to be there and see it to grasp it. 

                Last night after buying my purple themed flamenco goods,  flower and huge earrings, seeing Dear John in Spanish and finally getting to try orange wine we headed to the lighting of the portada. The Feria grounds are at the end of my street, which will make getting around the next few days a little big of a challenge. I have never seen so many people in Sevilla crammed onto one street going to the same place.

                Feria de Abril is a mixture of a state fair, city wide block party, bar mitzvah party and Sevilla culture all rolled up into one. Families and friends own private tents which are decorated absolutely beautifully. There are also some public tents that are provided by political parties and neighborhoods. The Feria grounds are not used for anything else during the year and is a huge area. Women wear their flamenco dresses and men in suits. Little did I know there is a new fashion every year of flamenco dresses. However, a flamenco dress costs around 300 EUR so I splurged for the earrings and flower instead.

                Each tent is playing some type of Sevillana music. Everyone in the tent and people outside the tents are dancing the famous Sevillana dance. I have attempted to learn, but still stick out so much.

                Served in all the tents is a drink called rebujitos, which is a mixture of sherry and 7-up. We tried some and have to agree it is delicious.

                Tonight we are going to our family’s tent around 10:30 PM. Feria lasts until about 7 AM. Pablo even told me that some people stay until 9 AM, go home and start all over the next day. I can’t wait to spend the night with my family, ride roller coasters with my Spanish brothers and attempt to dance more Sevillana.

                On another note I went to Toledo last weekend with my theatre, dance and music interest group. The town was small, but beautiful with a lot of history. I got to see the Don Quijote windmills and see a very entertaining black light theatre show. 

                Paris was amazing and deserves its own blog post, so that will be coming soon! Only 3 more weeks left until my parents get here. Where did the time go?

Gelato Wonderland

For someone who reads blogs on a daily basis, I have done a terrible job updating mine. I guess I need to back track to give some highlights of March. March was filled with trips and my examens parciales (midterms). Sit back and be prepared to be filled in on a month’s worth of updates.

I went with a group of friends to Ronda, a small town about two hours away. Ronda is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Spain. Ronda is plopped right on top of a cliff, which made for gorgeous views of the city. We hiked all the way down to the bottom of the cliff to see what looked like Lord of the Rings scenery.

The next trip was a cheaper version of England. I went with my international finance class to Gibraltar. I enjoyed having a monkey on my head, riding in a van to the top of the rock of Gibraltar and finishing the day with fish and chips and a side of cider.

A trip to Cadiz with my program was squeezed in for a day. I had high hopes and wore my bathing suit only to be denied by winds and cloudy skies.

My grades here are made up of a midterm and a final and that is it. So, as one can guess I have had about zero work until my midterms. Seems great until the week before when I have to cram 2.5 months of notes in Spanish into my head. But, I’ll take that over having projects and homework all the time. It has been a nice change of pace from Texas where I usually feel so overwhelmed with all things related to school at all times. This is something I really hope to take home with me. The idea that yes school is important, but you should live your life day by day and soak in every moment. Wait to stress or even better don’t stress at all.

This past week was Semana Santa. The University of Sevilla gets the entire week off for it so three girls and I planned my dream trip to Italy. Many of you know that Italy has been my dream to go to since I was about 12 when I told my middle school boyfriend at the time that I would go to Italy on my honeymoon. Okay, so plans changed a little, but I still had every intention of finding an Italian husband while I was there.

I devoured the sights and food of Rome, Florence and Venice, while those cities in return ate my money. I learned that wine is cheaper than water and to never get out money at an exchange bank. This trip was one of the best experiences I have had and reminded me of how lucky I am to be studying abroad for an entire semester. Here are a few highlights from every city:

Rome: The eternal city. Rome was my favorite city for tourist reasons. Every piece of Rome has an incredible amount of history and you didn’t have to look hard to find it. We crammed Rome into 2.5 days. We didn’t really sleep this trip and I think that we could have just done Rome for half the week and had plenty to do. Before we left I found a free tour guide of Rome. We did one of the city center and another of the historic area. Standing in the Coliseum, Pantheon and the Roman Forum was unreal. How could a building still be standing that old? We took a visit to the Pope and his lovely home in Vatican City. We had a 4 hour guided tour through the beautiful museums and of course the Sistine Chapel.

Florence: Florence reminded me so much of Sevilla. Florence was a much slower pace than Rome and a lot of Italian beauty. My favorite part of this trip was a secret corridor tour Liz and I scheduled at Plazzo Vecchio. Plazzo Vecchio was home to the Medici family. This tour was so DaVinci Code of us: we walked through paintings into secret doors which led to secret rooms and more secret stairs. Let’s just say I have grown a love of secret passage ways. I bought a leather purse at the huge leather market which is so fun to look through. I also decided to eat my weight in Gelato in this city. Good idea? Absolutely. 

Venice: My first trip all by grown up self. While the other 3 girls went to Greece I stuck around in Venice. My hostel in Venice was the best place I could have asked for. I stayed in the 5 bed shared female room. Every night our hostel would go to the market to get food together and bring it back to cook and hang out. I met people from all over the world: Brazil, Argentina, Israel and Germany. The first morning I was there I took a water taxi (these taxis are the best thing ever created. It is a boat ride everywhere you want to go) to Murano, the most famous glass blowing island. I got to see how they made glass and bought a pair of earrings. Venice was not made for directionally challenged people. I decided that if I got lost I would just walk toward the water. I thought it was a brilliant idea until I realized that the whole island has water running all the way through it. My favorite part of Venice was the Jewish Ghetto, the oldest Jewish Ghetto in Europe. Having skipped Seder for the first time in my life and of course having trouble keeping Passover in Italy I guilty walked into the quarter. I heard the familiar greetings of Shabbat Shalom and even got some free matzo.

I got back to Sevilla around 11:30 PM on Friday to the world of Semana Santa. Sevilla has the biggest Semana Santa celebration in the world. I have never seen so many tourists in all of my time in Sevilla or heard so much English. They are all here to see the Pasos, or parades. I don’t the word parades fits in with Semana Santa and the world float doesn’t even touch what they carry. See the pictures below of the beautiful floats that about 50 men carry and the KKK style outfits the brotherhoods of the churches wear.

The people of Sevilla are moved so much by Semana Santa. I saw women cry over the 7th Virgin Mary they saw and men dress in their nicest suits for the parades. I think I will have a better grasp on the love of Feria than Semana Santa.

If this past weekend wasn’t enough I venture to Paris this Thursday. I am so happy that I will get to see so many people from home. My roommate from both freshman year and last year, Sarah is studying there for the semester so she has been helping me plan. I will also get to see Scott and Sarah, two friends from Longhorn Singers.

The month of April will be incredible, but I have a feeling it is going to be over before I know it. On the schedule is Paris this weekend, Toledo the next, Feria during the week with a few beaches in Southern Spain on the Costa del Sol the weekend after and the last weekend one of my best friends from Texas, Stephanie is coming to Sevilla. After all of that I only have two weeks left until my parents come.

I cannot believe I’m already talking about the end of my trip. The weather in Sevilla is beyond beautiful. We have started sitting by river every day and soaking in the sun and Sevilla. I plan on taking advantage of the gorgeous city of Sevilla each day I have left here. Leaving here will be like leaving camp, which one again my poor parents have the wonderful job of taking me away from.

Don’t worry still over a month of adventures and I promise to be better at the updating. Hope you made it to the end of this long blog.

Besitos,

Elena