Not Arriving

Carmona

2011-06-19T14:10:00.009-05:00

Strategic. Carmona, a rook, in Spain's chessboard history. A natural escarpment overlooking, controlling the fertile fields and navigable rivers beyond. To the south, one weak point secured by Carthaginians to Romans to Spaniards with fortified walls--sticks, stones and bones. At the far end, a crematorium still scorched by the fires of Roman dead.

Raining in Spain

2011-06-19T13:49:00.008-05:00

June 6. Rain! Thunder rolls across rooftops, punctuated by bolts of lightning. I am not the tallest point by many meters. I linger in the cool air. It will not last the summer.

Calatrava's bridge and the Torre de los Perdigones just outside the old city perimeter offer better strikes, the tower's camera obscura able to capture but not record such a blinding hit.

I imagine hailstones falling in the warm Sevilla air, climatological perdigones (musket pellets) roundng as they drop from such great height.

Papiroflexia o Pinturas Andaluza

2011-06-09T12:50:00.019-05:00

The Bellver Collection evokes the Andalucia of Carmen, its paintings by her native and not-so-native sons fill the walls of two galleries at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla. Romance, in the art history sense--señoritas flashing dark eyes from behind their mantillas and abanicos (fans). Zurbarán, Becquer, Murillo, Gonzalo Bilbao. . . Iterations of popular culture well into mid-century modern.

A museum guard mans the desk at the entrance, folding minute pieces of paper. Origami nazarenos. Costumbres populares. Paper folded, formed.

Pistola de Fumar

2011-05-28T11:12:00.013-05:00

She is dressed casually but carefully, her jeans and red blouse precisely creased. Her nails and hair speak of frequent applications of color, again considered and tasteful.

Alone, she sits at the small aluminum table, an extension of the café into the Plaza San Lorenzo next to the Basilica de Jesus de Gran Poder. Stacked and shuffled in front of her on the table are three packages of unfiltered Marlboros and a lighter. She opens a pack, slides out a cigarette and places it between her lips where it remains as she lights it and puffs continously on it with deep but rapid draws, the oily dark smoke clouding the air in front of her and bathing her tanned face.

When the cigarette is one-quarter ash, she anchors it between the fingers of her left hand and begins the rhythmic sweep of hand to mouth and down to flick the ashes on the rapidly shortening cigarette.

As the cigarette sweeps downward, her lips move in a silent mantra. To the mouth, long drag and then down with a flick to punctuate the cigarette´s upward sweep. Again and again.

This meditation on and of death continues through five cigarettes with only infrequent pauses to glance at her watch and a retrieval of four more packs of cigarettes from her purse in her lap.

No surcease, no redemption with Spain´s banning of smoking in interior public spaces. Each sweep of her hand is a prayer to nicotine's balm and a kiss to its faustian bargain.

Arrivals

2011-05-22T07:07:00.004-05:00

Arrivals come in many guises--advents of adventure, trepidations of newness, certainties of familiarity. A third summer in Sevilla parses each complexly. Words, phrases, and conversations dust off more readily; cultural timidity bows to personal urgency. Language and its acquisition are thought and action, noun and verb this summer. Bienvenidos á España!

To Market, To Market

2010-07-06T01:33:00.024-05:00

An open-air market, filled with sights, sounds, and smells of everything fresh, unfolds each morning. It is the season of brilliantly red tomatoes (tomates) at 1,90 € per kilo, truthfully delicious cherries (cerezas), glossily purple eggplants (berenjenas), and radiantly yellow lemons (limones). Shopping is personal, and purchases are quickly and skillfully wrapped in cones of heavy craft paper for the journey home. Pointing is easy; knowing all the names gets easier.

This day’s lunch includes beets (alas, remolachas proves elusive) and shrimp (gambas). And, a fish by any other name, and shape, and size--still intimidating, still fishy.

This day's dinner consists of white beans (alubias) like grandmother used to make (al estilo de la Abuela; canned, yes, but excellent!) with small sausages (parrillada minis) including goat and pork sausage (criollo y longaniza), spicy sausage (chorizo picante) and blood sausage (morcilla). So much better than the pork 'n beans Campbell's still makes!

