We entered Sevilla easily but when in the center it was the usual Spanish
business of obscure street signs, many one way or no entry streets and frustration.
It’s great to have a car but in large European cities, public transportation is the
way to go. Thinking that we might have to put Rosemary in a cab and then have me follow
her to our hostel, we finally by perseverance and by accident, found the street upon which
it has it’s address but we could not go down it. A homeless dude guided me on foot
for a few pesetas while R. stayed with the car and I finally found our abode, the Hostel
Sierpes, which was chosen because it has a garage to stable our horse for a few days.
After checking in and going round and round in a nice way with Jose, the cook who was on
duty during the absence of management during the siesta, it was finally decided that he
would accompany me to the car and guide us through the maze of alleyways in the Barrio
Santa Cruz back to the garage which had been a straight shot on foot.
After moving in we contacted Jordan, a very good
friend of Rosemary’s niece Tory and a good friend of ours also, who was doing his
junior year abroad in Sevilla and arranged to meet at 9 PM at the fountain behind the
cathedral. This we did and proceeded to wander about and find the evenings bistro while
catching up on each others lives. We had the good fortune of being lodged in a flat for 3
and Jordan spent this first night in Sevilla with us. The following day we broke our fast
and accompanied him to his class in Spanish conversation at what was once a tobacco
factory, complete with a moat to prevent tobacco theft and is now a university. It was
interesting if hard to follow with my, tell me anything, just make it in present tense,
Spanish skills but what I found most intriguing was the bar that I got a brandy at during
the break. It seemed decadent somehow to be drinking at school but I had to have a drink
of course, just because I could.
After class we were joined by Jordan’s
classmate Kate and we ankled our way about Sevilla seeing the mercado, hanging in a tapas
bar for lunch where we met the directors of the program Jordan is enrolled in and
strolling to the river to just chill and watch the sunset while Rosemary and Kate did
tai-chi.
While Jordan and Kate took a siesta in our room,
Rosemary and I toured the cathedral and the Giralda Tower. The cathedral is the largest
gothic structure in the world and the home of the tomb of Christopher Columbus. It is
indeed huge, yes, another huge cathedral in a long line of cathedrals in the stream of
life. the Giralda Tower is what was left standing after the re-conquest and the
dismantling of the mosque to form the foundation of the cathedral and is now the bell
tower of the same. It can be climbed, and we did, by 37 ramps which lead to the top where
we were afforded grand views of the city when we did so. The ramps were not for wheel
chair access no, but for horses to climb the tower. Why? I prefer not to dwell on that.
Later that eve we dined at a converted Muslim
bath, converted to an Italian Restaurant and got oh so bloated during our 3 hour eat fest.
While in Sevilla we of course toured the Alcazar
and it’s gardens, the beautiful Mudajar Palace, and the Spanish Pavilion, a marvelous
construction for the 1929 World’s Fair. While at the latter a production company was
filming a video of some Spanish pop diva. While a couple ambled across a bridge, kissing,
the diva walks in the other direction and the young buck is distracted from his affections
as he turns to stare longingly at our heroin. After the shoot the diva is smothered in the
affection of her adoring fans as she signs autographs.
On this day in our lives, anticipating a long
evening, we took a long siesta of about 3 hours and well we did. Later during that
aforementioned long evening we stumbled through a maze of streets and after getting turned
around several times we finally achieved our goal of the nights festivities at 11:00 of
the PM, the ‘La Corbeveria’, a flamenco bar with no cover, which was packed. a
duo of guitar and singer of about 60 years and great gypsy voice performed 2 sets. Between
these sets a blues band reminiscent of Bob Bozeman’s group played swing circa 1930
and later in the evening a trio, consisting of Oud (an Arabian fretless lute), clarinet
and tambour (a small drum), performed Arabian music accompanied by a belly dancer, for our
aural and visual pleasure. Being in the front row, when the dancer needed a willing
partner from the audience she grabbed Rosemary, who gamely followed her moves to the
cheers of the throng.
Acting like Spaniard’s, we left around 4 am
and went looking for churros and hot chocolate but instead ended up smoking some hash-hish
on the side of the cathedral with another couple of night owls whom we chanced to meet
that had just closed up another bar. A good buzz was got and off to dreamland we went to
sleep the sleep of the stoned.
The following day we awoke late and met Jordan to
accompany him by bus to his mamacita’s and papa’s for lunch. Off into the
suburbs we went and had a pleasant time dining with Jordan’s adopted Spanish family,
moma, papa, 3 daughters, 3 grandkids, grand mamaw and a 14 year old dog. After too much
food and a lot of chat we went on our way into our future.
There in our then future, now our past, we found a
show, an exhibit, un mostro, in the Triunfo Plaza, ‘La Mirada del Otro’ (the
other is staring at me), which was also titled ‘La Mirada del Giraldillo’ (the
Giraldillos Stare). The Giraldillo is a bronze sculpture of 3.70 meters in height, aprox.
12 feet, depicting ‘faith’. A lovely female figure draped in a gown of gauze and
clad also in sandals carrying a palm branch.
This lady was first erected as the weather vane
above the cathedral in 1568 and has recently been cast anew to replace the original that
has been savaged by the ravages of time
The display, which was behind the cathedral, had
the new and the old set up face to face and bisected by an overhead viewing ramp to allow
the populace to observe them eye to eye as well as from below.
Below also is a small pavilion giving the history
of the work along with parts of the lost wax mold for the new sculpture and other
artifacts of the process. It was all exceedingly well done, both the bronzes and the
exhibit. I loved most of all