Semana Santa in Sevilla

"Semana Santa" is Spanish for Holy Week, one of the two main festivals that happens in the spring in Sevilla. Semana Santa is a very interesting phenomenon in this city, something one would never see in a US city. There are 52 "hermandades," or brotherhoods, in the city of Sevilla, each of which has their own chapel that houses their own virgin. Some of the brotherhoods have existed since the 1200s, so there is a lot of tradition involved.

One certain tradition, which surged during the Baroque period when public religiosity emerged as a societal concept, is the set of processions of Semana Santa in which each brotherhood shows off their own virgin. Each of the 52 brotherhoods has two "pasos," or floats, one of a Christ figure and one of their particular virgin. The members of the brotherhood are called "nazarenos." During Holy Week, the nazarenos from each and every brotherhood march from their chapel to the main cathedral holding each of their two pasos, enters the cathedral, exits the cathedral, and recess back to their home temple. Depending on where the chapels are located in the city, this procession can take between seven and fourteen hours!

Each of the brotherhoods has their own set of traditional religious wear, which they wear during the procession. They dress in robes and "capirotes," which are tall, pointed hats that cover all of the face except for the eyes, and each brotherhood has their own color combination.

People come from all over Europe to see the processions of Semana Santa in Sevilla, and each city in Spain celebrates it their own way. But in Sevilla, it is such a big festival that people say that the majority of Sevilla's gross annual income from tourism comes from just this week (and the other spring festival in two weeks). It is nearly impossible to walk around the city due to the amount of people - in fact, I tried getting somewhere that usually takes me 10-15 minutes and it took me over an hour! The windy, skinny streets that make Sevilla famous really make it difficult this time of year - and with people pushing you from all sides, all trying to get somewhere different to see one of the dozens of pasos happening at any given time, whooo....it's a whirlwind.

As I watched the pasos, I was filled with a mixed feeling, trying to keep an open mind. It is actually quite a strange sight to see, as America's own KKK has stolen the style of robes and headpieces, taking the religious symbolism to a whole new level. Growing up in America, I am hardwired to see people dressed in hoods with eyeslits and think "white supremacy" or "Death Eaters" (I know, I know!), but here, it is a perfectly normal religious symbol that has been part of Sevilla's religious tradition for centuries. Regardless, I was really interested by how people reacted to it, and it was amazing to see that the tradition is preserved to this day and holds such high importance in the city. It was also amazing when, amongst hundreds of people watching a given paso, complete silence ensued, only to break into a rumbling of talking and clapping as soon as the paso had passed. Overall a very interesting, at times creepy, but amazing experience. Take a look at some of my favorite photos:

A paso of a virgin entering the cathedral.

A Christ and Virgin Mary figure up close.

A good example of a paso, holding a Biblical scene.

Another paso on the main avenue in front of the cathedral.

A candle-lit paso at night.

A paso on the main avenue.

Quite ironic, I think.

....

One of my favorites, of a child waving in his robes as he passes.

Nazarenos holding the cross.

spanish food creations

as part of my deep and important study of spanish food, i do get to cook it sometimes instead of just eat it. a couple of weeks ago, our interest group on spanish gastronomy journeyed to the barrio of nervión and had a very prestigious and important spanish chef as a cooking teacher. coincidentally, she also happened to be the mother of the group leader, maria.

there we were, holed up in her tiny kitchen, all ready to get our hands dirty! but, as a true spanish senora would do, she immediately took full of her kitchen. "maria hates that i don't let the kids cook, i mean it is supposed to be a cooking class, but whatever i don't care what she says, it's my kitchen, and i will do as i please." we laughed and sat back to relax. our only labor the whole hour was peeling potatoes, but as soon as i finished she said, "ok now, chica, go wash your hands, because you won't be doing anything else!" while we watched, she produced a delicious tortilla espanola, an egg and cheese omelet, sometimes with onions, but never with cheese. i actually asked her, do you ever put cheese or sausage or anything else in your tortilla? no, why would i do that. my food is good, has always been good, and will always be good. i love the integrity with which spaniards eat, even if it makes them a little less adventurous. the other plate is picadillo, a salad of tomatoes, peppers, tomatoes, tuna, and a lot of olive oil, as always.