Llegar: To Arrive

2010-07-01T10:50:00.029-05:00

The apartment is an IKEA showroom—neo-minimalism—living room to kitchen to bedroom to bath. It is enough. White walls and marble floors suggest coolness even as the temperatures begin to climb. Mosquitoes, vestiges of the rainy winter and spring, somehow elude the breezy, net curtains draping the full-length windows that open onto tiny balconies. Sounds visit from windows stationed ear-to-ear, eye-to-eye, dogs barking, flamenco guitar drifting, babies crying; Sevilla is a city, after all.

Home, this month, is the Macarena neighborhood, Sevilla’s SoHo or Austin, stretching out along the Alameda de Hercules, a former stretch of the rio Guadalquivir now paved for pedestrians and sprouting water spouts to cool the air and the pavement. Dogs and naked little children run through the gentle founts; older children fill water balloons and water cannons at public spigots.

Still, it is paradoxical, this barrio of free spirits. The Basilica of the Macarena stands at a refurbished gate into the ancient city, an intact remnant of the city walls stretching to the east and then south.

The Macarena, the Virgin of Hope, lives in the Basilica, zealously guarded by her chartered hermandad (fraternity charged with the Church’s Samaritan work, and the preservation and veneration of the Macarena). Her crystal tears trace a path of sorrow down her polychrome wood face. The museum, adjacent to the 19th-century basilica, showcases the paso (float) on which the Macarena is carried through the streets of Sevilla to the Catedral and back again. Another paso depicts Pontius Pilate pronouncing the death sentence, life-size figures filling this portable diorama of piety, betrayal and admonition.

The hermandad find new vigor in the 20’s and 30’s. One Sr. Rodriguez Ojedo re-envisions the procession to grander heights of theater. New costumes for the processors in the form of Roman soldiers with breastplates, new trousseau for the Macarena, encrusted with hundreds of hours of gold and silver threaded embroidery covering acres of flowing velvet cloaks and gowns.

And, new cloaks and knotted capes for penitents, velvet hoods that cover the face except for the eyes and that tower to a single, sharp point.

Spirit and property of this hermandad (including the Macarena) survive the civil war intact. Nationalism flavors their rhetoric, highlighted by the burial of Franco’s brother in the Basilica itself, an uncommon burial for a common, lay soldier. The penitentes’ hoods offer striking and unsettling reminders of another group dedicated to intolerance.

Leaving

2010-06-21T04:54:00.009-05:00

A plastic shopping bag dances around the jet. Baggage handlers and pilot on inspection focus on tasks; we focus on engine air intake and wait. A large red bag and a large black bag escalate into the hold. Sevilla waits for us at the end of 14-hour travel.

Silence

2010-06-12T18:13:00.007-05:00

A year slips by. Words and cadences hover under the surface. Spanish! Well-thumbed pages and broken spine spring to life, a new backbone stiffens resolve--mine and the dictionary's.

Sevilla beckons.

Spanish Dictionary

2009-07-31T11:41:00.003-05:00

The Spanish/English dictionary no longer tags along in my purse— instant access, tangible answers to unraveling the unknowns of Spanish. Well-thumbed pages and separated binding witness its use. Cheat sheets of verb conjugations struggle to find their place in unglued pages.

This summer of Spain is over. But annotations for my dictionary of Spain still pend, harder now with a keyboard bare of accented vowels.

¿Quién sabe que aventura viene próximo?

Música en Los Jardines del Real Alcázar

2009-07-23T02:27:00.008-05:00

I enter the gates of the gardens of the Alcázar, resigned to the bothers of open-air concerts--mosquitoes, heat, traffic noise. My list is long and personal.

Inside, I feel a manton of peace settle around me. Tranquilo, as C says at the house. The gardens work their magic.

Música Prima takes the stage, and the city melts away. There is only this--clear sky, cooling winds swaying the sky-sweeping palm trees, and music from the Middle Ages.

