General Observations

As I am studying and will do anything to procrastinate a bit more, allow me to describe to you some of the things I have noticed here that are different from home and/or generally surprising. The first is that people here seem not to drink much water, at the very least not to the extent to which I am accustomed. Maybe this is just my experience, but I seldom see people in restaurants drinking water, usually beer, wine, or coffee. In almost all establishments water does not come with a meal like in the United States.

Also, Charo has never offered me anything to drink during mealtimes. Unfortunately, once I had packed both of my suitcases and successfully weighed each of them in at 49 ½ lbs (50 lbs being the checked baggage weight limit) with some careful rearranging courtesy of my mother, I looked into the kitchen and saw my Sigg water bottle drying next to the sink. Rats—that thing goes everywhere with me! I thought it wouldn’t be that big of a deal because I could just buy a water bottle once I got to Spain. It turns out that the only metal water bottle I could find was somewhat like a Sigg, only it looks more like something I would take on a mountaineering stint. I don’t really mind though because my first days without it were rather thirsty ones.

Another detail that I had never thought about before coming here deals with accents. Not Andalucían or other Spanish accents but British accents. Although it took me a while to catch on, I realized after a couple of days that oftentimes when Spaniards speak in English, they do so with a British accent. This makes perfect sense as the proximity of the British Isles mean that most English teachers actually come from this side of the pond rather than ours and that those who want immersion in English can attain their goals in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, I am for some reason still amused when British accents come out of Spanish mouths.

The most intriguing surprise I have come across are the dogs in Sevilla. So many dogs accompany their owners down the streets, and they are so well-behaved! They never bother other people, and I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen two dogs bark at each other. Sometimes they do not even have leashes on and simply faithfully trot by their owners’ sides without one misstep. On occasion I have seen owners and dogs jogging together sans-leash. It’s astounding, considering that any dog I have ever had wouldn’t last five seconds in such a situation without going nuts. I wonder if this is a Spanish dog thing, or just urban dogs or Sevillan dogs, but I want to know what people are doing to get these dogs to behave so well.

While the dogs impress me, some of their owners do not. I don’t know if they are stupid or just plain lazy (probably the latter, which is worse than stupid), but people here need to step it up and pick up their dog’s poop. Seriously, if you are ever walking on a Sevillan sidewalk, I advise you to not get too caught up in the architecture above you and to pay attention to what’s below. I feel like little piles of #2 are everywhere. I have not stepped in any yet, but I certainly fear doing so every day.

My last observation of the day has almost nothing to do with Sevilla and almost everything to do with how much of a braggart I am about to be. Yesterday, sort of on a whim, Annie and I bought tickets to Sevilla FC vs. FC BARCELONA (!!!) for Sunday night! I can barely contain my excitement. For those who couldn’t care less about soccer, FC Barcelona is considered to be the best club football team in the world. Many of their players are part of the reigning World Cup-champion Spanish national team, and they also employ a certain Lionel Messi, who is widely considered to be the best footballer in the world. Needless to say, I’m pretty stoked! But for all of the excitement over Barcelona, I’m still rooting for Sevilla, obviously (and we can’t forget about Charo’s feelings on the matter, now can we?). My red and white is ready to go—I can’t wait for Sunday!

Spanglish

Last night, I reached a milestone. I had my first dream in Spanish. Well, kind of. It was a mix of Spanish and English, but still, I've never even dreamt one little bit in Spanish. I do not vividly remember what the dream was about, only that several of my friends and Annie were in it with me, along with my señora and other Spaniards. It was actually a little stressful because the main gist of the dream was that half of the time I kept accidentally speaking in English instead of Spanish and was continuously apologizing to my señora and the other Spaniards for doing so. I am not allowed to speak English in my home stay, so my dream-self was continually preoccupied with the disapproval of my dream-señora. Sheesh, even my dream-self can’t stand to be in a little bit of trouble—I have problems.

Stressful situation notwithstanding, this is still a pretty exciting deal for me. Hopefully in my dreams to come I will remember to speak Spanish to the dream-Spaniards.

Café

Sunday afternoon was quickly fading into evening, and I needed to get out of the apartment. I decided to get some homework done (midterms are coming up), so I packed up my bag and headed outside. I wandered around looking for a café, no café in particular, just anything that I should come across that seemed somewhat quiet.

After twenty minutes I found it. It was nothing special and wasn’t my first choice, but it was less noisy than the more popular spot one block away. In reality, it was just a little sandwich shop. Nothing too fancy or stylish, but it was clean and had an open table and coffee, which was all I was really asking.

I seated myself next to a table of three señoras whose group increased to six by the time I was done working on vocabulary readings and sipping coffee. They chatted the whole time, most of them at the same time. The talking/listening ratio was pretty imbalanced, but none of them seemed to mind. Wrapped up in their (faux?) fur coats, they would lean forward and stick their chins out toward the window in order to observe passers-by, of course commenting on each one. Sometimes their neighbors or friends would walk past, and everyone would try to communicate through the storefront window. I wondered why those on the sidewalk didn’t just walk through the door four feet away and come inside, but their conversations through the glass were certainly entertaining.

The señoras weren’t the only observers. As I was facing the window as well, I couldn’t help but be distracted by people-watching every so often, although most of the time when I looked up, someone was already surveying me. Their looks were not judgmental and did not communicate anything other than genuine curiosity, the same way I was looking back at them. After a few seconds, people would pass on, and I would turn my attention back to word morphology, that is, unless I was turning my attention to the flat screen TV above my head playing the FC Sevilla game.

