Empty Fountains

Today we continued our walkabout with Rachel and Taylor. We had lunch at a Mexican tapas place in the Alameda called Mano de Santo. Excellent chicken tortilla soup by the way. Maybe the best all around Mexican food we've had here in Sevilla.

Afterwards, Laura went grocery shopping and home while Rachel, Taylor and I walked over to the Plaza de España. It's a fairly long walk and we went by the Cathedral and central tourist areas. We stopped and watched a flamenco group busking for a bit:

A couple of the big fountains around Sevilla were off, including this one at the Plaza. I thought it was interesting to see the guts of the thing, but was disappointed that Rachel and Taylor didn't get to see it. Maybe it's off because we're now in the coldest part of the year, I don't know:

We went up into one of the balconies at the Plaza and looked down at the "river" and the bridges:

We wandered back home and Laura made a charcuterie board, a common entree here in southern Spain:

We went out again in the evening with the intention of seeing the 3 kings Christmas display, but also to take some night pictures:

We made it to the 3 kings display just in time to see them flashing in time with a rendition of "Carol of the Bells":

Real Alcázar de Sevilla

While Laura was in class today, Taylor, Rachel and I went to Real Alcázar. Parts of this royal palace date back to the 12th century. It's the home of Spanish royalty when they are in Sevilla. The palace and the surrounding gardens are now open to public tours. You can see the age of the place in this wall juxtaposed with the well-manicured plants of the garden:

Following the rule of thumb to always look up when touring old buildings, I noticed this ceiling in one of the rooms around the throne room:

The weather was cool and breezy, but the sky was a brilliant blue. This is the courtyard outside of the throne room:

One of the rooms around the throne is known as the "doll room". Among all of the adornments in plaster, there are 4 discreet doll heads. We looked all over for them, but couldn't find them. Luckily, a couple of other folks in the room with us pointed them out:

The grounds are beautiful and really popped in the clear air. In the distance here is the water-powered organ:

We walked through maze:

You can see la Giralda over by the Cathedral peek up above the wall:

After the palace we walked over to Laura's school and headed to lunch. Laura wasn't quite ready to go with us, so we went on ahead. We saw this poor little dog shivering outside of a store waiting for their owner:

We walked out to Pizzería La Urbana for lunch. Taylor and I got adventurous and tried a local Sevillian beer. I thought it was OK, but oddly sweet. Taylor was not into it at all:

Try at your own risk. Here's Rachel and Taylor enjoying the meal:

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In the afternoon, I did a little math. I found an interesting paper relating machine learning in speech recognition to that of weather prediction. This is a relatively new approach and I'm looking forward to reading a bit more about it.

Taylor, Rachel and Laura went out to the local mall. I went out for a run. It was kind of nice in the cool breeze. On the way home, the sunset across the bridge was lovely:

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We ran through some leftovers this evening to which Laura added a nice salad. After clean up, we hit a local helado place for dessert. A busy day, yet also productive. Even did a load of laundry.

Rachel and Taylor

Rachel and Taylor arrived for a visit today. I took the bus out to the airport to meet them and get them back to the flat. Laura had spanish class at this time. The airport is on the eastern edge of the metro area. Everything ran on time, buses, planes etc. In the airport, as sort of a Christmas display, was a mock up of the cathedral with la Giralda (the noted bell tower of the cathedral). Here's a side-by-side of the mock up and the real thing. Can you spot the real one?

I know, the giant nativity humans on the left kind of give it away.

Rachel, Taylor and I rode the bus back downtown and walked the remaining couple of blocks to the flat. By that time, Laura was finished with class and met us at home. We grabbed lunch on San Jacinto and I went to my spanish class. Rachel has a bit of a sore throat that we hope doesn't turn into a cold:

During that time, Laura walked around town with them a bit, just to keep them moving instead of sleeping (jetlag). They wrapped up with a trip to the grocery store. Back home, Laura made soup for dinner (most excellent). We mostly hung out in the flat after that. Now R & T are enjoying long-awaited sleep.

A little off the top

The orange trees in Sevilla are heavily laden with ripe or nearly ripe oranges. There must be some method of collecting/harvesting/cleaning up this impending mess of fruit. It's illegal for people to pull oranges from the trees in Sevilla, so it's not like people are just going to pick them. Also, it's my understanding that the oranges are of a very tart variety and would not be good to just eat. They're more for use in marmalades.

I witnessed one approach to the orange problem across the street from our flat. There are a few trees in the parking area there. A crew came and I have this before and after picture:

Not only are the oranges taken care of, but a good portion of the trees themselves are now gone.

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Out for a walk this evening and San Jacinto was quite smokey, as per usual:


I wonder how many more months the chestnut thing goes?

Second-hand Smoke

Chestnut roasters are everywhere here. Would it be Scrooge-like to complain? I feel like there should be a surgeon general's warning about the dangers of second-hand chestnut roaster smoke. There are times when it lays over everything–like fog.

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There were "carolers" on the street this evening. I recorded one whole song that really showed a flamenco style of voice. It opens with a flamenco style aria, then moves into a more traditional carol:

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Spanish class was confusing today. Before going, I understood the difference between two of the past tenses "preterite perfect" and "preterite indefinite", then I didn't, but now I do again. Turns out my teacher uses different names for these tenses than the textbook I use at home. Luckily, I have Laura to explain these things to me.