wandering around Sevilla for a semester: SEVILLE: An ill-wrought portrait.

Seville is… not big. That’s a very misleading statement, and I’ll explain what I mean, albeit confusingly.

In Baltimore, I don’t walk anywhere; there’s the Collegetown to take me places and homework to prevent me from going places. In Seville, there’s no free transportation. Walking costs you. It makes you tired in a way you haven’t really been, ever, every day. That’s my experience, at least, me who doesn’t exercise much and certainly doesn’t walk for at least 2 hours a day over cobblestones two weeks straight. Doesn’t sound like much? I might be underestimating the total, but it’s a half hour walk to the university, a 20 minute walk to the palacio, and a half hour walk to the central shopping district – and that’s all straight from my house, but usually in a day there’s more wandering and wandering farther and farther. At Hopkins, you might walk 15 minutes to class four times a day, then slink on down to char mar or a friend’s place in less. At least, that’s my Hopkins. And, as many of you know, when I say “walk,” I mean at my pace, that is to say, bookin’ like there’s no tomorrow.

So why am I whining when I just said Seville is not big? Because I got a little off topic, that’s why. The walking is definitely different and has taken some getting used to, but every day it’s less exhausting to walk a lot, and it is good exercise, after all, especially when you powerwalk for ten minutes to avoid missing the bus to Aracena. (Hey, for me, ten minutes is something.) But back to Seville not being big. It’s an interesting thing. Baltimore feels bigger because it’s a vague, shapeless form of much greater size than my small patch of trodden-down grass. But everything in Seville that I need is within a half hour walk, or 45 minutes to the river, perhaps, and in that half an hour you pass every darn thing you can imagine: eight old churches, five banks, 30 cafes and 10 restaurants, hundreds of homes, handfuls of shops, at least a pile of dog crap every few minutes, and of course more Spaniards than you can count.

[Tangent. In Seville, and perhaps in Spain, there does not appear to be dog crap etiquette. It’s on every sidewalk, eventually, and a lot of people have dogs. Just the other day out walking with Gaby for class, I witnessed a woman stop in the middle of the sidewalk, watch her dog do its doo, and walk away, with substantial grassy areas not three feet to her left AND right. I have yet to ask a Spaniard about this. I don’t want to ask my host mom, in case she does it and I let on that I think it’s a disgusting habit. There are dogs in this house (not that I see them; I sure hear them plenty). Maybe there is perfectly normal etiquette and it just seems crappy (swidt?) because I walk so much and notice all the bad apples. But that woman and her little dog are burned into my mind’s eye.]

Seville is not Paris, not New York, not a megacity. Baltimore, according to our beloved Wikipedia, is about 92 square miles, where Seville is 54. Baltimore is 640,000 people and Seville, 704,000 (whether or not these numbers correspond to their given areas, who knows, whatever). It’s 3.6 miles from Hopkins to the harbor; it’s 1.5 miles from my house to the university, which form about the northern and southern ends of my walking territory, on average, so far. I give you all these numbers in case you’re interested; I think it’s fun to compare the two cities so minutely. For you Lancastrians, it’s about 1.5 miles or less from Franklin and Marshall to central market, or, if this is more helpful, Lancaster city proper is about 2.5 miles in span both east-west and north-south.

Anyway, where was I? Getting mired in describing the size of Seville. Hope I didn’t bore you guys too much; I’m sure I’ll bore some of you at least some of the time, but hopefully one person likes even the boring parts some of the time. ?_? At least I know you’ll read it all, Mom and Dad! :)

Beyond the about three main, wide streets that sort of surround the central area of Seville, what I’d call “my” area (some students live on the other side of the river, not-my area), every darn street in this city goes every which way with no semblance of pattern or reason. You can’t ask how many blocks away something is, because they give you confused looks: there are no blocks. You must ask in time. The disorganization wouldn’t be so bad if not for the fact that no street maintains its name for more than a few “blocks”, more than a few minutes. Even the big main street that runs right by my house and that forms my walk to the university changes names three times. It’s Calle de Maria Auxiliadora by my house, Calle de Recaredo part of the way down, and Avenida de Menedez Pelayo the rest of the way. At least you can just say “the big main road”, which is what we all call it in our group; we all live in the same neighborhood, which is to say within fifteen minutes of each other. There’s almost no point in learning the name of any of the thin, labyrinthine streets of the meat of the city. Navigation is difficult when you want to go somewhere new that is tucked in the labyrinth. But in two weeks I’m impressed with how many routes I have memorized, at least generally, and how much I recognize things. And it’s not just a little exhilarating to walk along these crazy streets and know exactly where you are and where you’re going.

