For some reason I stopped taking notes in Sevilla. It was not for any particular reason, after all, Sevilla was one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. The orange trees line the streets, the people are beautiful, friendly, the shopkeepers warm and accomadating. It rained a bit while we were there, but when the sun came out, I really felt like I was in Spain. Unbelievable, I thought, I am in Spain.
We got into Sevilla after a few days in Madrid, and we found a small room to stay in for around 13 dollars a night. Not bad. We headed out for some tapas at a local restaurant. Dave got a roasted chicken and fries plate and
I recall gawking over it. I got some hard ice cream dessert that I tried to eat with a fork, and when I tried to cut it I dropped it on the floor. The waiter, who wore 3-inch thick glasses and stared at us as we ate, picked it up off and put it back on my plate. I wondered how to say "no thank you" in Spanish.
After our late meal, we strolled a block to Sevilla's church, the largest one in the world. It used to be a mosque when the Moors lived in Spain, and took over 500 years to build. Since churches comprise a large portion of Western European history, we had by this point made it a point to see all of the famous ones. Notre Dame in Paris, Bayeux church near Normandy, Jesus Statue in San Sebastian, Lisbon's Sao Jorge Sastelo must have had some religious meaning, though I am not sure what.
It took a good fifteen minutes to walk around the periphery of the church. We peeked in and found that visiting hours were closing soon, so we looked in the courtyard as a light drizzle fell on us. We agreed to come back later, but to look at as much as we could before it closed.
When we left the Church, we found our hotel and rested for a bit before heading out for dinner. The next day we went to Alcazar, the famous gardens and royalty house of Sevilla. It reminded me a lot of a Spanish mission in California. The tropical vegetation impressed and reminded me of home. It was still raining, but we paid it no mind.
Dave had been itching to see the Sevilla bullring, where the bullfights took place. Hemingway's bullfights were in Pamplona and Cordoba, if I recall correctly, but this was just as well. We went to the bullring later in the day, after we wandered around the city for a few hours, looking for sights and batteries.
The bullring, as our tour guide told us, could hold 5,000 people, but the best seats were always reserved for royalty. We toured the museum, and the toro's pre-fight chapel, where they pray for a good performance. This was culture, I thought, like it or not. I enjoyed asking the tourguide, who was bilingual and gave tours in both English and Spanish, questions of how and why. She told me that toro deaths are a rarity (bull deaths are not), but they do happen, and when they do, the bull is usually killed as punishment. The charade reminded me a lot of the rodeo of the American West; taming animals for human entertainment.
Since the season for bullfighting is springtime, we were unable to see an actual fight, but taking the tour was the next best thing. Dave said he would come back to see them in the spring.
In a word, Sevilla was beautiful, and it is definitely a place I would like to return to. On a trip consisting mainly of large cities and resort towns, Sevilla stood out as a place where normal people might have lived (as if that term meant anything), where the Spanish culture became most evident.