good thing i was taking good notes while she cooked, because i was able to produce a perfect tortilla espanola last saturday night for my host parents in honor of father's day.



first phase: peel and cut tomatoes. done. then i fried the potatoes in olive oil and mixed them in with the egg (below), from which i made an omelet and flipped it myself!


they insisted that i cut the tortilla. we had a wonderful time eating tortilla, drinking cruzcampo, and watching the real madrid vs. atlético madrid soccer game, making for a great saturday night with the family. i spend time in the kitchen nowadays observing what my host-mom does, so hopefully i will come home with some good recipes.

can you see Africa? 'cause I can.

it is a rainy monday afternoon, and i should be studying for midterms. instead, i am writing to tell you all that i have successfully crossed the strait of gibraltar into morocco - and returned! due to the horrific weather on friday, our party of three was delayed many hours in crossing by ferry. alas, we spent the afternoon getting acquainted with yet another incredible spanish pueblo: tarifa, the bridge between europe and africa that divides the mediterranean from the atlantic. the city occupies a strategic place in a legendary zone, the "pillars of hercules", once thought to be the end of the world by the sailors of antiquity. for this reason, it was inhabited from prehistoric times to the present by phoenicians, romans, muslims and christians. in fact, tarifa was where the first arab, a berber named tarif, touched the soil of the peninsula, the chief of an incursion in the early 700s. to pass the time, we visited a fortress built in 960 A.D. by abd al-rahman III, the first caliph of the peninsula.

we also practiced our archery in the castle,

went to the beach,


adopted a dog we promptly christened mercadona,

watched as people appreciated the wind that had canceled our ferry,

exercised,

and looked yearningly at our destination.

if you look closely, at the horizon the houses of a moroccan town are visible. on a clear day, you can see the entire coastline, and on a clear night you can even see the car lights.

once in tangiers, the port city in morocco where we spent two nights, we realized that it was exactly the same - spain is clearly visible from the main city plaza, and european soil is only 14 kilometers away. this experience of seeing europe so close yet so far away was especially relevant for me, as i have been studying african immigration to spain. while we spent 45 minutes on a ferry that cost us under $30, crossing the strait in a small cayuco raft costs over 1000 euro and has a death rate of over 1/50. thousands of people have drowned in the strait, a chilling fact we could not ignore while we crossed.

tangier is the paramount of european domination, as it has been occupied by the spanish, portuguese, french and english its entire existence, only having gained its independence a mere 55 years ago. as such, there is at least one neighborhood dedicated to each of these colonial influences - we passed through the spanish, french and english neighborhoods, as well as one called "barrio california," to my severe embarrassment. another result of the european domination is that practically everyone knows more than one language, something that americans could definitely improve at. arab is the native language, with french being taught in schools at a young age. spanish, however, is the language of the street in northern morocco, and we met only one person that did not speak spanish. quite a few street vendors we met knew english as well. one showed us his artwork, which depicted "democracy coming slowly to morocco on a bicycle", which was particularly timely in light of the dozens of moroccan protesters that were injured in a manifestation in casablanca on sunday, four days after king muhomed VI promised constitutional reforms.

another surprising discovery was that, through the multicultural influence in tangier, there are several widely practiced religions - in fact, there are two synagogues and several cathedrals. the largest cathedral is on the same block as the main mosque, as seen on the right. the many traces of european colonization left in this city are undeniable, culminating in fascinating a cultural, linguistic and architectural mix that i feel fortunate to have seen, as it widened my perspective on the diversity found within the arab world. when we went to assilah on saturday, a small fishing town on the atlantic side, we were fortunate to hear the afternoon call to prayer to the mosque, and hundreds of people flocked to the mosque as we sipped our moroccan tea.

