Furthermore, as the city grew, they had to build a bridge to connect the two halves (built on opposite sides of a 100m canyon with a river running through it. The bridge is an engineering marvel (especially since the first time they built it, it collapsed). See that door in the middle? It's a maximum security cell for the old prison here.
It was very unseasonably cold in Ronda, so I wasn't exactly the happiest camper (weather.com said it would be 80 degrees, I'm going to estimate that it was actually around 60 with wind and rain). However, that didn't stop us from going ALL OVER the super hilly cobblestoned city. We got to see old Arab Baths (which made you progress from baths in cold water to a sauna room...sadly out of use now), and a bullfighting ring. I have an issue with bullfights (why do they have to kill the bulls? In Mexico and other places, bullfights do not end with the death of said animal), and I got into a small argument with our guide who tried to tell me that it was "culture" and the bulls that are used are bred for bullfights and that's it. I just thought of Ferdinand from the children's story and let her go with it.
After that, we got back on the buses and went to Sevilla. Sevilla is an amazing city, as anyone who has been there will attest. I like Granada better, because it's smaller and less expensive, but Sevilla (aka Seville) has a lot of perks. For one, they have huge parks and a really big river (as opposed to our smaller one). For another, they have an H&M. Now I'm not completely obsessed with H&M or anything, but one of my goals in Europe was to visit one. And once I found out that Sevilla had one close to our hotel, I had to go immediately. So I did and it was awesome!!!
Speaking of the hotel, it was a really nice one. It's name was the Hotel Becquer (after the poet), and the rooms were great (even though we didn't spend that much time in them). The best part? Not having to take a "navy shower" (I don't know if I've told you guys this, but since Spain has a water shortage, we have to take really fast showers where we turn off the water in between rinses).
Anyways, after some free time (which I spent at H&M and getting tapas, of course), we all gathered in front of the cathedral and went to a flamenco show!! It was SO COOL...I can't even describe it, and the pictures I took don't do it justice. It was a little intimidating also, because I don't think I'll be able to pull off something even a quarter as awesome for our final recital in flamenco class. But we'll see how that goes. After that, IES took us to a nice restaurant and gave us champagne and chocolate to toast off the start of our classes. That was really cute. Afterwards, we had the night to ourselves. Now, I was looking forward to clubbing in Sevilla, but on Thursday (the night before) my friends and I went clubbing in Granada...and we were exhausted. So we just got some ice cream and went to bed.
The next day was full of sightseeing. Sevilla is the home of the Alcazar, a palace which belonged to the royal family of Seville back when Seville was an independent kingdom. At this time, however, Granada (also a separate kingdom) was still ruled by the Moors. So, the kings of Sevilla built the Alcazar in the Islamic style, to show their neighbors that they could build something as gorgeous as the Alhambra. Here's an example:
This is the cupola in the receiving room. It was even cooler than it looks in this picture.
The Alcazar also had AMAZING gardens. Fountains, hedge mazes, fake caves, summer siesta house, peacocks...this place had it all. I was completely blown away by how intricately everything was planned. GG Royal Family of Sevilla.
Next, we went to Sevilla's cathedral. Now, as I mentioned, much of Spain used to be ruled by the Moors. When the Christian kings took over, they were broke from their military campaigns, and often had to make do with the preexisting structures. This included mosques. Sevilla's cathedral was built on the site of a mosque, but they kept one important feature: the tower. There's a weathervane on top now, so it's called La Giralda (which means weathervane), and it has bells at the top, but architecturally, it's still a minaret. And so pretty! There are no steps inside the tower, only ramps, so we climbed the 33 ramps to get to the top. I'm kind of bored with uploading pictures at this point, so you can see all the pictures I took on Facebook. Maybe I'll put more up with a later entry. The cathedral itself was pretty neat...but like most cathedrals. My favorite part was the "Tomb of Christopher Columbus". I put quotations around that because no one is actually sure if it's him that's buried there. You see, when he died, he requested that he be buried in the New World, so they shipped him to the Dominican Republic. Later on, Spain decided that he was their ultimate hero, so they wanted him back. The DR said they would, but they still say that he's buried over there, so who knows? The cool thing about this tomb is that it has his casket being carried by the kings of the four original Spanish kingdoms: Aragon, Leon, Castille and Navarre. OK I'll put up one more picture because this was too cool:
After that, we had some time to get lunch, then there were some optional activities. I chose to go to the Museo de Bellas Artes, and I was kind of disappointed by it. I don't have anything against Christian-themed art, in fact, some of it is quite lovely. But, most of the paintings we saw were from before artists learned how to draw babies. So, there were lots of really repulsive Baby Jesus paintings. And why couldn't anyone decide on his childhood hair color? All the adult Jesus paintings show him as a brunette, but as a baby he's anything from blonde to black hair. A little disappointed, we returned to the hotel, then the bus, and then we came back to Granada.
Other things going on in my life right now: I'm in my second week of classes and liking them all very much. Some are a little hard to follow (they're all in Spanish), but I'm pretty proud of my level of comprehension so far. My internship has been pretty nice also--right now I'm translating parts of their webpage into English. English is a tough language. It kind of sucks. It's getting kind of cold here, and as a result, I have a cold. But I found the Spanish version of NyQuil so I'll get better soon. What else...um...the food here is good, and I'm also really loving the ice cream. They say the ice cream stores close in the winter, but I'm really hoping that isn't true. Also the chocolate is great.
Granada is a university town, and UGr opens next week. Already there are more foreign students around, which is nice in some ways, but in others kind of detracts from the experience. Anyways, I'm going to go eat dinner/skulk around the house, and I'll post again soon. Besos!
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