Traveling to Seville: Photogallery
Several students, accompanied by Dr. Michael Vander Weele, professor of English, traveled to Spain during the winter break. Below are the reflections from their travels.
Seville: Where Christian/Muslim, Europe/Africa Meet
Blog 1
Over interim a group of eight students and two adults travelled to the southern part of Spain. After a prayer by Pastor Bill, Professor Vander Weele and his wife Mary herded the eight of us (Evan, Yasmeen, Staci, Anna, Mike, Retta, Anneliese, Jen, and me (Callie)) to the bus that would take us to the airport.
Unfortunately, we ran into a few delays, and our flight ended up leaving shortly after 9:00 p.m., instead of the original 4:55 p.m. departure. I had been praying I wouldn’t have to sit by a baby, but God had different plans for me. Thankfully, Gabe was a sweet-tempered child. His mother taught English in Valencia and had met her husband when she was studying abroad in Spain. Sadly, I did not have similar luck during my ten days in Spain.
After a wait in the Madrid airport, we flew into Seville, our home destination for the trip. After arriving, we met Ana, our tour guide and translator for the duration of the trip, and she took us to the school to meet our housemothers. Jen and I were to be roommates for the trip, and Marga was our housemother. Marga did not know a single word of English, and any three-year-old could speak better Spanish than I can. Luckily, I knew from my communications classes that you can communicate rather well without words. For example, when Marga gasped and her eyes grew into the size of bowling balls when she heard Jen and I didn’t speak Spanish, I knew this was going to be an interesting trip.
Another surprise: Spaniards greet each other with a kiss on each cheek. That took a bit of time to get used to, especially when Marga’s husband and son both planted kisses on Jen and me. We took dinner in our room and were off to bed.
Blog 2
Each morning Jen and I ate toast and drank orange juice (I also had my café con leche), your typical Spanish breakfast. Our first morning in Seville, we all met at the school and learned the do’s and don’ts of Spanish culture. Then Ana took us on a tour of Seville. We saw a beautiful hotel, a university that used to be a royal tobacco plant, stunning parks, and the Plaza de Espana. The plaza was beautiful, and the Muslim influence was evident in the architecture. Ana also gave us seeds to feed some birds. Professor Vander Weele and Anna had birds all over them. Afterward we went to the Jewish quarter and also saw the Seville Cathedral, which is magnificent. In the evening we had tapas at two different places.
The next day we journeyed to see an old monastery (built in 1301) and Italica. Italica is an old Roman settlement famous for its running water, roads, a colosseum, and a theatre. The Romans put a great amount of work into their civilization; even the floors of their houses were ornately and intricately tiled.
Later in the evening the majority of the group attended mass in the Seville Cathedral. While I did not understand language, I experienced a unique beauty in worshipping with other believers around the world.
Blog 3
On Monday our group visited Carmona in the foothills, and on Tuesday our group visited Cadiz by the ocean.
At Carmona our group climbed up an old castle/fortress and spent some time gazing out for miles, enjoying the view. Carthaginians, native Iberians, Romans, Visigoths, Muslims, and Christians had all lived here; Muslims and Christians had at one point lived here together peacefully.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was walking from destination to destination with the group. Ana would guide us through narrow streets, the white houses with their Spanish tiled roofs all squeezed together, and she would tell us stories about Spain – how the Muslims, Jews, and Christians all lived in harmony and even shared schools where they would study Latin and Arabic together.
During the rest of our time at Carmona we visited a nunnery, ate lunch at Casa Paco, and then took our café con leche to the balcony of a castle that had been turned into a hotel. The lunch at Casa Paco was one of the best meals I have ever eaten. We ate bread, cooked spinach, fried squid, a sardine-like fish, meatballs, French fries, croquettas with shrimp, shrimp in garlic butter, and fried goat cheese with oranges and jam. Ana also taught us a fun game called pin/pong which had the entire group in stiches with laughter.
Later that night we attended a traditional flamenco, a vital aspect of Spanish culture. The clapping was odd yet beautiful, the guitar player was a master, and the dancing was fast and furious.
