Back to the routine

Monday, all of our visitors are in the past and we have 11 days left in Sevilla. I finished the first draft of my revision and hope to get the new version submitted in the next day or two.

We did grocery shopping this morning. I walked with Laura to her class this afternoon and then proceeded to the gym as has become my habit. I walked through Plaza de San Francisco just to see how things are progressing there for Thursday's procession:

Not sure what the big curtain and stage are for. I guess we'll see. The portadas seem to be about done:

Laura packed one of our big suitcases with stuff that we won't need here in Sevilla for the rest of our time here.

I talked to Emily who is in Sweden right now for a conference. It's nice to be back in the same timezone with her, which is our normal status when she's in Santa Barbara and we're in Walla Walla.

Sunday, day of rest

Nothing much today. Mostly hung around the house. Did a few loads of laundry, ate leftovers, went to the gym. Laura baked some cookies. I worked a bit on revisions to my paper. We watched the US beat Chile 3-0 in the world cup (in Spanish). Then, watched a rare live baseball game from the US. Unfortunately, the Phillies lost to the Braves pretty badly.

I noticed a slightly different tourist boat on the river today--really a floating pavillion:

It looks new, so my guess is it's a recent investment/business for some Sevillian entrepreneur.

Sanlúcar de Barrameda

 Today, Laura's Spanish teacher drove us to the beach town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. This little town is situated at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. This is the same river that flows through Sevilla. About 80 km south and west of Sevilla, Guadalquivir flows into the Atlantic Ocean. After spending so much time here around the river, knowing that it was navigable down to the Atlantic, and knowing the historical significance of the many voyages that have started somewhere on this river, it was a treat to see the Atlantic end of the river. Sanlúcar is an old town. There is, of course, an old castle there:

The town has many lovely plazas and fountains:

The day was bright, but not too hot. There was a nice breeze off of the Atlantic. From left to right, we were me, Eri (student), Beli  (teacher), Laura (student), Ale (Beli's novio):

 Sanlúcar is probably best known for the jumping off point for Magellan's famous circumnavigation of the world. Indeed, on this sign, it is noted that the voyage started on 20 Oct 1519 and ended in 1522, so we are just shy of the 500th anniversary of the start of that famous voyage:

Beli kindly dropped us off a block from our house. After taking out the trash and a few other chores, I noticed that the sunset was lovely, so I went up to the roof and took a picture:

Córdoba visit

Tomorrow the Gruchots fly back to the US from Madrid. Today, we took the train north to Córdoba to see the sights there. Then, after a few hours in Córdoba, Laura and I returned south to Sevilla while the Gruchots continued north to Madrid.

We started out by catching the 21 bus to the train station:

 You can tell by Luke's face that it was a bit early. At the Córdoba train station, we locked the luggage up in lockers and hoofed it down to the Cathedral. This cathedral is interesting because it is planted right in the center of one of the mose beautiful mosques in the world. As with all of these old historic sites, there is a lot of upkeep. I watched this guy with a paint brush and a shopvac cleaning accumulated dust from the crenellations on the tops of these pillars:

The mosque part of the structure is a striking collection of arches an pillars. Worshippers would have filled this open space during prayers. The mosque part is actually built upon an old Christian church, so, as Laura suggested, this is actually a mosque sandwich with Christian churches serving as the bread.

Here is Jo-Anne in the mosque part:

After visiting the cathedral/mosque, we walked down a looked at the Roman bridge across the river:

The river was flowing at a much higher rate than on our previous visit in March(?). We then returned to the cathedral/mosque and climbed the bell tower/minaret. The view of the orange grove in the courtyard was impressive from up there:

Here you can see how the Cathedral is just plopped down into the middle of the surrounding mosque:

After the cathedral/mosque visit, Laura caught an early train home to go to Spanish class. I stayed with the Gruchots for lunch. We found a nice doner kebab place in Plaza de la Corredera. For dessert we bought an assortment of pieces of cake/pie from La Tarterie. We toasted Luke's birthday a day early:

Speaking of which, with the 6-hour time difference, Luke's birthday will be 30 hours instead of the usual 24 hours! After this, we headed back to the train station. Along the way, we passed a park with a lot of tiled benches that bore quotes from the famous playwright Seneca. I was struck by this one which seems to fly in the face of learning for the sake of learning:

It says, "Study, not to know a lot, but to know better (more?) than others." Pretty competitive frame of mind.

The Gruchots made it to Madrid on their train in time to do a bit of sightseeing there. I made it back to Sevilla on my train in time to lay around the house (I'm developing a bit of a cold and feel a bit under the weather.)

Sightseeing

Today was essentially a free day for the Gruchots. We visited the Plaza de Espana this morning and the nearby Maria Luisa Park. On the way over, we saw these guys taking their mules out for a walk across the (best) bridge:

I took a frew random photos at Maria Luisa Park, but the composition on this one really struck me:

Here's the Plaza de Espana from one of the balonies. This was likely my last trip to this amazing space:

We went to dinner at Antojo this evening. They have a carbonized cod filet there that is amazing and I don't even like fish. On the way home, the pilgrims from Rocio were returning home from their week-long trek. They were singing and seemed pretty happy, but you could tell they were a bit tired too. So were the oxen pulling the wagons: