FERIA: As Spanish as it gets...

Feria has begun! I can’t believe its actually here, thinking to this week in January it seemed like such a long way off – and now it’s here and halfway over!

For those of you who don’t know: The Ferias de Abril are the “April Fairs” here in Sevilla. It’s a festival that’s only in Sevilla and it’s about as quintessentially Spain as you can get – and we have the entire week off of school for it.

So much preparation goes into this week I can’t even explain. The feria fairgrounds are really close to where we live in Los Remedios, maybe a 10 minute walk away, and they’ve been building the “gate” to the fair (which is a different design every year) since we got here, as well as doing construction on all of the adjacent streets and bridges to make them look good as new – people flock in from all over for this festival (Yesterday we met a woman from Argentina, this is her 3^rd Feria.)

The basis of Feria is built around the casettas: basically, little houses. I thought for the longest time these were just tents, but these things are so elaborate you basically have to see them to believe it. Casettas are owned by families, businesses, political parties, etc. There are a set number of them and each has their own “address” at the fairgrounds, so as you can imagine, to have one is a BIG DEAL. People pay thousands of dollars for them, and that’s after they’ve waited on a waiting list for probably around 10-20 years to even get one.

The casettas are decorated to the brim – wallpaper, chandeliers, tables, chairs – even pictures hanging on the wall. All of them have a bar and a restaurant in them that serves food and drinks to those that are there, and each casetta has security, of course, because you have to have an invitation to get into one (except for a few “public” ones that are super crowded and not as cool.)

All of the women wear the traditional flamenco dresses, and buying one of these is probably a mixture between picking out a prom dress and a wedding dress – they cost hundreds to thousands of dollars and are fitted to a T.

So, when you show up to your casetta in your elaborate flamenco dress – what else is there to do? Besides eating tapas, drinking, and talking with your friends, everyone dances Sevillana – a structured dance with 4 parts. I know the first part…kind of….but haven’t gotten a chance to learn the rest – but I really like watching people who know what they’re doing. There’s also specific Sevillana music to dance to, and many people sit around and do the traditional clapping that goes along with it, as well as playing the castanets and other instruments.

The drink of Feria is called a “rebujito” – it’s made of a sherry white wine and sprite or 7 up. Pitchers are bountiful and everyone just sits and drinks, eats, dances, and sings with their friends all day. Horses and carriages line the street and people just flow into the fairgrounds all day and into the night.

As if this wasn’t enough – at the end of the Feria fairgrounds, there is an actual fair, full of rides, games, and fair foods. But don’t look for funnel cakes – instead you should look for Gofres, or waffles, served hot and recently made with whatever flavor syrup you could imagine, complete with whip cream upon request. These are like no waffle you have ever tasted or could ever dream to try.

Feria celebrations begin Monday at midnight when they turn all of the lights on, and then everyone proceeds to dance and sing in the streets and in their casettas. We stood in the crowded streets and saw them switch on all of the gorgeous lights, turning the fairgrounds into an atmosphere that’s kind of impossible to describe, and that was only the beginning.

Tuesday is really when everyone comes out dressed in their flamenco dresses, and we did our best to dress up as well – we had an invitation first to our site directors casetta, and after spending a little time there and downing a few pitchers of rebujito between the group, we went over to a second casetta we had an invitation to (Since we’re so cool like that.)

This casetta was a lot bigger than the first and had an outside porch (Seriously these things are like houses), which was a welcome relief because it was hot. We had an invitation to this one thanks to Claudia’s senora, who also got a few of us hooked up with a carriage ride.

In the evening, when we were sitting watching people dance Sevillana, a group of older women and men beside us in the casetta were playing castanets and clapping Sevillana as a few others danced – they noticed us watching them and some of them showed us how to do the traditional clapping so we could clap along. Before we left they all told us goodbye and they’ve spoken to me since when I see them – I was worried that with all of the tradition in this week there would be an exclusiveness to outsiders, and while that’s possible with how exclusive the casttas were, I felt completely welcome around this group of people who went out of their way to share their culture with me.

I’m just in love with Feria because of how unique this experience is – sitting in a casetta watching horses go by and around you are women dressed in Flamenco dresses dancing a dance that is only for the city you’re currently living in…it still doesn’t hit me, if that makes any sense. It feels almost like I’m in a costume party because everything is straight out of a Spanish fairy tale.

