Feria Photos

All of these photos are either of Feria, learning to dance with my Senora, GIANT cotton candies, or the futbol game, I forgot to mention I attended!

Trip to Italy was cancelled...So I did the next best thing...FERIA!

So this past week we had no school as it is the feria de abril in Sevilla. This celebration is famed around the world and draws in over 1.000.000 visitors during the week. For the most part, Sevillanos don't work on this week, but rather party...and I must admit, they do it right. The fair began in 1847, when it was originally a livestock fair, in true sevillano style, two years later, the fair had transformed into this "feria." The feria begins on Monday at midnight, when the main gate to the fair grounds is illuminated, it is completley covered in lights. Also at this time, they illuminate all the lights on the streets through the grounds. Each year the design of the main gateway changes! Each day the fair begins with horse-drawn carriages parading through the streets, and also men on hoseback dressed in traditional costumes, it isn't rare to see their novia (lady-friend) riding side-saddle on the back in her traditional flamenco dress. Almost all the women wear flamenco get ups, complete with a flower in their hair. These dresses are what I would compare to our prom dresses, very expensive, with styles changing every year! Let me quickly explain what a caseta is, this way when I refer to them later, it is easy to understand. A caseta, is basically a party tent, pretty narrow, normally, and long. In the back you'll find a bar and in the front tables. They are each ornately decorated with lace covering the walls, and the ceiling is draped with lace also. Often there are crystal chandeliers and paintings on the walls, each one is beautiful in its own way. The catch about the casetas is, that they are often owned by a prominent family, a group of friends, a company, a church, a political party, etc. There are public casetas, but they are crowded, and dirty. To really enjoy feria, you need to know someone with a caseta, or have your own. They owners hire secuirty guards, cooks, bartenders, people to set up/tear down, clean, etc. This way when they show up with guests, they just enjoy. Everyone goes to their caseta and normally spends the enitre day and night and morning, enjoying the Sevillana music (similar to flamenco), dances, eats, laughs, and drinks the traditional feria drink. The drink is called "rebujito" and is made of sherry-like white wine mixed with 7-up. There are no rules to feria, or age limits. Everyone drinks, and everyone dances. To the Spanish it is like Vegas, what happens at feria stays at feria...no shame. I don't know how they do it ,but they drink the rebujito out of dixie cups and after 3 or 4, they are slap happy drunk....and I thought I was a light-weight. On the nights I went with Americans, it was easy to convince people to let us into their casetas by saying we were American tourists and wanted to experience the real feria. I even learned a few steps of the Sevillana along the week! Truely, though they really know how to party and celebrate their culture. Never before in my life have I experienced such a wide-spread physical manifestation of culture. It was beautiful! Also during every day of feria there is bull-fight, usually with a prominent fighter.
So, since my trip to Italy was cancelled, thanks to the Volcano, I spend Monday-Thursday at feria, and blended in as a Sevillana by not going home before 5 am any day! I went a few times with Spanish friends and others with Americans. I don't know how they do it, but you can see people of every age at feria, still at 5,6, or 7 am! One spectacle I saw that particularily struck me was when I was waiting in line for a taxi. There was a live band in one caseta, and honestly, every single person that walked by, couldn't help themselves but to dance a little. I watched for about 10 mins, and it was amazing, man,woman, child, old, young....they are did a few steps of their sevillana(the dance) passing by...it was surreal. Needless to say all the dancing and walking, and drinking, and eating , and talking, and celebrating...I spent the rest of the week at home, sick. By Sunday I was up and ready to go for one more dose of straight Spanish culture. I went to my first bull-fight! Sevilla is one of the best known cities for bull-fighting as it originated in Andalucia. The bull-ring here was built beginning in 1749, that is older that our U.S.A! The bull-fight, although, grusome, is something truley artistic and very astounding to see. Each matador, there are 3, kill 2 bulls each. First the bulls are tempted by the young matadors, then by horses, and finally killed by the head matador. I won't get into too many gross details, but a lot of stabbing goes on. I did get to see two bulls that were especially tough, one they even had to take out of the ring for a bit to repair some damage, and get him riled up to play/fight. The manner of maneuvering the bull back out of the ring, alive (usually they only take them out after they have killed them) is by sending in 6 white bulls to try and lure him to them and back out of the ring. I have to say, watching the bulls come out and just start chasing the matadors, I couldn't help but think of them as testosterone-jacked teenage boys. Wanting a fight, no matter what, win or lose, just want to fight and get super physical. Needless to say, this definitely added to my culture-heavy week. The feria ends on Sunday night at midnight with some fireworks, Iwent to one of the bridges over the Guadalquivir River and watched with some Spanish friends.After this amazing week, I think I can begin to understand how each Sevillano/a that I have met has an enormous amount of pride for thier land and thier culture. They all grow up celebrating it, learning it, living it. Unfortunately this is something I think we are missing out on at home. I met a girl this week that said her parents went to Paris and Italy for a trip, saw all the big sights, and came home and said, "it was nice, but it wasn't my Giralda." (The Giralda is the tower to the Cathedral of Sevilla, originally built by moors.) This epitomizes the sentiment and pride of nearly all the Sevillanos that I have spoken with, I think it is a wonderfully strong, and beautiful attribute.
I can't say I regret not getting to Cinque Terre, Italy, because I had such a rich week here in Sevilla.
On another note, I don't want to talk about...things are getting busy in classes/ winding down, which I realized I never mentioned. I am in four business classes, all taught in Spanish: International Services Management, International Corporate Finance, International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, and European Economics. These next few weeks will be sweet, and busy, but I'll be sure to soak up every last minute and fill it with more and more memories!

