Feria de Abril

La Sagrada Familia

I saw perhaps the third wonder of my Spanish world today in Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia. It's the child of Antoni Gaudí, a famous Catalunyan architect whose weird curvy buildings are all over the city. He died many years ago, but construction on the unfinished temple has been continued in his absense. It's a huge mess of cranes, statues, and towers, with two of the three fascades finished, one in the late 1800s, and one more recently with weird Fountainhead-like cubist figures of Christ.

So we decided to climb the 300-some stairs to the top of one of the towers. Half of it is this weird, winding staircase, and the other half is an equally skinny staircase with stunning views of the city thousands of feet below. Remind me to never bring my dad. "Get away from the edge!" The whole time we were behind this roudy group of Italians who I originally thought were speaking Catalán... but they kept making jokes and laughing, and they affectionately adopted us into their groupo and talking about California (and talking to us) even though we couldn't understand what they were saying. They invited us to visit Rome which they said is better than Barcelona because there aren't so many stairs... I think I will. But Barcelona is a beautiful city and it's so nice being with an old friend. :-)


(that's after I got my hair cut)

Tengo un nuevo "look"

Look is a Spanish word that means, well, look. Style. And hombre, it's been many years since i've had a new one. So after walking the streets sufficiently to develop a taste for Spanish hairstyle I looked up some words in my dictionary (bangs=flaquillos; layers=capas; blow dry=peinar) and set off to find a decent peluqeria. There are actually five on every block in my neighborhood, so it was a tough choice. The first one I entered had about six old ladies getting their hair done, so I felt a little uncomfortable, and it was so loud that I couldn't hear what the lady was saying. I walked out and down the block to one that looked more hip and private with orange and green paint. After finding mas o menos the style I wanted in one of the magazines and trying to expain it with my non-haircutting Spanish vocabulary, it took her about 15 minutes to cut bangs and layers change my part. And that was that. For 12,50!!!!

So if I don't look more Spanish... at least I have a nice change that the hairdresser proclaimed to be gracioso and chulo after she was done. (Gracioso meaning... something good, and chulo meaning cool in a suave, slicked back hair, black suit kind of way -- not that I look like that.)

choices

Way back when studying abroad was just a dream and I was choosing between five different programs and thirteen different cities, Sevilla sounded livable because of its friendliness to students, its moderate size, and its cultural and religious history – a mix of Muslims, Jews, and of course, Catholics. I heard stories from a friend who had studied in Spain and dated a nice Jewish Spaniard, and from a teaching assistant who had lived there, and was sold. Maybe Spain isn’t as infernally hot or as devoutly Catholic as everyone says.

Here I am three months into my stay. It was cold for awhile but now the digital thermometers on the farmacia signs around town regularly register between 25 and 30 – in April. It’s the middle of Passover and I’ve eaten a thick, fluffy baguette for breakfast and lunch and this morning I followed Jesus and the Virgin Mary around town in honor of Domingo de la Resurrección (Easter). I went to my program activity office at the beginning to inquire about a synagogue and was told there are approximately five members, the phone number is disconnected, and services are held in an unlabeled building on a rather shady street. I didn’t bother, and I didn’t really notice any other type of religion besides the tiny grey churches on every other street until this week – Semana Santa.

Understandably Saint’s Week, the week that begins with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter Sunday and mourns Jesus’ crucifixion and celebrates his subsequent resurrection, is a big deal for a Catholic country. Even if history has left a few ancient mosques in Andalucía and three synagogues in Spain it doesn’t change the fact that los Reyes Catolicos revamped Catholicism in the late 1400s while expelling everything else, and Spain hasn’t been religiously diverse since. (The very same Catholic royals, Ferdinand and Isabella, sent Cristobal Colon/Christopher Colombus, whose remains are in Seville’s catedral, to Asia in 1492 and he ended up founding America but never knew it.) Religious unity is something that the obviously U.S. lacks, and it seems kind of nice, because besides country pride and region pride, Spaniards have a country-wide sense of religious unity and tradition in that comes from Catholicism.

