The Rain in Spain

The Rain in Spain- oh how I've been waiting to use that title! Well the weather here has been ROTTEN. Weather.com says only two partly cloudy days in the next ten. The rest are 60% or more chance of rain. RAIN RAIN RAIN! Sevillanos all say this is NOT Sevilla. Let’s hope the clouds just get it all out of their system and give me beautiful days the rest of the semester! Actually we’re lucky here in Sevilla because most of the rest of Spain is getting snow! And let’s not even mention the good ol’ US of A.

Yet despite the constant downpours, Spain is wonderful. I can’t think of a cohesive way to string together all the interesting things that have happened in the last week, so I’ll just talk about them individually. This town continues to astound me.

First— I found it. I found the beautiful, secret Sevillan locale that I’ve been looking for. On the first sunny day Sevilla has seen in weeks, I ventured out for a walk around Triana before lunch, dying for some sun, and decided to stroll along the river. There I found an open gate next to this swanky riverside venue and I casually ambled down the stairs to the most gorgeous view I’ve had yet of this stunning city. I had my own private boardwalk! I felt so refreshed standing there in the SUN in my own little haven. It’ll be so nice to have that spot on gorgeous days like these when the rest of the riverside is packed! Too bad I didn’t have my camera.


Next, last weekend was Carnaval. Carnaval is celebrated throughout Spain in February, a little different in each town. The coastal towns are notoriously exciting. My friends and I all bought bus tickets to Cadiz, a town about an hour and a half away on the Mediterranean, to share in the merriment. AND you have to dress up! It’s like Halloween – spookiness and candy + way more alcohol and foreigners. I dressed as Peter Pan, and my friends were Wendy and Captain Hook. I fought a lot of people with my sword (flashback to being Zorro at Halloween…what IS it about swords?!) WHAT a fun night! My friend Abby and I got separated from pretty much everyone we knew and phones weren’t working, so we just wandered through the crowds and met Spaniards and had a phenomenal night. Some people were incredibly hammered, which sucks for them because it was definitely a night to remember. By the end, though, we were suuuuper cold and exhausted and so ready to go home. We got back at 7 a.m. Didn’t do much the next day.

New story: CIEE offers interest groups- clubs that gather every few weeks to learn more about something pertaining to Sevilla and finishing with a trip in April. My group is the Four Cultures of Sevilla (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Gypsy). We met a few days ago to talk about the Gitano (Gypsy) culture. I didn’t really know what to expect, and what I learned was strange. Gitanos are of Indian descent, and live among Spaniards as a recognizably different race. I’ll try to explain this better… Virginia, who runs the interest group, brought a Gitana woman to the meeting and asked her to tell us about her life and customs, etc. Her name was Spanish. She spoke Spanish- with an Andalucian accent. She dressed, looked, SEEMED Spanish. Yet, for some reason she was made out to be this “other.” After the woman (I forget her name) spoke, Virginia asked us if we had any questions. I asked how you could possibly tell if someone was Gitano. She tried to explain that they had different skin tones and eye shapes and that they spoke differently (ummm, no way would I be able to tell different accents WITHIN Sevilla). It all seemed pretty weird to me. The woman did talk about different customs, though, which was fascinating. Apparently it’s still common today for Gitanos to marry one another at age 13 or 14. Of course this isn’t recognized by Spanish law, but Gitanos have their own rules. Their societies are highly patriarchal, and families make significant decisions, such as arranged marriages, by allowing the oldest males in each family to discuss and decide what everyone should do. YIKES. And I won’t go into detail, but the women have to be virgins when they marry, and there is a type of test they undergo to determine if they are. So it’s certainly true that Gitanos have distinct cultural practices, but I still wouldn’t be able to pick out a Gitano from a Spaniard walking down the street.

Well, other stories I have can be pretty condensed for this blog. I have to go to sleep soon anyway because I’m getting up early to go to Granada tomorrow! But I couldn’t write this blog entry without telling about the CAT that was in my lecture. Yep, a cat. I’ve had the occasional mouse or even bird, but never a little feline friend. The whole class we kept hearing mewing and mewing and eventually found the poor terrified thing in the back of the lecture hall, presumably in hiding from the torrential downpours of the great outdoors. So that was pretty funny and weird.

Other than that, I saw a trash can on fire and watched the bomberos (firemen) come in on their mini-truck (seriously, they’ve got to have bigger ones otherwise Sevilla could be in big trouble) and put it out. I ate the best tapas I’ve ever laid eyes on. I booked tickets to other trips for the semester. I’ve gotten to skype with lots of people (if that is NOT you, add me alyssa_connolly). So all is well. I love Spain.
More on Granada soon!

Besos besos besos!!! (And a belated Happy Valentine’s Day!!)
Lyss