The Sevillanas have shown me time and again this semester how much they value their culture and preserving it, and I’ve noticed as I’ve traveled around Spain that no where feels as authentic as here, even if its stubbornly so. The people dress nicely to go to work, most of them only speak Spanish, the food has been completely authentic, and my house froze me during winter – but all in all I wouldn’t want to experience Spain another way, and Feria has been an exclamation mark for that.

Lisbon: You Won't Believe How Fast You Get Here

This weekend, Sydney and I planned a day trip to Lisbon. We figured we wouldn’t really come back to Portugal next time we were in Europe, so we should go now while we can take a day trip to another country.

We took an overnight bus in Friday night and got there Saturday morning. Our bus was supposed to get in at 7:45, meaning we would have a quick breakfast and then have plenty of day left to get things done. Well, our bus driver apparently drove like a freaking maniac, because he was an hour and a half late getting to Sevilla, but got us to Lisbon at 6:45…except in Lisbon it was 5:45…because there’s a time change that we didn’t know about until we got off of the bus and all of the clocks were an hour off.

So after a quick laugh at the realization that we were in a different time zone and that our bus driver is on crack, we decided to hang around the bus station until the sun came out and we could get a map and get oriented. The café in the bus station didn’t even open until 6:30, so we sat around and watched The Daily Show, which happened to be on TV. After killing some time and having VERY necessary coffee and a croissant, the sun started to come out. The weather forecast for that day was completely wrong, we were expecting rain and maybe a few breaks of sunlight, but it was mostly sunny all day with a few threatening clouds that didn’t do anything. Don’t believe weather.com.

We tried to find a map with no luck, it was still very early in the morning. Despite the bumpy start, we worked things out. We went to the metro station and figured out how to get into the city center, and from there we walked a little and got our bearings – I had looked at a lot of maps and read up on Lisbon before coming so I knew where we were and where we needed to go. We walked down to the port and found a tourist information center that was closed, but it opened at 9, so we thought we needed to kill 15 minutes before it opened…it only took us 10 minutes to realize that we needed to kill an hour and 15 minutes – freaking time changes…so we just decided that without a map, we could do okay for the morning based on what I already knew about the city.

We wandered up to the old Alfama district where the castle is. Lisbon is spread out over seven hills by the ocean, so over each hill there are awesome views and specific places called miradours are marked off for vantage points, so we wandered this old district which was the old Jewish quarter and we went on a miradour hunt all morning.

Lisbon is a gorgeous city, all of the houses are pastel colored with the same kind of roofs and from each of the miradours the city just impressed me more and more. The entire place has such a Charleston like feel but on a San Francisco type level (complete with its own Golden Gate Bridge, apparently), and it seems so humble for a capital city.

We took our time as well as we could and appreciated the views, it was maybe 10:30 when we wandered over to the Castlo de San Jorge for our first “tourist attraction” type site. It’s only 2.50 for students so we felt it was worth the investment to go check it out – its definitely the most “castle” type castle I’ve been too so far.

Around noon we left to eat lunch at an Indian restaurant we had already picked out…but it was closed…despite saying that they opened at noon. We stood outside for a while and tried to kill time hoping they were just late, but we finally gave up and wandered to a sandwich shop in the center of the city. I thought I wanted to try seafood while I was here but walking past the restaurants and seeing people eat fish drenched in olive oil…I really just wanted something simple and healthy, and a bocadilla did the trick.

After lunch we FINALLY got a map and then took a bus over to Belem, an area of town about 6km outside downtown. This whole district is really pretty, just more pastel colored houses, parks, and the big monastery, discovery monument, and tower of Belem.

We saw each of these and managed to see a Contemporary Art Exhibit

(I don’t get it.)

In Portugal, the typical pastry is called Pasteil de Nata, and in Belem they have a place that supposedly makes the best in town. This place was really crowded but served us extremely quickly – we ordered one and took it outside in the beautiful day to eat.

I have to say, it was different than what I expected, I heard “nata” and thought it would be this cream filled, rich thing, but it actually had a really subtle taste on the inside and reminded me almost of an oatmeal like flavor. The crust around it was delicious and really warm and flakey, and they gave us cinnamon and sugar to put on top.

At this point of the day, I was completely exhausted - that 5 am morning and “sleeping” on a bus was catching up to me. We wandered up go to the Bairro Alto after coming back into downtown, and once we found another miradour we sat and rested for a while, just talking. After getting somewhat of a second wind we walked around some more before making our way to find some dinner.