we had very good experiences with the people, and were fortunate to have met many helpful people that spoke to us in both english and spanish. the most impactful cultural difference for angela and i was that, as women, we would not have been able to travel freely with peace of mind. we were very thankful to have kurt along with us, and all three of us were very careful, always returning to the hotel soon after dark. there were never many women out after dark, and those that were we had been told were "women of the night," as no decent muslim woman would be seen in the street at night. as we passed the tea rooms, there were often forty or fifty middle-aged men watching soccer, an environment that none of us had a desire to enter. even during the day, all women were accompanied by other women or by their husbands, and the sunday morning soccer game we witnessed on the beach included a total of zero young women. i left morocco grateful that i live in a country in which i am free to live independent of other people and free to go where i wish.

on sunday we made the journey back to sevilla, tired and deservedly feeling, hardly believing it was true, as if we had crossed continents. we have many fond memories of morocco, a country in which pizza hut with a sign in arabic exists beside a kebab stand, a cathedral stands next to a mosque, veiled women walk in high heels, baroque architecture adorns the shopping center beside islamic-style arches, and the mixture of old and new, traditional and modern, make it what it is. we witnessed that culture can change vastly within a mere 9-mile boat ride.

the dinner table

i am burning the midnight oil. literally. it's past midnight, and i have just finished dinner with my host parents. yes, we eat at 10pm - sometimes 10:30 - and yes, sometimes we sit there talking and debating until the wee hours of the morning until my host mother begins the half hour process of cutting off her husband so the neighbors can sleep. themes range from politics to religion, two topics usually taboo at the american dinner table, and tonight's special was the power of the media in forming public opinion, with a commentary on the current revolutions happening in the middle east.

i find it fascinating that much of the revolution has been organized by well-prepared and urbanized youth that have traveled outside of their countries, know how the world is outside, and returned with liberal ideas, expressing their desire to experience a moment of peace in their homecountry. the push for self-government is something we take for granted every day, but we must think about how many free countries have begun in revolution, including ours. my immigration professor, a journalist for a renowned spanish newspaper, told us many stories today from when he spent two months traveling around the middle east a few years back, writing about how the common people experience dictatorship, war and extremism. it is easy to forget that people, although they see bombings on their street every day, are trying to just live a normal life. for example, he met a female journalist, who spent time working for the washington post in baghdad, that had received so many death threats by saddam hussein that she had given up writing and become a travel agent. two other young iraqi men went to study engineering in turkey, and when they returned realized that their country had been living under a dictatorship since before they were born.

i have been taking advantage of how direct spaniards tend to be and making sure to ask lots of questions about life during franco's reign, the dictator of spain from 1939 until his death in 1975, when my host mother remembers not only not being allowed to vote, but also not permitted to leave the house after 10pm. other laws controlling public behavior prohibited meetings of more than four people in an effort to discourage rebellion, the public display of affection, and the right of women to divorce their husbands (although men could divorce their wives). apart from that, thousands of homosexuals, intellectuals, and other left-leaning individuals were assassinated.

the years since 1975 have brought a democratic constitution, the right to vote for women, the equality of men and women, and the separation of church and state. spain has advanced from an isolated country with high levels of illiteracy and victim to the backward ideas of a cruel dictator to one of the most popular destinations in europe in a mere 35 years. today, sevilla is a lively and environmentally-savvy city, as it was the first city in spain to adopt the green bike system. nevertheless, sevillanos continue to talk themselves down. my host parents always make reference to the north of spain as the richer and more educated part of spain, painting the south to be poor and lazy. but, they say, all the workers in barcelona are from andalucía (the province of which Sevilla is the capital). they also insist that america is 25 years ahead of them, citing reasons like paper bags, which have been in american movies for 20 years and are just appearing in spanish stores as an alternative to plastic. however, this movement is simultaneous to a new law that incentivizes the use of reusable fabric grocery bags, something that is popular among young people in the US but not legislated.

