In between me visiting Barcelona and leaving for Morocco, one of my best friends from high school came to visit me in Seville for 2 days. It's sad that it was such a short time but we made the best of it :-) It was nice to have someone come and visit and remind me of how cool Seville is again, because after a while it has kind of become just a normal thing for me. She definitely reminded me to cherish every second I have left here because it's an amazing city!
Anyways, the first day after my classes I took her to La Plaza de Espana, Parque Maria Luisa and La Plaza de America. Britt (the friend that lives here with me) and I had been wanting to take a row boat around the 'mote' in Plaza de Espana but just hadn't gotten around to it, so we decided to do that with Tracy! I rowed for most of the time. Britt and Tracy attempted, but both epically failed...although I ran into about 7 other boats so I can't say that I was all that great either. Tracy was the lucky one that got caught against the wall and it just so happened that about 100 kids had just arrived for a field trip in the plaza and all started to stare and laugh at her. While she didn't enjoy it very much, I sure did! Being the good friend I am, I got a loooot of photos of that so she can remember that experience vividly :-)
Just so you all know, I have decided that Plaza de Espana is my favorite place in the entire world, it's so gorgeous. I'll give you a little interesting history on it, in case some of you are interested. It was built in 1929 as part of the Ibero-American Exposition, sort of a world's fair that was in Seville. The exposition included other countries like Portugal, U.S., Cuba, Venezuela and more that I don't remember :-) It's now used today for some government offices. La Plaza de Espana is located right at the edge of the Parque Maria Luisa, and La Plaza de America (which was also built in 1929) is located on the other edge. It's built in what's considered 'neo-mudejar' style. The word 'mudejar' is a term for Muslims who lived under Christian rule. They had a huge influence on architecture throughout the Andalucian region which is still pretty evident today even though the original mudejares did most of their work in the 1400's and 1500's after the Spanish Inquisition. Anyways, enough of that, here are some photos:
After the Plaza de Espana, we went to the Parque Maria Luisa and walked around a little. It's such a peaceful place, especially with all of the fountains throughout it. After being in Spain/Europe, I thoroughly believe that there can never be too many fountains. Unfortunately, when we went they were doing their yearly cleaning of the fountains, but it was still really pretty. It's a really nice place to just go and read and relax. Photos below:
Yeah, we're rebels, we vandalized the park :-)
The next day we went to visit the Cathedral and the Alcazar (palace). The Cathedral is the 3rd largest Cathedral in the world. It was built as a celebration after the Christians had won the Inquisition, meaning it was constructed after 1492. The Cathedral has a tower, La Giralda, which was added on I believe after the original construction, and it gives you a beautiful aerial view of all of Seville. The other part of the Cathedral is the Patio of Oranges, which is a sign of Mudejar architecture, as the idea of the patio outside of the place of worship is something originally found in Islam, as they cleanse all openings of their body before entering into the Mosque. Inside, the cathedral is so gorgeous. It's amazing to think of how they possibly could have built that without modern technology. It is also filled with objects from the exploration of the America's. There's one altar that has objects made out of silver recovered from one of the first trips to the America's. The coolest part of the Cathedral - Christopher Columbus' tomb is located in the Cathedral. Apparently, there was great controversy as to whether his remains were in fact in that tomb as he was originally buried in Vallalodid, a Spanish city near Madrid, then they believe parts were sent to Havana, Cuba and then he was returned to Seville. It has now been confirmed that the remains in Seville are in fact those of Christopher Columbus, but Castro refuses to believe that and dismisses it completely. Long story short, I've seen Christopher Columbus' resting place, which for me is pretty awesome.
Here's his tomb:
Now that, is an impressive church organ:
We then went to the Alcazar, which I have already talked about in my blog and said that I was going to come back to so I could see all of the gardens when they were blooming. Definitely glad we did because they were GORGEOUS!! Here are some pics:
As promised I will tell you about my week, but you have to promise not to hate me. I mean, I'll try not to brag, but it's still gonna hurt.
It was in the high 70's and sunny every day this week. I had next to no homework this week so I spent nearly every day outside walking around or laying out and relaxing. Britt, Nina and I planned out our entire Italy trip while sitting outside Starbucks on Monday. We now have all of our hostels booked and we actually decided to shorten our trip so we will only be there 4/15 - 4/21, because we wanted to see some of Semana Santa (Holy Week) here in Seville since it's such a huge thing here as well.
Yesterday, my host family was gone for the day so I had 3 friends over and we laid out on my rooftop terrace and tanned, because we have to get ready for our beach weekend in Lagos, Portugal this coming weekend! So, I'm getting quite tan thanks to this gorgeous weather!
That's it, I'll stop now. I hope Wisconsin starts warming up for all of you. The snow on April Fool's Day was really not a nice prank from Mother Nature...and all I can say to that is thank God I'm not there right now :-)
Have a great week!
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