España - Day 2

I know that I am in Spain because

• the Spanish flows rapidly and passionately with a soft sigh replacing the letter ¨c¨
• the palm trees and bouganvilla are exuberant but carefully trimmed and tended
• the keyboard arrangement allows me to use correct punctuation without resorting to key codes for some marks.

Espresso coffee, toast and yogurt for breakfast is our attempt to keep our eating in perspective. Christina, our host mom, has prepared a refrigerator full of wonderful food for us to eat this weekend while she is away. She is leaving with her friend Mercedes to participate in the Romeria del Rocio, a promise that she made to her dying mother. For more than 20 years she has made this pilgrimage which dates back to the 13th century. People from around the world take part, with thousands flooding into El Rocio, a village of approximately 1,200. Christina says that it is an important observance; however, it is far from solemn. Revelry, costumes, singing and dance are the order of the days. The festival definitely goes on the ¨next year¨ list.

Two more engineering students arrived yesterday. We visited with one here at the TTU center and met another on the sidewalk as we walked back to our casa. How strange it was to be greeted with familiarity in the street. They should all be converging on Sevilla today.

This morning, we ventured to the Cortes de Ingles, the largest shopping center in Sevilla. It is a mixture of exterior and mall storefronts, spread across one complete block. With the soccer stadium directly across the street, I´m sure that we will be returning for a match as the soccer draws to a close for the local teams.

Tonight, we venture out for a small round of tapas and vino and then back to the casa for the delicious supper Christina has prepared.

My head is awhirl with Spanish.

España - Day 1

Flying over the length of Spain to Madrid, the land below looked familiar and strange. Mountains, small but snow-capped, off to the east, and rolling hills with olive orchards reminded us of past and present homes. After navigating Madrid-Barajas airport and the Atocha train station, both with mutiple levels between which to pull suitcases up and down ramps and escalators, the scenes swishing past our windows on the high-speed AVE train to Sevilla invited comparisons to West Texas, the Hill Country and the Valley.

The dryness and miles of fields reminded us of the caprock as did the wind turbines. The orchards, palm trees, bouganvilla and white houses with red tiled roofs show the Spainish influence promoted by the land developers of much of the Valley. The rolling hills covered with oak trees of Wimberley could have been directly transplanted from Andalucia.

Sevilla is already revealing itself to us. For the next two months, we will live in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, defined by its entwined, cobbled streets and the crosses found in it´s eponymous plaza and elsewhere. Our host mother already mothers us as we all struggle to overcome our limited understanding of each other´s language. Christina is a delight and has fallen in love with us as we have with her.

A brief walk in the gardens of the Alcazar where a more unfortunate reminder of past homes. Trees and shrubs are gloriously in bloom, oleander, Spanish broom, jacaranda, chaste tree and more, triggering long dormant allergies to burst out vigorously. Farmacias are numerous so relief is just a short stroll away.

The TTU campus occupies the second floor of a building covering approximately one-quarter of a block. As with most buildings in a centuries old city, it has been rebuilt and enlarged many times, making it impossible to find even one corner that is square.

Students we have met seem glad to see friendly faces and bubble over with the excitement of their adventures.

Off to the farmacia, now, and then later out for drinks and tapas, perhaps.

I wonder if Tuesdays can be beach day for engineering students. The Spanish, business and architecture students say the beach is wonderful on that day.