This is what the street signs look like. Cute, right?

Many of the streets, the less-main ones, are very thin and one way, as you’ll see in my pictures. By “very thin” I mean that sometimes there’s the street and a sidewalk on both sides where two people can pass one another; sometimes there’s the street and a sidewalk where only one person fits; and sometimes, like on my walk to the palacio at at least 3 points, the sidewalk is literally a six-inch curb and you better cross to the two-foot curb on the other side or the next car mirror that comes by will be taking out a lung. It’s almost like a game. You have to decide: look like a frightened tourist and stop in the middle of a thin sidewalk to wait for the row of cars to pass by, clogging it up for the people behind you; or keep going, head forward, arms in, listening to the roar of the oncoming engine (or the rapid harsh purr of a scooter) from behind and praying.

On the way to school, not too bad at this spot.

In the central shopping district, in a pedestrian zone. Adorable.

There’s a lot of color in this city. When we visited Aracena, a tiny town in the mountains an hour and a half away (more on that later), everything was white and red-brown.

There's an old castle on the hill, didn't get a chance to see it, but we did go into the caves under it!

YES

Here, you don’t feel like you’re in a rainbow, but there’s plenty of color everywhere, on buildings, on café fronts, on ads, on the sexy tranvia (and heck, even the regular tranvia has some color). During the day, in the sunlight, everything’s a delight. It’s not ‘quaint’ unless you wander into a quiet pedestrian area full of windowboxes and mosaic entryways. They do well with trees here, in every plaza and pretty much in every street where there’s room for some small trees. Lots of orange trees; not for eating, they’re bitter or sour, not sweet, but beautiful, and they smell nice. There’s a lot more green here now than on the east coast, and not of the pine tree variety either, which is a delight.

A small plaza on the way to school.

Plaza Nueva, by the city hall, near la catedral, near the central shopping district...

This brings me to the next topic, the weather, which will take me to the next topic, my house… but for now, weather. It’s been about 50 degree during the day here, 38 at night, with varying winds. No snow to speak of. Seems nice? Deceptively so. All those times I crowed about the 60 degree weather… See, here in Seville, and I believe in much of Spain and Europe of a similar climate, there tends not to be central heating or air. Only in bigger malls and restaurants, private businesses of a certain caliber, is there ample heat. All the rest is just left to be what it will be with some little plug-in heaters and closed doors. The palacio, with its traditional open patio?

Look at that beautiful cold sky.

... You’re pretty much still outside until you close yourself in a classroom or in the computer room (which is always delightfully warm!). In my apartment, with its middle class (Spanish-style)-ness, I wear my robe (which, I assure you, is very sexy) from the moment I walk in to the moment I leave, and sometimes my fingerless gloves. For example, dark fell a while ago, and my mouse hand is freezing, although the rest of me is relatively comfy. Our families are required to give us space heaters, and mine is a gem. [For those interested parties: estufa is not stove, it’s my little space heater. Stove is the same word for kitchen, cocina. Found these out the “hard” way (the fun way).]

In terms of being out and about, when you’re walking on a sunny day with your wool coat, it’s wonderful. When you’re walking briskly on a cloudy day with your wool coat, it’s fine. When you’re standing in the shade for a while on a sunny day, it’s chilly. When you’re standing listening to your prof lecture in the middle of the patio of a very old (very awesome) palace on a cloudy day with a slight wind, it’s miserable. So overall I’ve spent far more hours being cold than cozy despite the obvious difference in climate between here and the east coast. (As some of you know, I hate wearing lots of clothes inside, thus my lovely thermostat set at 80 degrees in the dorm. :) And thanks to the miracle that is Amy Lou and Anisha, I get one more year of no heating bills!). Energy is dearer in Europe, and the American way of using lights and heat is not at all the Spanish way. I cannot wait for the heat! But right now, I’ve pretty much stopped complaining; just took some adjusting to. Also, since this history class is over, no more lectures outside.

I could go on into the topic of my house and family, but I will split that into another blog post. This one is already two times too long, at least! We all know I'm... wordy. I’ve got some more philosophically bent topics to come, and probably more entertaining ones, too, I promise. In the meantime, here are some more photos.