hermanitos

This guy on Calle Zaragosa makes the best helado in town hands down.
Linni and Paddy came and spent a week and four days respectively. Linni had the amazing Sevilla weather. Lots of time chilling by the river with some tinto. She discovered that my building has an azotea. A sick one. She actually east food now, which is great. Leadoff dinner at Coloniales, always amazing(ly cheap). Linni did Santa Cruz and the Museo de Bellas Artes. We observed the large population of North American Scum and how ridiculously easy it is to pick out the study abroad kids (GDB), and what stupid crap they seem to be saying in loud voices at all times. I feel like every time i hear English around the city (which is kind of a lot) its some embarrassment saying things like ‘did you see what she was wearing last night?’ ‘oh my gad i was so drunk’ and other things heard around campus. Anyways when Paddy got here they hit the Real Maestranza (bull ring) for the tour. We saw some live flamenco at Laberinto one night, which was totally chill, and at Carbonería the other night, where the performers seemed super sick of tourists and people who won’t shut up during the show. When I was done with my grueling three-day workweek, we did the cathedral (third-biggest in Europe to St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London). When it was commissioned in 1401 the builders wanted to make a building so extravagant that “those who come after us will take us for madmen.” Probably the best quote about church design of all time. Rick Steves pointed out to us the Roman foundation, Moorish arches and Reconquista bell tower on the Giralda. We also hit the Alcazares, the royal palace and garden; the oldest royal residence still in use. I guess when Juan Carlos (aka un coche perdido) comes to Sevilla he stays there. I was kinda sick but finally got it together for a night out on Friday, complete with churros (paddy’s new favorite, linnis new enemy), prepared Anneso style with tons of sugar dumped on them, and molten chocolate, the remainder of which Paddy drank out of a long-stemmed wine glass. Kid’s got class. They barely got out of here in time, rolling on the AVE.

tienes bailar?

So Jonny came to visit. We chilled in Sevilla for most of the time. It weather was still real nice and warm, so we rented a car named Pepe, a Nissan Micra 5-speed diesel with unbelievable pick-up to head to the beach. Drove down the coast past Jerez and Cadiz to Tarifa, pretty much as far south as you can get in Spain. Further south then Gibraltar. you can see Morocco and its where the ferries to tangiers leave from, although we decided to stay in spain because we would probably die in morocco, knowing us and the combination of bad decisions that would promptly ensue. tarifa, as we found out for ourselves upon arrival is renowned as the windiest place in europe. great. its huge for kite surfing, which is ridiculous, and looks about 1000 times harder than regular surfing (which is already too hard for poeple like us) because it heaps on the complications of windsurfing and flying one of those ridiculous stunt kites. so for all these wind bums its paradise. for us its just too cold to go swimming and sand is hitting me in the face right now. it is pretty cool to stand there and feel the south(?) mistral wind blowing across the strait of gibraltar. thinking about the mythological implications of hercules and ulysses and the warm air blowing accross from Africa. Africa: joder. we spend one night there, supposedly night life is awesome in the summer. it felt like winter on cape cod in march even though the weather was on the upswing already. the other cool thing that the wind has done in tarifa is to create a huge dune. the wind blown in the same direction most of the time so the sand blows accross and piles up on the other side of the cove. there are all these full grown trees that are 2/3 buried. The dune shifts throughout the year. It's pretty cool.
we drove, well i drove, down the costa del sol to marbella. its so built up its hideous. we then turned north to go through the sierra morena mountains. there was this legendary bandit, el Tempranillo that lived up in there and used to stop everyone going through in the early 1800’s on the route to Ronda. Ronda is a cool town. it looks just you would imagine a town with a bandit roaming the hills in the distance. there is a huge natural gorge that cuts the city in half with an ancient bridge, there is a cell under the bridge where they used to keep prisoners, pretty badass. its also the birthplace of modern bullfighting. the bull ring has a museum and they let you go in and see all the inner workings and rooms of the ring. pretty neat. we ate at el porton c/pedro romero 7 semi touristy with an english language menu outisde, but still plenty of locals inside at the bar. lots of food, reasonable price. we got ice cream. twice. of course. la jijonenca c/ espinola 30 was the better one. we tried to go these neolithic caves cuevas de pilota, privately owned caves on park land, outside ronda but we were gonna run out of time to get the car back so we had to go.
on saturday yiyi, my intercambio friend from jaen was having a party in alameda in the afternoon to celebrate two of her friends’ bdays and her saint day. since my bday was only a couple days away she invited us along which was cool. this included a bunch of live performances by her friends bands, which were infinitely better than the spanish pop me and jon were forced to listen to on our raod trip. later on sean came up from jerez and anneso and her friend vero joined us as well. izzi and dan arrived via first class high speed AVE around 9pm and i recogered them from the train station. more anything? more everything!

