Thursday, July 12, 2018

Plaza Nueva

We walked over to a stationary store this morning to pick up some 3"x5" cards for Laura to study Spanish with and to get a notebook for me. I noticed that people had put padlocks on the bridge railings since we last crossed it, presumably in the spirit of this bridge in Paris. I'm guessing that these tend to crop up from time to time on our bridge since it's definitely the coolest bridge, haha. Also, guessing that authorities are careful to clean them off pretty quickly to avoid the problems encountered with the Paris bridge.
After getting our stationary needs met, we wandered back home and encountered Plaza Nueva. This plaza is on the site of a convent that occupied the square from 1270-1840. Some of the tiles had simple designs rendered in small river stones. The tiles were about 3 feet square. I took pictures of many of them and put a few of the more interesting ones in a collage:
In the center of the plaza is the obligatory bronze of a famous person on a horse:
I found the pebble art much more interesting.

Later in the walk, we encountered a store that sold vestments and other items for Catholics. These little figurines with KKK-like robes complete with pointed hoods were a bit weird, but are apparently traditional and in no way connected:

Finally, if you ever need a pharmacy here in Sevilla, just look for big green crosses lit with LEDs and mounted on facades:
They are mesmerizing. The LEDs strobe and flash in eye-catching patterns. Sometimes they show the current temperature.

This afternoon, while Laura was at Spanish class, I read a bit and started playing around with neural networks. I also spoke to Emily a bit.

It's still unseasonably cool here, but nice.