The traditional aspect of the Semana Santa celebration in Sevilla is refreshingly ancient and beautiful. Parades of pointy-hooded nazarenos, cross-carrying barefoot penitentes, and elaborate saint’s week scenes float through the city thanks to an army of 20-40 costaleros who hold the huge heavy floats from underneath on the backs of their necks in tune with the mournful whining music… Catholicism aside, it’s amazing, breathtaking, and solemn. But this morning as I was pushing through a crowd trying to get to a good spot from which to view the final procession of the week, I realized that it’s still Passover, I was wearing a Star of David, and following a float that depicted Jesus with bloody hands and feet and a gold crown, ascending up to heaven.

It’s hard to tell how religious Spaniards actually are. My señora for one doesn’t ever go to church, but she does pray each night before bed and her room is decorated with a picture of Jesus above her bed. The rest of the Sevillian and Spanish tourist population seems to turn up on the streets during Semana Santa en mass at all hours of the day and night to view these processions. Some choose to be band-members, costeleros, nazarenos, and penitentes for their own church’s processions. Everyone dresses up in suits and skirts or dresses, and Spanish women dress in black lace on Friday as a sign of mourning. Some buy seats for 200-500€ each on the parade route, or inherit bleacher seats. Kids get involved too, some donning the nazareno costumes, and some running through the processions in their little spring dresses or suits asking for candy and pictures of that particular church’s Virgin Mary. Still, everyone seems to go out for drinks and tapas as usual.

I’m not actually going anywhere with this. Out of all the cities I’ve visited in Spain, by now including Granada, Jerez de la Frontera, Cadiz, Malaga, Utrera, Madrid, Toledo, San Lorenzo del Escorial, I still like Sevilla the best. Despite the Catholicism, all the Americans, the impending heat, the walking, and everything else I complain about, it’s pretty near perfect. I think my mom agrees.


At the Alcazar... a sight in Seville i'd actually never seen before. It's almost in another dimension, so hidden behind houses and the depths of the old Jewish quarter that you never realize it's there, or that it's so big and beautiful.

hola from MADRID

If you haven't heard much from me lately, or my mom, it's because she's here and we're in MADRID. We've been traveling and walking and sight-seeing for five days and we head back to Sevilla tomorrow to catch the tail end of Semana Santa. I will be sure to post photos and stories of all our travels... but for now I will leave you with a saludo and a little summary. Toledo. El Escorial. Reina Sofia. El Prado... there are people waiting. And the night is young!

times like these

There’s a forgotten stairway at the University of Seville that is protected by a metal detector and a couple of guards. Now I understand why.

They guard the Parainfo room, a lecture hall for distinguished guests that’s carpeted and has cushioned red velvet theater-style chairs, long red curtains, and big paintings of famous people. In front is a long wooden desk like one might see in the dining hall at Hogwarts, but today instead of Dumbledore sat the director of my study-abroad program, an important school official, a man from the government (minister of culture I believe) and a few others who looked important – all four wearing formal black or black suits. To their left sat a grey, slightly overweight bored-looking man in a light blue polo shirt – Raúl Rivero.

Before I got involved with this magazine más o menos I didn’t know who he was either. And I still won’t lie and say I completely understand what he stands for. Basically, he’s a journalist and poet from Cuba who was jailed for 20 years for reporting the truth for several U.S. newspapers during the time when he, as a Cuban citizen under Fidel Castro or just during and after the revolution, didn’t have the right to free speech. Now he writes for El Mundo, one of the more neutral national newspapers in Spain, in Madrid, because he was exiled from Cuba, of course, for writing. “Charla con Raúl Rivero.” Interesting.

