So I said that would get back to cultural immersion, and I did in a big way.
The beginning of the week was pretty boring; we spent a lot of time inside because the weather was pretty bad, rain every day. Elizabeth and I spent a lot of time planning upcoming trips instead of doing our homework. That probably wasn't the best idea because now I have a lot of work over the next few days.
On Thursday we continued our tradition of going out to dinner, only this time it was a much smaller group - 4 people as opposed to the usual 8-10. We decided to go out for tapas and just found a small bar in the center of the city. Amanda's language professor recommended a couple of tapas that are popular in Sevilla. We ordered 4 dishes, 2 of which he recommended. They were all awesome. The most interesting were queso machego, which is a local hard cheese, and cola de torro, bull's tail. I know, it sounds really weird and maybe even gross to some people, but it was amazing. We split a pitcher of fresh sangria with the food. All in all it was a great meal.
Friday was rainy...again. We continued the Fridays at Fridays tradition and it ended up being a really popular idea - we had over 15 UNC kids show up. I didn't go out because I had to get up really early the next morning for a field trip, so instead Elizabeth and I planned our trip to Ireland for the weekend before St. Patrick's Day.
Saturday morning the program had arranged a field trip to Cordoba, another city in Andalucia. At one point in time it was the capital of Spain during the years of Muslim rule. We left Sevilla around 8:30 am and got to Cordoba by 10:30. It was a really nice day (finally after all of the rain), a little chilly but very clear and sunny. The city was beautiful - it was very similar to Sevilla, only slightly smaller and far less busy and crowded. We started our tour of the city at El Puente Romano (The Roman Bridge), a 2,000 year old bridge over El Rio Guadalquivir. We then moved to La Mezquita (Mosque), the landmark that Cordoba is most famous for. I had actually studied it in the art history class I took at Carolina during the first semester of my freshman year; to this day that has been one of my least favorite classes ever, so it was good to see that all of the pointless information I learned from it had at least a little relevance to real life. La Mezquita is an old mosque that was turned into a cathedral during the Christian reconquest of Spain. It is famous for the 500+ arches and 1000+ columns of red and white striped brick throughout the huge interior of the building. The second part of the building is the gothic-style cathedral that was literally built inside of the mosque when the Moors were pushed out of Cordoba. It was a really cool site, and one of our teachers whom we all like a lot was our tour guide, so the tour was very interesting.
Next we went through the barrio - just like in Sevilla, it is a region of the city with very narrow and winding cobblestone streets, whitewashed buildings, balconies filled with flower pots, and orange and lemon trees. The barrios are easily one of my favorite parts of Spanish cities, there really isn't anything like them in the United States. We walked through until we got to the old Jewish part of the city and went into an old synagogue; we only stayed there for 5 minutes, it only consisted of one small stone room with nothing really to see.
Sitting outside the synagogue was a gypsie who was begging for food/money. This was the one bleak spot of the day. Gypsies are pretty common in Spain, and thus far our experiences with them have been few and far between, but pretty funny. One time our friend Ricky was walking down the street when one stopped him and made him show him his palms so that she could tell him his future. She stuff rosemary in both hands and told him he would live a long and happy life - then she made him pay her two euro for the rosemary. Anyway, this was the first time that I've ever felt upset after seeing a gypsie because she had a crying infant with her and was speaking very broken Spanish. A bunch of us had leftover food from lunch, so we gave it to her.
We had the rest of the afternoon to walk around the city. Rafa (our tour guide) suggested that we go to a tapas bar and order two dishes that Cordoba is famous for, so that's what we did. The tapas were salmorejo, which was a cold cream soup served with ham and egg. It's was very similar to gazpacho. It was ok, but not my favorite that I've tried since being here. The second dish was really good - berenjenas con miel (eggplant fried in honey). I'll definitely order that one again - it sort of tasted like french toast.
The drive between Sevilla and Cordoba is absolutely beautiful - it is literally just miles and miles of huge, rolling hills with the greenest grass I've ever seen. I slept most of the way to Cordoba, so I purposely stayed awake for most of the ride home; I was actually able to get some good pictures of the countryside from the bus.
That night was a big night in Sevilla because the two professional soccer teams here in the city - Sevilla Futbol Club and Real Betis Futbol Club - were playing in the final of La Copa del Rey (translation: The King's Cup). We didn't even try to get tickets because they were so expensive, so we went up to El Centro to find a place to watch it. Every bar in the city was packed, so we met up with some of our friends who already had a table at a restaurant. Betis (the underdog) won and fans were celebrating in the street all night. After the game we went out to a different bar before going home.
The next morning Elizabeth and I woke up early and met 11 other kids from our program at the bus station to catch the 10 am bus to Ronda, a town farther South of Sevilla. The day ended up being hands down the best day we've had since being here, and one of the best experiences of my life. Ronda was easily the most incredible sight I have ever seen. The town sits on the edge of cliffs hundreds of feet high overlooking miles of countryside sitting at the base of the Sierra Nevadas, a mountain chain in southern Spain. The town is most famous for el Puente Nuevo, a huge stone bridge sitting above a waterfall and gorge. We hiked down into the gorge and found a stretch of rocks that jutted out into the center of it about 2/3 of the way down and had a picnic. I really can't describe how amazing the scenery was, and even our pictures, which turned out great, can't do it justice. After lunch we went down into an old mine that was fully enclosed until it opened up at the bottom of the gorge with a sightseeing deck just above the river. It was a little eerie while we were making our way down, but still was one of the coolest things I've ever done - it felt like I was in the Goonies. By the end of the day we were all exhausted but exhilarated at the same time. I hope to make it back down there before the end of the semester.
I got some exciting news this week. I received an internship offer for the summer in London working with Health Protection Agency (similar to the CDC in the States). I'm really excited about it and very relieved at the same time because when I left for Spain my summer plans were still very much up in the air, and this worked out so smoothly. Of course this means I'm going to be in Europe for two more months that I expected, so I'm going to have to have my mom bring me more clothes when she comes to visit (for the first time in my life I actually underpacked). Best part about the internship is that I got to work out the dates with the company, and they are allowing me to finish in time to get home for OBX - a serious plus because most of the other programs I was applying to lasted into August and I was worried I would have had to miss the 20th anniversary of the best family vacation ever. Now all I need is for Carrie to study abroad at Oxford this summer...
This week is very, very busy for me (I actually have a test in an hour that I probably should be studying for but instead I'm updating this...). Tomorrow I have four classes and a presentation to give. Then right after my presentation I'm meeting a bunch of friends and going straight up to the Sevilla soccer stadium for a game between the Spanish and English national teams. Apparently the teams hate each other; the game was supposed to be in Madrid, but the English team refused because the Spanish fans there were so ridiculous. The game is a friendly, so we were thinking that neither team would be using all of its starters, but we saw confirmation on the news today that Beckham will be starting for England. Apparently they are also stationing English police around the stadium to protect the English fans and to help prevent riots. It should be a nuts atmosphere, we are all so excited. The game starts at 10 pm and will probably go to 12:30 or 1:00. After that game we are going to the Texas bar to watch the UNC/Duke game, which won't be on until 3 am here. Then I leave for the airport at 7:30 am to catch a flight for Paris. It's going to be a very long day, but I'm so excited for everything!
I'll update this again after the weekend and talk about how everything went. Love and miss you all and I hope everyone is doing well!
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