another aspect in which sevillanos are self-degrading, and i have noticed this more than ever during dinner conversations, is linguistically. the spanish of andalucía is very difficult to understand because it is not pronounced how it is written, as many consonants are cut out and words shortened. people in the south always say things like "we talk badly," "why are you learning spanish here," and "why don't you go to salamanca, where they speak 'pure' spanish?" well what the heck is pure spanish? the prejudice against their own mode of speaking is fascinating to me.

i must sleep now, considering i have a paper to write tomorrow morning. i set out to write about food at the dinner table, and instead i spat this out. i guess you can expect something else on food sometime soon!

La Gastronomía Espanola

so the best thing about studying abroad is people want to teach you all about their food. and i must say, spain does their food well. the most well-known food custom in spain is tapas, which are small portions of food that come along with drinks in bars and restaurants. the story behind them is that people began putting small plates of olives on top of their drinks so as not to allow flies and dust to enter. the tradition continued, and nowadays there are restaurants and tapas bars with hundreds of tapas to choose from. they are a great way to share food and drink, converse and socialize. to spaniards, "tapear" is a verb that means to get tapas and wine or beer and talk. they never drink without eating and never eat without talking; it's a culture after my own heart.

in granada, one of my favorite cities in spain, the tapas come free with every drink. you order a coca-cola and a few minutes later the bartender brings you a free snack - it is the best way to go out with friends for little money! the trick, though, is to know where to go to get the best food. some bars just put bread and olives or small portions of ham, but we discovered bars that were famous for their gourmet tapas - with masterpieces such as grilled salmon on potato creme with parsley garnish, coconut-lime chicken, and caramelized onions with fresh goat cheese. this last one is something i order wherever i can, so my host family has proceeded to bring home different types of cheese every week and tease me about how i am a rat. i don't even take it back!

in mérida, a city about two hours north of sevilla, kurt and i got an amazing lunch we will never forget. we ordered the menú del día, which comes with bread, two courses, a bottle of wine, and dessert all for a mere 20 euro. we ate so well: here's a picture of me enjoying my mushrooms in olive oil with ham, a very common dish in southern spain. in the foreground is kurt's first course, migas, an Extremaduran dish of bread crumbs and sausage mixed with vegetables. and our wine, which shows you how truly amazing this lunch was. our dessert was a portuguese rice putting, which we ordered because we envied the dessert the portuguese couple next to us was eating. we started talking to them, and had a wonderful conversation in a mixture of spanish, portuguese and english. they ended up giving us their contact info and inviting us to their native city of Lisbon. and the portuguese rice putting, they said, was not the best. you must try it in our country. :)


the latest meal kurt and i shared was both the cheapest and one of the best (my kind of meal!). we were in salamanca last weekend, tired of spending 24 euro on menús del día and looking at a beautiful forecast. we went to a market and bought goat cheese, chorizo (Spanish cured sausage), and fresh bread (still warm from the oven) for 8 euro. we then took a walk and sat out and had a picnic by the river. just to brag a bit more, we were about 50 feet away from a roman bridge built in the 1st century and looking across the river at two cathedrals of salamanca.

apart from my personal studies of spanish food, which are going very well and being supplemented with much walking and the occasional run, i am part of an interest group focused on the food and culture of spain. we have visited a cooking school in Sevilla, where the students fed us various innovative tapas and made us cocktails, had various lectures about the influences of different cultures of spain on the food culture, and next week we are receiving cooking lessons from "the best cook in sevilla" according to our group leader (her mother!). the first week of april, we are all going on a trip to valencia to learn how to make true valencian paella, a spanish rice dish prepared with saffron and supplemented with seafood and vegetables. i hope to bring back some of this knowledge and prepare some delicious dishes for all of you when i get home in may. right now, i'm off to my host-niece's baptism (sure to be an interesting cultural experience) and then to have some tapas with my host family!