So the university official and government official started off the afternoon giving long speeches about his accomplishments as at any lecture. I won’t lie again and say I really understood anything of what they said, partly because I ran in a bit late and was trying to get settled and skim the folded papers I was handed as I sat down. After the intro a few people from the audience started standing up and reciting passages from little pieces of paper in fast Spanish, while the audience clapped. I didn’t really I understand them either, but I clapped along because I thought they were the final straw in the kick-off to Raúl, reciting his poems or something. Some of them seemed nervous and shaking as they spoke.

But after several of these recitals it became evident that this wasn’t planned and the officials at the wooden desk started yelling though the microphone to regain order and continue the talk. But the audience continued their reciting and their clapping. They stood up with posters and chanted and kept yelling over the people with the microphones, rejecting any suggestion to stop and talk. Chanting, posters, clapping, yelling, a group at the front of the room held up white painted sheets and a flag with their messages in bold capped letters. The 30-plus people in the audience continued their yelling until the officials gave up at trying to continue the lecture and ushered Raúl and the rest of the bewildered, angry, scared, disappointed audience out of the room.

The group was pro-revolution, whereas Raúl is pro-free speech, the group thinks Raúl is an agent for the CIA and demands that the United States free the five Cubans from the revolution that are still locked in Guantanomo Bay.

There was one part of the protest, when the anti-US energy was particularly high and the yelling of the university official was particularly instant and the protestors were particularly angry and defiant with their claps and yells and posters that I thought there was a possibility that someone would do something violent. I looked around at the audience of black and dark brown wavy-haired Spanish heads and wanted to run out of the room or hide my golden brown hair and pony tail – so obviously the enemy. And even though I’m not always proud of my country and the things we do and the way people act, it was still diminishing and powerful and scary as hell for a room full of yells in Spanish to be directed at you, your friends, and your family. Or if not them, at least the law of the land they all reside.

I don’t even understand what you’re saying, the history behind the conflict, the facts… but I understand that your posters are anti-US and pro-socialism and pro-revolution and there are no security guards nearby and you won’t shut up – I don’t know what you’re going to do next.

My friend claims that when the situation first started getting out of hand Raúl said into his microphone (in Spanish of course), “I didn’t go to prison for 20 years for nothing. Let them speak.” But nonetheless, he didn’t speak, and El Mundo reported the next day that this is only the third time in the history of the university that someone hasn’t been able to speak – the other two were during Franco and the Inquisition.

Free speech is the freedom that permits me to do what I do, to write on this blog and publish it internet-wide, to write new for my school newspaper, to write for this magazine… but that doesn’t stop the fact that I was scared out of my mind at the simple, random, loud oral expression of it directed against the US.

time is flying

Without realizing it I have become mostly accustomed to Spain, Spanish, and its little annoyances. In an effort to rekindle my curiosity a bit, i've been compliling a list of things that are still weird.

Judias verdes. Direct translation: Green jews. In other words: Green beans.

Supposedly the word comes from the shape of the Jewish nose. I didn't believe it at first until I saw the word on a jar in my frigolifico. Maybe it's just me, but that sounds like a derogatory term. I guess considering the not-so-friendly history the Spanish have had with the Jews, it makes sense. It also helps to explain the fact that there are about six jews in Sevilla.

"Los moros no están en la costa." Direct translation: The moors (African muslims) aren't on the coast." In other words: The coast is clear.

You've got to know a little Spanish history for this one too, because the moors occupied Spain for hundreds of years. When the catholics finally took control again in the 1400s, I would imagine they were very happy to be rid of the moors, which is why they built cathedrals on top of all the mosques and ripped down remnants of the past. The coast wasn't clear for a good, long time. And the coast still isn't clear in a sense, because even though the moors are no longer trying to invade, shiploads of African immigrants seeking a better home arrive on the shores of the Canary Islands every week. And tragically enough, many shiploads have also been found shipwrecked in the past few weeks, thousands drowned just trying to get to Spain.