La Velá de Triana continues here in the neighborhood although not much happens in the daylight hours. There was another greased pole/capture the flag thing happening on the river this evening. Most stuff happens in the evening from around 8pm to around 1am.
Last night we went out to the square where there is a temporary stage in place. The crowd was pretty healthy:
The first performer was an older guy singing with a guitar accompaniment. Later on, a younger, flamenco style singer took over:
It's definitely a pro-Triana affair with all of the performers talking about how Triana is "the best" neighborhood in Sevilla etc. We did hit a gelato place before heading home. The two workers there were very busy, but also very friendly. One of them helped Laura come up with a great combo of dark chocolate and some kind of toffee gelato. Here's them working while we had our gelatos in the shop:
My normal shirt of choice is an unmarked t-shirt. T-shirts are pretty popular here. Nearly all of them have some kind of english phrase on the front. My t-shirts stand out by their boringness. That said, today I wore one of two shirts total that I have with me that have writing on them. In this case, my University of Miami Band t-shirt:
The other one is from the Sawtooth Grill in Hood River.
I put in a good amount of math work this afternoon. Laura had her Spanish class. I met her after class and we went to a photo shop to get me some passport pictures. I'm going to get an "international drivers permit" so that we can rent cars here in Spain (an IDP is required).
After dinner, I watched a little Rick & Morty on Netflix. At 10pm, we headed out to see who/what was on stage this evening. Looked like a live comedy radio show. I barely know Spanish, so watching a comedy gig in Spanish was not going to work for us. We continued to walk around a bit. We saw a local police car:
The beer & tapas tent street was packed again:
The tents stretch a good solid block along the river:
Our street is closed to cars:
But that didn't stop folks from patronizing the beer & tapas place across from our flat:
Looking forward to seeing what happens here tomorrow. Until then...
The official start of La Velá de Triana was last night at midnight. Laura and I went out to the bridge to see what might happen and to see the lighting of our bridge (the best bridge). Here's a before and after from below:
In this after shot, the strings of lights above the bridge are now lighted:
Unfortunately, the bridge is so beautifully lit from below, that this perspective doesn't really impress. Here's a picture from up on the bridge:
The crowds along the "tent" street were more like throngs:
As if there aren't enough beer & tapas places already, each of these tents along the river is basically a beer & tapas place. Here's one in the daylight:
The main Triana square was also nicely lit:
It was worth staying up later than usual to see the spectacle.
Today was laundry day. It's amazing how quickly our clothes dry on the rooftop clotheslines. It doesn't hurt that our washing machine spins at 1200 rpm and sounds like it's going to take off when it's really going. That high spin wrings nearly every last drop of water out of the clothes and they're practically dry when you pull them out of the washer, haha.
This afternoon we walked to the Alameda de Hércules. This open square on the Sevilla side was established in the 16th century. Laura and I had walked here before and I proposed we walk there again this afternoon, not because of the square, but because of a building along the way that I wanted to get a closer look at and to take pictures of. The building, Fundación Escuelas Profesionales de la Sagrada Familia, is one of a number of secondary and professional schools that serve students without the means to attend expensive private schools. These schools are all over this part of Spain and have a tradition in Catholicism. That aside, the facade of the building is so intricate and interesting:
This one strip at eye level had so much detail:
We looked at it for a long time. Passing folks probably thought we were weird, haha. Our walk took us home just in time to see the greased pole capture the flag event on the river. A pole is extended from a boat out over the water, liberally greased and a flag is attached to the free end. Competitors attempt to walk/run out to the end of the pole and grab the flag. People gather at the riverside to watch and cheer. Here's an example:
We watched for a while. Eventually, one of them succeeded. I really wish I had that on video. The whole crowd erupted in cheers.
There are some more events in the coming days. There is some kind of concert this evening at 10pm on the square. I'll let you know about that tomorrow.
Laura went on an extended field trip to Costco (yes, there's a Costco here, the only one in Spain). It's about 7km from here, so she got there via a combination of walking and using the bike share. She didn't get much, but she was able to verify that our US membership works here in Spain. She also noted a few items that are hard to find around our flat like bagels, chocolate chips (for cookies) etc.
I stayed home. I had already been out for my run and was more interested in a relaxing day on the couch, haha. I did actually get some groceries in for us to tide us over Sunday when all the stores are closed. I used the bike share to get to our go to market, Mercadona, which is about 1 km from the flat. I also did some of the weekly cleaning of the flat, vacuuming, toilet etc.
Laura made some refried beans out of pinto beans yesterday. (Refried beans are another thing that you can't find easily here.) I had bean burritos for lunch (tortillas are easy to find) and they were pretty good. With the rest of the pinto beans, Laura made chili. We had that for dinner and it too was very good.
Laura and I went back to the Mercadona this evening to pick up a couple of things. On the way home we saw this fancy horse and carriage:
You do tend to see these a lot on the Sevilla side, but not too often on the Triana side. Also, not this fancy. We noticed that there was a wedding going on a couple of blocks down the street and surmised that this carriage was heading to that event.
The official start of La Velá de Triana was at midnight. Laura and I just went out to see the bridge lighting. It's really busy out there, lot's of people. Pictures are still uploading and I'm going to bed. Will post pictures tomorrow.
Mario brought us a desk to put into the other bedroom. It's a beautiful converted sewing maching table. I really appreciate having it. I like the physical isolation in the other room while I work. It makes me more productive:
I walked with Laura to her language class this afternoon. On the way home I was determined to pay attention to some of the smaller details that perhaps I've been ignoring in the vast sea of newness. An example of one such detail is the sundial way up high on this building:
Here's a closer view:
The shadow was basically correct up to daylight savings time. Of course, being tucked up under the eave like that is probably less than ideal for a sundial, haha.
Preparations continue for la Velá de Triana (as I have learned is this event's official name). This is some kind of stage:
The first event was a regatta on the river. Rowing teams compete with each other using the same pair of boats adorned with LED lights. They do 3 lengths of a course. The best part is when they do sharp turns around buoys at the end of each length:
I did a time lapse of a couple of lengths of another race:
Here's a video of one team making a turn:
In a later race, we watched one poor team miss the buoy and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to go back around.
Things are still hopping out there. We just heard the marching band go by and the main street here is quite crowded this evening.
We successfully completed the next step of our year-long Spanish visa process. We presented ourselves at the immigration office and completed our application for a Spanish national ID card. There was a bit of a line when we got there, but the single person working at the office was kind and efficient and our 3 o'clock appointment was done around 3:30pm. We even got fingerprinted. The last step in the process is to pick up our ID cards. We go back to the same office on August 27th to pick up the cards. Then, the visa process that we started way back in January will be complete. Whew!
If you have Amazon prime in the US, free shipping to Spain is not a thing. However, if you login to amazon.es, the Spanish version of Amazon, they have their own prime thing. Just to see how it worked, I signed up for a free month of prime for the Spanish site. I ordered a little tripod for my cellphone so I can take better pictures at night. I ordered it on Tuesday afternoon and the UPS guy dropped it off today, free shipping. This packaging should look familiar:
This evening, after Laura got back from her language class and had her dinner, we went down onto the street to try a classic spanish dessert, chocolate & churros:
The churro was hot, so was the chocolate. Pretty tasty:
In case you were wondering, this is what a Spanish mailbox looks like:
Decided to take a few night shots with the cellphone on long exposure using the new tripod. Here's our bridge (the best bridge day or night):
Here's part of Triana along the river:
I'm looking forward to getting some low light shots of the fair that is supposed to begin on Saturday.