As darkness began to blanket the city and it was time for dinner, I strolled back to the apartment feeling absolute contentment. Those couple of hours in an unassuming café watching people go through their everyday lives left me in great mood (although I think caffeine also had something to do with this). Such scenes will stand out more vividly in my memory than any random castle or artist’s masterpiece.

Lisboa

After staying overnight in Lagos last Friday, Annie and I rode another bus to Lisbon, Portugal’s capital city. We were only able to spend two nights and one day there because our bus ride back to Sevilla was approximately seven and a half hours long, using up most of our Monday holiday (Día de Andalucía). We were champs, though, and packed as much as we could into what time we had.

Not long after we arrived to Lisbon Saturday night we went on a pub crawl with our hostel. This turned out to be a really good idea because we went to Bairro Alto, one of the districts well-known for its nightlife, and it was absolute insanity. People literally packed the streets all night, but it was definitely a fun atmosphere. We had to call it quits before it got too late, though, because we wanted to spend the one full day we had exploring the city, not sleeping in.

When we woke up on Saturday, we loaded up on a big breakfast of toast, apple-cinnamon pancakes, juice, and coffee at the hostel. Those pancakes were honestly one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever eaten, so I need to try to replicate them when I get home. After breakfast we hopped on a bus to Belém, another part of Lisbon, which is Portuguese for “Bethlehem”. After about 30 minutes on the bus we got off in front of the Jerónimos Monastery, a Manueline (Portuguese late-Gothic, named after the king of the time) monument that survived the Great Lisbon Earthquake.

To provide a little historical background for you, most of Lisbon was destroyed during an earthquake on November 1, 1755.  If building weren’t destroyed by the quake itself, chances are that they caught fire. (You can imagine all of the candles that were burning in churches on All Saints’ Day.) And if neither the earthquake itself nor the fire had affected parts of the city, then the enormous tsunami that hit about forty minutes later followed by two more waves left its mark. Talk about a catastrophe. 

So, although Lisbon is a very old city, most of its current architecture is actually post-1755. The monastery is one of the surviving pre-1755 structures. Since many museums and attractions in Lisbon provide free or discounted admission before 2:00 p.m. on Sundays, Annie and I checked it out before walking along the riverfront. Once we had built up an appetite, we stopped in at Pastéis de Belém, a famous pastry shop, as evidenced by the constant line of people waiting to get in. It is actually bigger than most restaurants I’ve ever been in, but there is good reason. These people know what they are doing. Their famed product is the Pastel de Belém, is a little circular pastry filled with cream, yet it is so much more than that. Only three people know the recipe, so I couldn’t tell you what was in it, but it definitely agreed with me! Annie and I split a lunch of café, two little ham and cheese sandwiches (on the flakiest bread ever), one duck empanada (never had duck before, but I liked it), and a Pastel de Belém each for less than 8 euro. It was worth the 30-minute bus ride.

Outside of Jerónimos Monastery

Inside the monastery

San Francisco and Rio over the Tagus?

Line outside the famed Pastéis de Belem

Sustenance for the second half of our day

We boarded a train after lunch back to the downtown area. From there we trekked up a hill to our destination of the Castelo de São Jorge (St. George’s Castle, but you probably figured that one out on your own). This castle is another survivor of the earthquake and dates back to Medieval times. We were there on a gorgeous, clear day, so the views over the terracotta rooftops and Tagus River were spectacular. We thoroughly explored the fortress until the last lookout point, where we encountered a couple exhibiting some exceptional PDA. I’m sure they wouldn’t have minded us coming down to the platform, or even noticed us really, but as we already had about 50 photos each of the city view from the castle, we left the enamored couple to their business and descended the hill back to the downtown area.

And once we had descended, we started ascending another hill! Lisbon is sometimes called the City of Seven Hills, so if you want to multitask by combining tourism with toning your lower half, I highly recommend visiting this city. Its hilly nature, trolley cars, and twin of the Golden Gate Bridge contribute to comparisons often drawn between San Francisco and Lisbon. I can’t really provide consensus or disagreement with that because I would need to visit San Francisco first.

So, up on another hill, we found ourselves in Bairro Alto again. After a long day of almost non-stop walking, we had earned a relaxing night. We started it off watching the sun set over the city and Tagus River from a rooftop bar, at which I enjoyed my first glass of port (another one of my drink cliches fulfilled—you have to have port in Portugal!). After dark, Annie and I had hoped to find a good place to eat where we could also enjoy some fado, a traditional Portuguese music genre. Unfortunately, the affordable place we knew of at which anyone will strike up a tune was closed for remodeling, and we only encountered the expensive tourist-directed dinner-and-a-show establishments. I wasn’t about to drop $50+ on that (I’m thinking of saving it for something more along the lines of a Messi jersey), so we found a quiet little restaurant instead. I tried lamb for the first time there, and though it’s not my favorite, I’d certainly eat it again. After dinner we headed back to the hostel and crashed because we had to catch an early bus the next morning. 

The perfect way to end a long, eventful day

Although the bus trip was long, it was a great way to see the Portuguese and Spanish countryside. Parts of Portugal actually remind me of some hills just outside of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, dotted with oak-like trees and streams running through the valleys. Who knew?

After the constant traveling, catching up with homework, and applying for summer jobs, I was kind of burnt out. Thus, the week-late blog finally arrives. I just passed a relaxing weekend in Sevilla, though, so I should be back on my writing game soon enough.