Córdoba

Yesterday's excursion to historic Córdoba, a few hours north of Sevilla, was enlightening and eye-opening. Córdoba was once one of the most important cities (along with Damasco, Baghdad and Constantinople), as it was the capital of the Muslim world from the 8th to the 11th century. When the Muslim tribes invaded Spain in 711, they built a beautiful Mezquita Mayor ("main mosque") in their capital city.

The mosque is truly unique - the original had 1013 columns and, as you can see on the left, superimposed arches alternating between brick and rock. Most of the columns were extracted from various Roman sites, so they date back to the first century. In its original state, you would have been able to see from one corner to the other and walk through a forest of red and white arches. But that perspective has now been interrupted, as only 800 of the outer columns remain to complement a Catholic cathedral built right in the center.

Today this mosque, a forest of candycane arches, functions as a Catholic cathedral (though most still refer to it as the Córdoba Mezquita). In the 13th century King Fernando III of Castilla and his troops invaded, reconquered Córdoba for the Christians, and expelled the greater part of the Muslim and Jewish community to ghettos. Shunned from their homeland, many Muslim and Jewish aristocrats and thinkers emigrated to places like Granada or Northern Africa, leaving most of the poorer community to live in ghettos and provide labor for the Christian king (i.e. destroy their mosques and build cathedrals on top of the ruins).

Below you can see part of the Baroque cathedral of Córdoba, built in the 16th century, with the red arches of the mosque in the background. While it is an amazing building, I must say that it was quite a shock to see such ornate Christian architecture alongside the simplicity of the mosque's red and white arches. But maybe that is why it is such a cool place - the mixture of architecture is indicative of a greater mixture of cultures as Spain passed from Muslim hands into its long Catholic reign.


There is a neat anecdote our tour guide told us that shows the irony. The story goes like this: After the reconquest of Córdoba, the bishop wanted to build a cathedral directly where the mosque stood, but the people of the town rejected it, insisting that this mosque was something unique from the Muslim reign that should be indelibly left untouched. The bishop went directly to King Carlos V, who immediately approved the destruction of the mosque, thinking it was like every other of the 300 mosques the Catholics had destroyed in Córdoba following the reconquest. Then, Carlos V and his queen wed in Sevilla, and took their honeymoon in Córdoba so he could see the wondrous cathedral being constructed in his name. When he saw it, he uttered some words that are still very famous in Spain to this day. He said that if he had seen what they wanted to destroy to build this cathedral, he would not have approved its construction - 'you have destroyed something very unique to build something that, while undoubtedly magnificent, could have easily been constructed in another place.'

So that is the legacy of the Córdoba mosque-cathedral. The irony is, although the cathedral in the center stands as a symbol of conquest and domination, the construction of the cathedral is also probably the only reason that the mosque still stands today. It both destroyed and conserved the mosque for future generations. I for one am glad it did not end up like one of those 300 other mosques...

"Operation Flannel and Carhartts to Suave Spanish Style"

hello family and friends - i would like to clarify that this quote comes from mr. kurthager himself (i very much like him any way he dresses). but now that we are in spain, he has set out to get some spanish clothing. we are trying to take advantage of the rebajas (sales) in every store window, and today we had a very successful day finding the good deals. we both bought some nice new (comfortable) shoes, as our feet are starting to hurt from all the walking. they are pretty chic, i must say. then we took our imminent trip to zara and kurt got some great slimfit collared shirts - pictures coming, promise! - that look GREAT on him. we ended the day with kurt getting a new messenger bag, as the $25 one he ordered on expedited shipping for $20 extra (i know, right?) arrived right after our plane left minneapolis. and, in case you were wondering, kurt's scarf count is officially up to 4, so that's fun!

