Post procession

The takedown of the procession areas started today:

I can't imagine it taking as long to take down as to put up, but I'll keep an eye on progress during our last week.

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I bought a bunch of postcards and have mailed a few each day to various folks. I should've done more of this throughout the year, but just didn't.

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I learned how to use Google's mapping API today. It's a bit more challenging than Mapbox. Also, less "free". Mapbox let's you use their API a lot before they start charging/limiting you. Google has pretty low free quotas. The two have their pros and cons, but I think I'm going to keep working with Mapbox for now.

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Laura managed to get nearly all of the leftover picnic food out of the house today by bringing it to school with her this afternoon and feeding it to the students and teachers. With so little time left, we're already trying to eat up all the random stuff in the house, so getting all of that extra food out was a plus.

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I talked to Jo-Anne for a bit this evening. She's "recovered" from the Spain trip and settling into summer in Michigan. Her book club is reading the Mueller Report. Sounds like interesting reading, but I'm not sure I have the stomach for it.

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The weather is getting a bit warmer here. There was a lovely sunset this evening:

Processing to picnic

This morning we got up and out "early" to see the Corpus Christi procession. The streets were quiet because it's a local (not national) holiday. Here is one of the pasos pausing under the portada (so many p's):

This is the Plaza de San Francisco that I've been showing pics of over the past several weeks as it was prepared for this.  There were crowds, but nothing like Semana Santa:

We moved down to the Cathedral to see a different part of the procession:

The crowds were a bit thicker. We encountered another paso as they were being taken out of the Cathedral at long intervals:

This is almost certainly my last procession in Sevilla (and there were many). But, you never know, one can always pop up when you least expect it.

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I submitted my revised paper. Hoping there aren't too many issues left to deal with as I go back and forth with the editor.

Recently, I've been playing around with mapping GPS data. I found out that one can download all of the GPS location data that Google has gathered about your phone so I did so and started looking at it. Using the pandas library in python, I loaded the data into a dataframe and resampled it into daily averages. I plotted my daily average locations on a world map. When I zoomed in on Walla Walla, I noticed a nice linear cluster of locations between my house (green dot) and my office (black dot). In retrospect, it's not surprising, but it is interesting to see it:

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Laura arranged a picnic in Parque del Alamillo up in the north of the city. She invited friends and teachers from her language school. She made a lot of good, Mexican-themed food. Since we don't have a car, we took an Uber up there and set it up before the guests arrived:

Later, folks arrived with their own, albeit smaller, contributions and we had dinner and conversation:

Until the sun went down and then some:

With less food to carry, we cleaned up and headed for the bus (instead of Ubering), but Beli and Alejandro offered us a ride in their car, so we had a much easier time of it. The gathering was a good exercise in Spanish for me.

Corpus Christi Eve

There was a lot of activity downtown today surrounding the Corpus Christi event planned for tomorrow. Sevilla is one of the few cities in Spain (in the world) that really pays attention to this formerly important Catholic holy day. Indeed, it's part of a tradition that goes back to the 13th century. There are lots of decorations along the procession route:

This evening, the Cathedral was open to the public and you could go in and see the various pasos that will be carried in the procession tomorrow:

There were crowds of people all over.

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I managed to finish my revisions today and started the process of resubmission. I figure another hour on the journal website tomorrow and I'll have everything properly uploaded.

I went to the gym and then met Laura for dinner after her class at La Urbana Pizzaria. Before getting the restaurant though, we stopped in at an art gallery and finally bought a nice watercolor of the Triana Bridge with the neighborhood of Triana in the background. It's rolled up nicely in a cardboard tube. We'll take it back to Walla Walla and get it matted and framed. I didn't take a picture of it before it went into the tube.

Separation of church and state.

Separation of church and state is not really a thing here in Spain. The endless religious processions have been a strong hint at that as police regularly shut down roads all over the place to accommodate. If there was any doubt left, it was erased today when I saw the temporary altar erected on the back side of city hall today:

I guess the main feature of the Corpus Christi feast on Thursday is the Holy Eucharist. And, I guess you can't have Holy Eucharist without an altar to do the transubstantiation, so....

It's also amazing how many decorations the city must have in storage somewhere. For example these poles and banners sprouted overnight along the processional route:

Along with the altars, portadas, curtains, Christmas lights, bleacher, chairs and all the other crap.... erm, stuff, how do they keep it all organized and stored when not in use? I imagine that's a full time job for somebody (or several somebodies)

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I finished another pass through my revision. I also improved a figure to make it more readable and smaller (a double bonus). I think one more quick pass tomorrow and it'll be ready to go back.

I started working on my convocation speech. That's going to be the next challenge for me I think. It's not going too quickly or smoothly.

I hit the gym and talked to Kathy on the phone for a while. Pretty normal day.

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.