peter cottontail

two of the most important and famous festivals spanish culture has to offer (up there with tomatina, san fermines and las fallas) take place in sevilla. semana santa translates literally to “holy week” It takes place in the week leading up to easter Sunday starting on the previous sunday. the celebration centers around pasos in which the idols from the abundant churches throughout the city are placed on elaborately decorated platforms or palillos, which are then placed on the heads of a couple of dozen of the faithful/penitent (guys with rags tied around their heads. the palillos can be seen in progress in tallers around the city beforehand. linni and i even saw a group marching with a palillo on their heads loaded with sandbags to simulate the weight that they will have to bear once it is completely decorated. The pasos are accompanied by dozens to hundreds of nazarenos, people who pay a nominal some to the church to be involved for whatever reason they might have. These men women and children dress in robes, usually of solid color, with matching hood with eye holes. The hoods contain cones that stand over a meter high atop the head. Like a wizard. A grand wizard if you will. (It’s actually where the kkk got the idea for their outfits.) the processions vary in seriousness. some of the nazarenos walk in silence, barefoot for reasons of penitence. others wear sneakers and life up their hoods to smoke cigarettes and chat with friends in the crowd. There is a band with each pasos. They have been practicing for months. It sounds like something you would imagine hearing at a bullfight if you have never been to a bullfight. or like that trumpet at the beginning of that black eyed peas song. all very minor and melancholy. i mean it centers around the death of jesus so i suppose it makes sense that its not peppy. All the pasos pass through the cathedral in the center, do a 360 and then go home. Some come from pretty far and take routes that lead them around on an 8-hour tour of the city. There are pasos going on 24 hours a day. as you might imagine, this can make it rather difficult for anyone who actually wished to get around the city. the moorish design of the city already makes the roads inefficient and basically useless for anything but foot traffic. which is fine. its great actually. except when they close off a lot of the main through streets for the pasos. there are cops directing traffic and if you wait in a line you can eventually cross a street when the traffic of the paso is stopped for a bit. everything around the cathedral and avenida de la constitution is completely sectioned off and private for the sevilla elite. my bike was rendered completely useless anywhere near the center. we watched about a couple of hours of pasos on Sunday. i must say it was impressive. the palillos are really intricate, one of mary on a throne, another of jesus being abused by some life size roman soldiers, another with jesus just screaming and all kinds of plants all around him. the army of nazarenos is striking at teh very least, especially for someone from the us i think. the men were out in their suits and the girls in their dresses. everyone looked great. especially the girls. then tried to meet up with two friends who were only what is usually a 7-minute walk away. after nearly an hour of trying to find a route to where they were watching a paso, we got out of the madness and went home. we watched another hour on day two. i was glad we already had plans to get out of town on the morning of day three.

my students were baffled when i explained that easter was only one day in the states, and that in addition to the religious significance we commemorate it with the visit of a large basket-bearing rabbit who sneaks into our houses and yards in the middle of the night and leaves clandestine treats around for children to scramble and fight over in their easter bonnets when they get home from church. some of this candy is inevitably discovered during a long-put-off cleaning in august and is disgusting. i felt like david sedaris trying to explain this. but i guess the have the easter bunny in france and portugal so i guess franco kept him out along with progress.