The next day we took the train south to Cadiz, also known as the little silver cup – the oldest city in Europe. In the 18th century Cadiz became a stopping point for trade ships en route from India to the Americas, making Cadiz a very rich city. Ana gave us some free time to explore the market with all its fresh food, where we found things like shark heads and squid. We also spent a good amount of time in a cathedral there, and then hung out by a castle on the beach for a few hours. Anneliese and I discovered some caves and had fun climbing around in them.
Blog 4
We spent Wednesday exploring the Seville Cathedral and the Antiquarium – Setas de Sevilla. Exploring the cathedral, the most extensive gothic cathedral in the world, was positively overwhelming. The ceilings are impossibly high. We learned that the remains of Christopher Columbus are kept there. The courtyard was beautiful too, with rows after rows of orange trees, kept up by a stone irrigation system. We took a group photo and then climbed up the tower, which had 37 ramps to the top. The bells at the top of the tower rang while we were up there and startled all of us. The view from the top was superb, as I expected.
Ana then led our group to the Antiquarium – Roman ruins that had been found in the middle of Seville. The Antiquarium is 5.5 meters below the ground from 2,200 years ago. Before we looked at the ruins, we took an elevator up to the top of a walkway and watched the sunset. In the ruins, we saw a salting factory for fish, built around 40 A.D., with lots of decorated courtyards with designs like Medusa and birds and dolphins. I loved looking at the ruins, and I wished that time travel was real so that I could experience them back in their prime.
Afterwards we had tapas with all of the professors who teach at the school of the Semester in Spain program. If a Trinity student has the opportunity to travel abroad, I highly encourage them to go for a semester in Spain. My ten days in Spain were not enough, and I can understand why all my friends who study in Spain come back raving about it.
On Thursday we took a morning train to Cordoba. We visited a museum where we learned more about Jews, Christians, and Muslims living and studying in harmony with one another. We walked across an old Roman bridge to a mosque that also had a church inside of it. It was very beautiful, with tall, dark red and white pillars, and the church inside of the mosque was light and airy.
After the mosque we visited an old fortress and its gardens. We dined at Casa Pepe for lunch, and the waiter was fascinated with our group. At the end of our meal he brought out two plates that said “Casa Pepe, Chicago” in beautiful cursive (he had used raspberry syrup to write it so it tasted delicious as well).
After lunch, the majority of our group rented two carriages to tour the city for an hour. Yasmeen was a wonderful negotiator and got our group a good deal. The ride ended up being a thousand times more fun than I had expected, and it was a lovely ending to the day.
Blog 5
We toured the Castillo San Jorge on Friday, which is an old settlement castle from the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Although the Inquisition was a terrible time in history, the ruins were pretty cool; we could even see where the inquisitors tied up their horses.
Next we visited a castle called Real Royal Alcazar, strongly influenced by the Moorish style. In the castle we saw a room with a big entryway into a courtyard. The three walls flanking the entry into the courtyard each had an arch to enter the room. I overheard a tour guide say this stood for the Trinity: the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
The castle here was much prettier than Cordoba, and the gardens were huge and magnificent (there was also a peacock). After the castle, Professor Vander Weele bought the entire group gelato, because he had been three minutes late to our meeting place the day before. It made for a lovely snack.
Since the rest of the day was free time, Jen, Anneliese, Retta, and I went back to the Plaza de Espana and rented a rowboat to row around in the water. It was extremely tourist-like of us but also very fun.
On Saturday we took the bus to Ronda, a city located in the mountains, where roads curve sharply. A good majority of our group was particularly grateful when the two-hour ride was over. While there, we visited the oldest bull-fighting ring in Spain. Ronda is also famous for a gargantuan bridge that brings the city together, since a massive gorge splits the city in half.
After lunch the group had free time, so some of us went exploring down to the valley where we could look at the bridge from a different perspective. You should google the bridge; it is beautiful (the better, more expensive option would be to travel there). Ana led us to an old mine where we all carefully walked down 200 slippery steps to the bottom of the gorge to snap a few photos and appreciate the beautiful clear blue water. Afterwards we met up with the Vander Weeles, and Ana took us to a market so we could all buy olive oil for our mothers. Then it was back on the bus to head home to Seville.