I would say that the Bairro Alto was my favorite district and I wish we could have spent some more time exploring here or stayed the night to try a nice restaurant or bar – they seemed to have a huge variety of them.

We were looking around at restaurant menus when some man told us that in this building there was a mall type thing with tons of restaurants, so we just followed a bunch of people into elevators and indeed there was like a 6 story shopping center/food court type thing that we stumbled into. I had Isreali food for the first time in my life and had a pita with Tahini, Hummus, and something else I’m not even sure.

We walked around for a bit and then made our way back to the bus station in plenty of time to catch our bus home. We found our bus company and asked what platform our bus would be at, when the lady at the desk just told us “These aren’t tickets.” Ummmm…what? I kind of started to get a bad attitude with her because that’s all she kept saying to us “These aren’t tickets” and I was trying to explain that those were the tickets I was given that got me HERE, and now I really needed to get HOME with them, too.

I have no idea what the problem was with them, she never told us, she just kept saying they weren’t tickets and then grabbed a bunch of things around her desk and kept typing at her computer. Eventually, she printed us new tickets, that didn’t look any more legit than the ones we had, but whatever. I was just upset she let us stand there and try and justify our tickets while she clacked at her computer – who does that? Why wouldn’t she say the words: “It’s okay, I’ll print you new tickets.”

Ugh, Oh well. We got back into Sevilla fine with our new “tickets” and had a very, very successful trip. I loved Lisbon, I really recommend it, I don’t think it’s a city people think of often but its absolutely gorgeous and full of things to do.

Authentic Flamenco

Oops, its been a while since I gave an update! Basically last week was spent catching up on school, sleep, and saving a bit of money after our Italy trip.

We went to the movies on Thursday night with a group of Spaniards who also study at our school. The movie chosen was “The Hurt Locker” which was in English with Spanish subtitles. I really loved the opportunity to speak completely in Spanish and meet some Spanish girls, I find that they’re a lot harder to get to know, but we met a group of really nice ones, and one of them has sent me an email to hang out again – yay Spanish friends!

On Monday, after enjoying some gofres in the evening, we went to a very authentic Flamenco show that was taking place in Triana, a neighborhood next to where we live. The directions to get to the place where “Through an old bookstore,” and indeed it was atop an old bookstore and completely not labeled.

The show that we saw was of such a higher quality of the “touristy” Flamenco you can find in the city center. Sure, that’s enjoyable, and will give you a taste of what Flamenco is, but this was just spectacular.

Per usual, the guitar and the Flamenco singer began the show with Flamenco singing and Spanish guitar. Flamenco is all about expression and passion, and brings about some ugly faces for the sake of great music.

After this, a group of Las Palmas (the clappers) joined the singer and guitarist, and they began another song while adding in the claps (my favorite part).

The dancer arrived out of nowhere and went crazy – she was all over the stage moving her feet in ways that I didn’t think feet could move without breaking. This was her first time back to the stage in 10 years – she left to raise her family – and she came back ready to show off!

After the first intermission, there was the same cycle of performance with different songs and a different singer, but after our first standing ovation, some of the other clappers began to sing and dance, and then others would join in and improvise.

The show went on until well after midnight, but I could have stayed there for another hour.

Cinque Terre: Oh The Glory That The LORD Has Made

Cinque Terre...the most gorgeous place on earth....where do I begin...

We rolled into to Cinque Terre around 9:30 and then the train into the first village came around 10, after we refueled with some coffee. We got into the first village around 10:30 and began our hike in the most gorgeous place I’ve ever been. These 5 villages are secluded along the Mediterranean coast and only accessible by trail and by rail. We took the easiest hiking path which is about 9 km total I think. We started in Riomaggore and it was a pretty simple and marked path through the first 3 villages – then it got more challenging, which was my favorite part.

We would walk along the paths, taking a lot of pictures, and then stop in and spend a little time in each of the villages. We had a picnic of dried fruit and sandwiches and just generally enjoyed the most beautiful scenery you could ever hope to see.

The trail got more deserted as it got more challenging – the path got really narrow in some places and we took some spills.

We also took a few detours because Candace and Christin think its okay to follow rocks that say beach on it.

All in all I think we spent at least 6 hours hiking – when we got to the last village we rested for a bit and cooled off…after finding another giant rock to climb on.

We got into Florence around 8 or 9 and it was probably one of the most exhaustingly successful days that I hope I never forget. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as these 5 villages along the coast and I had such a fun time hiking in the mountains – I would want to go back and do the more challenging trails. If you’re ever near this area - please go here if the weather is good. You could not possibly regret it.