my host family is pretty amazing. they are a retired couple, josé and dolores, with three adult children, two of which have lunch with me at the house during the week. maria at 29 is closest to my age, and has a 6-month old daughter that is at the house while she works. so i have my dose of small children and grandparents that i don't get on the college campus! my host-grandpa is the best - he wants to be like my dad so much that he set the table and tried to cook lunch today while dolores was gone. so precious. he always asks me to go on walks and shows me around the city. but he doesn't believe i can walk as far as him so we are going to have a little competition this week and see who stops first. now that i have my comfy shoes, i am sure to win!

results later.

Many adventures later, I arrived safely in Sevilla

Highlights, post-Germany:

- we never would have found our hostel in Madrid unless we had met a red-headed British man (whom we fondly named Richard) who happened to live in a flat nearby
- we learned how to eat tapas the real Madrid way with Fernando, a family friend and former foreign exchange student in my cousin's house
- a day-trip (on the fast-train!) to Segovia to see the ancient Roman aqueduct
- 4 days in Granada (oops actually 5 because we got our dates wrong for the last four months, thinking our program started a day earlier), during which we met many international travelers staying at our hostel. The most memorable one was an Aussie named Dave (read: Dive) that cannot speak a word of Spanish whom was somehow dating our hostel owner Lidia that could not speak a word of English. Nice.
- many free tapas in Granada, as every time you order a drink you receive a free tapa (a great way to get dinner for under 4 euro)
- a marvelous rendezvous with high school friends in Granada, both of which I hadn't seen since graduation
- a trip to the Arab baths, in which you soak in pools of many different temperatures and receive a wonderful massage (and we could justify spending the money because we got it for 2 for the price of 1!)
- after hiking for the afternoon in the hills above Granada, we stumbled upon a gourmet Spanish BBQ and tapas restaurant that overlooked the whole city - since we had arrived too late for lunch, we returned the next day for one of the best lunches of our lives!

After a wonderful 12 days of travel, a week of which was in Spain, I have arrived in my new home city of Sevilla. The red-eyed travelers on my program, many of which had had flights canceled in Madrid, forcing them to journey here on the four-hour train ride, add up to close to 200. We are separated into 10 different orientation groups. Here we go! Orientate me!

Spätzle

Hallo from Deutchland!

Fresh off almost 14 hours of plane travel, we arrived in the beautiful city of Stuttgart, Germany. We ate lunch at the Panorama Cafe, which is on the top of the tallest tower in all the land - and victim to 60 mph winds that day...After an afternoon exploring the city we drove to Ebhausen where Lisa and the Ensslen family live. It is a quaint village right at the edge of the Black Forest, and the home of many memories made these last few days. It was very special to be in Lisa's house after having her live with us in California.

Every food we ate was very good. We ate lots of good breads and cheese and - of course - many types of German sausage! Our favorite food was spätzle. Lisa has made it many times, and we ate it almost every day. It is a type of German pasta that you make from scratch by combining flour, egg, and salt, putting through a spätzle maker and boiling in hot water. Perhaps the most memorable part of the weekend was when Lisa's father, who has never made spätzle before, made a new German food creation with the new, modern 'Spätzle Shaker', the magical tool that allows everyone, even Americans, to make this fabulous dish! He excitedly told me, 'Sarah, zis is first time I make spätzle too!' Unfortunately, it did not go as planned - so we fried it and added cheese, which formed a sort of German mac 'n' cheese that all but Lisa ate (the stubborn girl). This is what happens with Lisa's mom leaves the house for dinner...

We enjoyed exploring the surrounding area, seeing the neighboring villages, and walking for two hours in the rain today to get lunch at the top of a mountain - many memories were made in this country! After a wonderful four days in Germany, we say goodbye and leave on the plane for Madrid tomorrow morning for our next adventure with the hopes that Lisa will come see us soon. More later!