Blog 6
On Sunday it rained. I was extremely thankful that it had not rained the entire trip. Getting splashed by a car on a bridge and ending up sopping wet from head to toe is not my idea of a fun morning. Praise God for Ana’s keen mind, because she brought two blow dryers and a heater to our morning session at the school. We were a sight, all of us passing around the blow dryers before Professor Vander Weele started devotions.
We all trudged through the rain, umbrellas in hand, to visit the Jewish quarter. The guide in the museum was excellent and told us all about the history of the Jews in Spain: when the first had arrived, the different ways they have been persecuted over time, how they were blamed for the Black Plague, how they weren’t allowed to hold public office, and how today their ancient buildings are restaurants and their old cemetery is a parking lot.
After the museum we had free time for the rest of the day. Since it was Sunday, the grandmother of my Spanish family came over for lunch. She told us she had been smoking since she was 18, and she was 85 today. We ate paella, a flavored rice dish with meat (we had chicken and amazing shrimp).
We took the 5:00 a.m. bus to the airport in Seville, flew to Madrid, where we had a layover, and then flew to Chicago, where a bus took us back to Trinity.
All in all the trip was positively majestic.
Blog 7
Professor Vander Weele sent us all an email with the eleven things he had learned in Spain. Here they are for you to read:
1. The importance of “Gracias” and of respect more generally. One of Ana’s guide friends corrected us at Alcazar when we asked for directions to the baño. We were ready to leave and he said, “Gracias?” with a teaching sort of look.
2. The fun of experiencing new things through student eyes. ‘Nuff said. Mary’s a little envious of my job.
3. Carriage. It’s okay to have a prepared public appearance, a good sense of pride. Our compliment, “What you see is what you get” may also be reversible, that the public appearance we choose to show tells a lot about us. Think about flamenco dancers, bull fighters, our señoras.
4. Pace of life: café con leche, tapas, separating out some prime time for social (non-work) life. The question of markets and neighborhood shops vs. Cosco should also recall the question of what people are for.
5. Hospitality–the other side of #3. A carriage of self-dignity can go together with, rather than oppose, hospitality. Think about the whole staff and faculty of Semester in Spain coming out to do tapas with us. Did you know that hospitality toward the stranger is a requirement of the highest god both in the pagan Mediterranean world (Zeus) and in Jewish and Christian Scriptures (Yahweh and Christ)?
6. It’s a layered world, with cathedrals and civilizations built upon earlier foundations. The great 19th century historian, Alexis de Tocqueville, warned against the “tyranny of the present” in American life, which seems less likely in places like Cadiz and Sevilla, and indeed, all of Andalusia.
7. Corollary: How much is left out of our history! Think about our single focus for 1492, e.g., or the history of Western civilization that almost completely ignores Spain.
8. The importance of public places: plazas, buildings, orange trees, fountains, parks. Do we separate the public from the private too completely?
9. The amazing importance of communication–fabulous to hear Michael chatting with the cab driver in Cordoba and to stand in awe of the human ability to rapidly turn sound symbols into complex meaning statements.
9A. Language is not only for information. Think about what non-English immigrants or visitors to America pick up or don’t have access to besides information. Think about what we just assume.
10. The dynamics of multiple religious faiths. We have seen some of the highest and some of the lowest points of this. It’s one of the reasons why we have to make sure history doesn’t become “just history,” but a living history. One question that haunts me is whether Spain’s history has helped or will help today’s Spain address questions of immigration and of religious diversity–and, not just to pick on Spain, but will it help us?
11. What we are capable of. In the Middle Ages, people were pictured as tending either toward the world of angels or toward the world of beasts, but always tending towards one or the other, never just stationary. Think about the difference between 12th century Cordoba and the 15th-century Inquisition and the earlier (1391) massacre of the Jews. Then think about Isis today or Rwanda in the early 1990s. Partly what we might learn is the fine line between the need for and the danger of unity–“My way or the highway” or even “America, love it or leave it.”