Florence: F is for Food

We said goodbye to Rome Tuesday morning and took the 8:40 train to Florence, getting in around lunch time, by the time we came out of the terminal. We found food at a little side shop selling Paninis – and they were delicious, Florence just blows me over with their food, but more on that, later. Our hostel is a little past the train station and is really nice, we even have a TV in our room and a kitchen on our floor. After settling in we went exploring a little bit, walking past some open air markets full of leather goods - which Florence is famous for.

We stumbling upon the Duomo, which is way more impressive than I was expecting (that’s a recurring theme, you see.) It's huge and very different from any cathedral that I've seen so far.

We got to bed pretty early Monday night due to complete exhaustion over Rome, and Tuesday was a slow start. Rome was such a huge city with so much to see and we were enjoying it so much that it took a little while for 4 days of intense travel to catch up with us. We took our time and went to see Michaelangelo’s David at the Accademia, which is really, really awesome. It’s HUGE, so much bigger than I was expecting, and the detail is beyond words. You aren’t supposed to take pictures…but….

After this we went back to the hostel and had to worry about several things – Candace’s bank cards weren’t letting her withdraw cash and due to weather and logistical issues we needed to make changes to our travel plans. We decided to ditch some of our day trip plans and spend another day in Florence, and we moved our trip to Cinque Terre due to weather – luckily Christin’s friend knew someone studying in Florence so we got to stay with her for the last two nights we were there. With the extra time,we allowed ourselves to take things slower here and generally enjoy Tuscany on a slower pace than Rome. After figuring the stressful stuff out, we were in great moods again, and set out for our EPIC MEAL that we were saving up for.

We went to Le Fonticini for dinner after hearing great reviews from Monica about it being a life changing experience, and of course I follow her travel advice. This place is really fantastic, we could tell just by walking in. We were led by the owner of the restaurant past an open charcoal grill, fresh homemade pasta, and fresh vegetables and fruits. He let us take pictures and pulled the pasta out for us and told us he would let us come take a picture when the grill was really ready and he was cooking some meats, he explained to us they are one of the only restaurants left with this cooking technique for meats – new restaurants can only use gas grills.

After staring at the menu for way too long I decided on homemade, stuffed ravioli with ricotta cheese in a tomato cream sauce. Let your mind sit on that for a little bit. For dessert I ordered the Tiramisu with coffee, and I can not describe this thing – it was the best dessert I have ever had, possibly the best piece of food I have ever eaten. The coffee flavor was so rich and authentic and the rest was just creamy and delicious and…my God I would have eaten three of them. I just loved everything from the food to the waiter to the presentation. It was definitely pricey – but not the kind of meal you could ever regret.

Thursday morning we woke up and continued our food high – we went to the nearby fresh market full of local products being set out – cheeses, fruits, meats, pastas, everything looked delicious. We got a few free samples and got to chat with one store owner that recommended us a lot of pasta and spice combinations – I ended up buying a bag of Italian spices to take home for my Dad.

We bought some delicious fresh fruit to take on a picnic that afternoon, and we also bought some amazing dried fruit for our hiking on Friday. After leaving the market we packed a bag and began the hike up to Piazza Michaelangelo, it was a little walk away but the view was definitely worth it.

We stayed up here eating our food as long as we could until a thunderstorm started, so we ducked down into Ponte Vecchio to do a little bit of browsing in all of the really expensive gold shops that line the bridge – my grandma would flip here.Nearby is the fake David – standing where the original David used to, as well as an open air sculpture exhibit with some replicas of sculptures we’d already seen before.

After wandering for a bit we went to a gelato place we had read about online and discovered the best gelato so far – I had after-eight and some kind of chocolate fudge flavor and it was heavenly – the flavors were just really strong and the gelato itself was the creamiest I’d ever had.

We were trying to decide what to do when it started to rain again, so we ducked back into our hostel and spent some time listening to music and chilling out for a bit – then we began cooking our authentic Italian meal in our hostel’s kitchen.We had a slight accident with the spices and the pasta was waaaayy too hot – but I really liked the cooking experience and the rest of the dish otherwise – it was fun.

We had an early night to prepare for our very early train out the next morning. We woke up for Cinque Terre at 5:30 and were out the door of the hostel by 6 to catch our train - more on Cinque Terre on its own!