upsidedown and backward

The university is equally as ambiguous as the pronouns.

The main departments of University of Seville are in this massive white concrete square building with Corinthian pillars and four entrances. When Sevilla was a big port city (thanks to the fake river/canal) it was the tobacco factory, but in 1501 or so the fabrica de tobaccos moved across the river to where I live, Los Remedios, and the old fabrica became a university. Now the inside floors are mostly white marble, two stories of endless aulas and libraries without clear signs. Class scheduling is nightmarish, and at least once a week the students get to class only to find that the room as been changed, or the professor decided not to show, or he’s just 15-minutes late… Today I knew something amuk when the filología department held an assembly in the room I have my classes in. So we stood there for awhile, no one knowing where to go, no sign on the door, and no where to check. We were eventually herded into another room, the room we were originally assigned to for the class, but that was changed the first week. The second class was the same, even the professor didn’t know what was going on. I really don’t understand how it all gets done.

As a result of all this waiting around, we were talking before my relato (short story) class about the striking resemblance the teacher has to Horacio Quiroga. Quiroga happens to be the author we’ve been studying for the past two months and the very same author who inspired the name of my blog.

I promise, though, that not everything is backwards or, if not backwards, then different than i'm used to. Because even though the buses are slow and unreliable, the university doesn’t know where its classes are, and my señora still doesn’t have a phone…it’s not all like this. I visited friends in a little pueblo of Sevilla (Utrera) this weekend, and three of them (the German, the Colombian, and the Guatemalan) live in a beautiful little apartment that isn’t freezing cold, has a microwave and an electric stove, a little interior patio to hang their clothes, and the toilets flush toilet paper. It’s also like a quarter of the price of living in Santa Barbara!