Moroccan Photos/ Mom and Jake take Sevilla

AFRICA - Morocco

This weekend can be summed up by two words: eye-opening. My program took us on a trip to Morocco, we took several buses and a ferry to arrive to the city of Ceuta on Thursday. The ferry ride was awful, such rough waters on the Mediterranean...I, and many others got sick. This city is a property of Spain, so from there we took another bus to get to the Moroccan border (CRAZY, people crossing it on foot, car, or through the mountains!) and then we headed for Tetuan. Tetuan is an extremely traditional city, eveywhere we looked we saw women in full burkas, even their eyes were covered with a sheer fabric. In this city we had a tour through the original-walled city center, or medina. It is filled full of narrow, winding streets, packed with people shopping at the small food stands that are set up everywhere. Our group was about 45, so we had security guards at either end and in between in our group. They told us if we leave the group, we will stay there and make Moroccan babies, never leave...ever. The most interesting thing we learned on this trip was that every Muslim city has five features: a fountain, a school, a mosque, turkish bath, and a community oven. The oven is used at three times during the day, the a.m for bread, the afternoon for dinner foods, and the evening for desserts and sweets! It is surreal to me to think that people don't have stoves or ovens in their homes! It was interesting to me to find out that there is no specific time each day that the 5 prayers occur in Islam. Rather, it depends on the sun, because of this , there are loud-speakers throughout the city to announce prayer time. We heard this announcement and noticed people rushing toward the mosque. If you are occupied, generally you finish your task and then go to pray. Also, we learned the two most important days to a mulsim are the last day of Ramadan, and the day they die. Also in Tetuan, we toured an Artisan school where young kids go to learn the trades. The workmanship was astonishing and took so much focus, you'll see in the photos!
Onto Moroccan cuisine! We ate in all high end restaurants to avoid, the best we could, people getting sick. Some of the food we had included, soup, cous cous, ke-bab, fish, more ke-bab and tea with desserts...and more tea. The Moroccan people love their tea, it is very sweet made with mint and some flowers in it. We drank it after and between every meal. Even though we ate well, we had to avoid the water at all costs, brushing our teeth with bottled water. We stayed in a four star hotel, but is still by what any of us would consider, not that nice. Despite, the small amount of "roughing it" it was an amazing experience. The Moroccan people love America and Americans. In fact, Morocco was the first country in the world to recognize the U.S.A as an independent country. I understand the main reason for this is because they are desperatly trying to westernize their country and to particpate in international trade and commerce. Also, Moroccans are some of the most television-watching people in the world...they love the Simpsons, similar to every Spanish person I have met. This is often their perception of American families, but they love it.
On Friday we woke up early and took the bus to Tangier. This is the second largest city in Morocco and much more cosmopolitan. There were fewer women wearing burkas, more people in general, more commerce, and an actual city center! We toured the city, and quickly learned to ignore the small children that try to sell gum, tissues, etc. Our guide, Abdel, told us that we shouldn't give them money because if they continue to earn money, their parents won't send them to school. With a literacy rate of 40%, you can imagine the problem. Also in Tangier, we toured the Coca-Cola facotry and saw how some of their operations management works. From there, we met up with Moroccan students, who cam with us to visit some caves, and then took us to their University for a tour. They have an extreme amount of pride in their school becuase it is a priveledge for them to attend university. In Tangier, we got to ride camels...in a parking lot. This goes to show that the sterotype we commonly have about Africa and camels doesn't hold true in Morocco. Most of the students had never ridden a camel either. We got some free time in the market-place where you could find knock-offs of everything and anything! Bartering was really the fun part here! We felt rich because 1 euro is equal to a little over 100 der hams (their money).
On day three we made our way to a mountain city called, Chefchaoen. All the buildings are built along the mountain side and are painted white and blue, not that different from Santorini. This city is also very traditional. We got a tour through the winding, hilly streets, where we learned that the people who live in the surrounding towns that come from the mountains every Monday and Thursday to participate in the market. We also got free time in this market place where we found a lot more traditional artesinal goods! The city of Chefchaoen and Tetuan were the most eye-opening. We have so much and are so fortunate. Although these people also live happy lives with their families, they all live in the same house. Also, we saw women doing laundry in the river. We visited a tannery (Worst smell in my life) where young boys work to learn the trade, they work up to their armpits in water holes with fresh hides...it was unbeliveable. The mint stem they gave us to help curb the scent was useless. Just small luxuries we are used too, for example, no flies in a hotel lobby, everywhere...are hard to come by there. Another striking sight was the Moroccan border, this is probably just because I have never been to a border before, but people were being hand-cuffed and dragged off, the lines were so long, and there were a lot of people in the mountains crossing. I spent my 22nd birthday in Chefchaoen on Saturday and traveling back to Sevilla, luckily the ferry ride back was much smoother. My senora, friends, and roomate all worked to make my day special. Coming home to a gift, a note, and cake to share with my friends was very sweet of Araceli. Needless to say, this weekend was yet again amazing....and I can officially say that I have been to 3 continents!

Spring Break Photos