Seville

I went to Seville for the last four days of my break which happened to be during the Semana Santa celebration. And lucky for us, Seville is said to have the best Semana Santa celebration - which we weren’t aware of until we tried to book hostels three weeks beforehand and not a thing was available. A week before Easter, they celebrate Semana Santa by having church processions all around the streets of Seville. The members of each church dress up in cloth gowns with pointy hats (not to be mistaken with the Klu Klux Klan) and parade through the streets holding candles and crosses. It ends with a religiously symbolic float high atop that the church has been using for centuries. However these processions are not your typical parade - they are a very religious experience and many people shed their emotions through tears. It was a great experience to witness such an event.

During our days in Seville, we took great little café breaks to get some café con leche and postres, while reading our books. I had begun reading “The Kiterunner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns” after our return from Morocco in order to brush up my knowledge on the history and life of the Arabs. They are both amazing books and very well written - The Kiterunner is even a movie now. Anyways, Seville is also famous for their cathedral, which towers over the small city right smack in the center. It seems to be visible at every turn you take. It’s a beautifully intricate cathedral and is definitely Seville’s pride and joy. We also visited the Placa de Espana where there is a large fountain in the middle and a gran building encompassing the placa. The walls of the buildings are covered in mosaics of every city in Spain. Of course, we went to the Barcelona mosaic and snapped a couple pics. It had rained a few hours the first day, which was actually very enjoyable. We were trapped in a coffee shop, reading great books, watching the rain fall on the streets making everything glisten. When it stopped, it made for great pictures from the after-rain sky! One of my favorite parts about Seville was how it’s so easy for walking around. There are hardly any cars (in fact almost none) and it’s small enough to where you can walk anywhere you want to go. They don’t even have a metro there! It’s an adorably small and quant city, and is tour-able in a day and a half. At the same time there is plenty to do to keep you busy for days on end. One of the afternoons, we rented a three person bicycle and strolled through the famous Spanish gardens. Another afternoon we rented paddle boats and drifted up and down the river running through the center of Seville. At night we visited with our friend that we got acquainted with on the Moroccan excursion. We went to her apartment and got a peak of the Sevillian life of young Spanish women. It was great!

Seville was a great ending to our spring break. We were on our own schedule and were therefore able to sleep in and wind down a bit before school began again. It was the perfect ending to the perfect spring break!

---

---