Tomorrow, you go see the madonna.

I went to Milan to meet up with the new Mr. and Mrs. Alan and Lauren Bronfeld on Valentine’s day weekend. Tovah came with me. We flew Ryanair to Bergamo for under 100 euro round trip. We then took a bus from the airport to the train station in Milan for 8 euro. It came with a free return trip for one of us but we didn’t use it. We went directly to Bologna on the train which I think was about 30 euro.
Bologna is great. It’s very small for being a internationally known Italian city. The main tourist attractions are a pair of towers in the center, one of which is leaning. St. Stephen’s Basilica is also pretty awesome. Supposedly it’s where Pontius Pilate came to absolve himself of the sin of having Jesus executed. Overall Bologna is just a beautiful city. You can walk around the whole center very easily. There aren’t so many standout sights, but every plaza is cool, and the majority of the sidewalks are covered by collonades. It was an awesome place to just wander without even using the map and just check out the architecture and storefronts, as lame as that sounds.
The food in Italy is totally amazing and cheap. We got pizza twice in bologna, two different styles, both cheap and crispy and delicious. The dinner we got included steak, handmade raviolis and a bottle caraffe of wine and cost around 30 euro which was or course balling out for us but totally worth it. I mean it’s Italy fer chrissakes. Tovah was drawn in by pretty much every window display we saw. We got gelato at this place Tovah’s friend recommended and it was awesome. The pistachio was possibly as good as Nauset Ice Cream. The owner had us try almost every flavor. He spoke pretty much perfect English. It is amazing in Italy how many people speak English well. Pretty much every time we were lost or confused we would ask for directions in Spanish, trying to make it sound a little more Italian. Any Italian under 30 would reply in great English. Even the bartender at the pub we went to in miniscule Azargo. Soooo unlike Spain. That was also not my experience in France. The coolest part was how many people asked if we were Spanish. We were psyched.
Also ended having a English-Italian-Spanish conversation with a guy who worked in a shop that specialized in ancient stringed instruments. They had old guitars and violins, but were more into lutes and other crazy things. He gave me a brochure for my nono.
We stayed in the most hilarious place. It was about 10 km outside of the center, a 10 euro cab ride or a one euro ride on this shuttle that went right to it. The bus schedule was not so clear however, so we missed the last shuttle the first night. It was mainly a camping facility. The receptionist told us he would show us to our chalet. Apparently chalet is the Italian word for “double wide”. It was pretty awesome though. The heat cranked and there was a towel warmer, for some reason.
Nightlife was surprisingly fun. Ended up at a club that actually played hip-hop. That never happens in Seville, it’s always house or some shit. There are a ton of students. We ended up going back relatively early, like 1 or 2 but the streets were starting to fill up.
The next day we went to meet Alan, Lauren and Alan’s friend from his study abroad days at San Siro stadium in Milan. We saw Inter play against another Italian team I don’t remember which one. The Inter faithful were crazy; jumping up and down and chanting that anyone who doesn’t jump is a fan of the other team. I love that. Pointing and repeating “amici” was a surprisingly successful way to get security to let us go down to the first level were the friends were. They put in Luis Figo for the last 10 minutes or so. Everyone went nuts. Guy is a legend.
Alan’s buddy was in a fishing tournament, so they went to a participants’ dinner. With the help of the navigational system (awesome) we made it to Azargo, the tiny town outside of Bergamo where Alan’s friend lives. Tovah and Lauren and I got pizza again there, so good. Then on to JJ’s Irish Pub. Hilarious cast of locals. Alan made best friends with one without actually communicating at all. We played darts and hung out until the wee hours when Lauren, the only sober one got to drive us all drunk to the airport in Bergamo. I passed out in the back while Lauren was trying to figure her way around a road block and Alan was arguing with the British woman whose recorded voice accompanied the GPS.

its been a while

let me splain
no
there is too much
let me sum up