It is the International Year of Reconciliation. Period instruments weave a fabric of music--Christian, Sephardic Jew and Islamic--distinct but nuanced by years of intwined existence. Strings and percussion carry the notes with familiar shapes and sounds; wind intrigues with mechanical rarities, organetto, a portable pipe organ, and zanfoña, a hurdy-gurdy.

Literal meaning takes shape as familiar words emerge here and there in explanation and lyric. It is the music itself, though, that transcends spoken word, a way of knowing through the centuries.

The church bell, when it finally tolls, loses it metallic harshness and drifts into the soft night air, an anonymous fourth to the group´s trio.

Cloudy, With No Chance of Rain

2009-07-20T12:41:00.005-05:00

For an hour or six this morning, Sevilla´s empty blue sky greyed, hinting at the possiblity of rain. Was that a drop just now? Alas, only the condensate from the air conditioners overhead. Wewake from siesta to perennial azure.

El Parque de María Luisa

2009-07-15T06:44:00.028-05:00

Between the Rio Guadalquivir and the Plaza de España lies El Parque de María Luisa, a multi-faceted green jewel in a much-paved city. Among the eucalyptus, palm and jacaranda trees I am Lilliputian, dwarfed by their height and girth. The colossal flora are emphemera of a different era, Sevilla´s breath, held in times of crisis and carefully exhaled in times of rebirth.

Originally, the gardens of the palace of San Telmo, patron saint of mariners, the Duchess of Bourbon gave them to Sevilla. They sat neglected until the city incorporated them into the grand setting for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition--a showcase for the pavilions of the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies.

Fortunes rise and fall. The 1929 Ibero-American Exposition failed to generate the hoped-for economic boost for Spain and Portugal, opening as the stock market crashed. Revolutions and civil wars sent the park, once Sevilla´s only public park, into neglect again. It rises once more, a splendid setting for the museums that now occupy the former pavilions of the 1929 expostion.

A small gem emerges from the green, glimpses of azure and terracotta teasing through the shrubs. The tiled pool sits quietly among the eucalyptus, their leaves floating serenely on the water´s surface.

On a raised backdrop, a ceramic relief shows two caravels, their sails filled with wind. This small, outdoor room honors Los Hermanos Álvarez Quintero, Serafín and Joaquín, beloved writers of plays, dramas, and the quintessential zarzuela. Their works, extremely popular in the early twentieth century, a rebirth of Spanish theatre.

A small banner floats across the top of the relief, "Un mismo aliento impulsa las dos velas...."

A single breath pushes two ships....

In El Parque de María Luisa, I hear Spain, its breath soughing through the jacarandas, pushing this rebirth of its Andalusian heritage.

¡Hay Cucarachas!

2009-07-08T09:54:00.009-05:00

Shrieks. Staccatoed footsteps. PSSSSSSSSSSST! of aerosol spray. Another roach lies writhing on a sidewalk in España, chased from house and home by indignant women. Ningunas de los mujeres españolas aplasta las cucarachas con sus zapatos. (No Spanish women squash cockroaches with their shoes.) Shivers and goosebumps testify to their repulsion, the personal affront.

La Cucaracha, the corrido popularized in the Americas during the Mexican Revolution may have emerged in Spain much earlier. A compilation of folk music published in Sevilla in 1883 references earlier lyrics alluding to the Reconquista in 1492.

1492. The last year of the 69th Chinese sexegenary cycle, a yin water bug year. Waterbug, another name for cockroach. Spread throughout the world via ships.

Stolen Moments - Madrid

2009-07-06T11:48:00.129-05:00

I remain at odds with Madrid. It shows. I stall, trying to decide what to say and what not to say. It has been nearly one month. The muscles at the base of my neck contract.

I can say the Juan Muñoz retrospective at the Museo Nacional de Art Reina Sofía was delightful, engaging. I could have spent hours there, wandering among the galleries, looking at the playfulness of the work, a rapt audience to his creative vision and energy.
I can say that the Reina Sofía´s contribution to the 2009 PhotoEspaña, The Atlas Group (1989-2004) Un proyecto de Walid Raad, is a powerful archive of Lebanon´s civil war, documented through both the quotidian and the unimaginable.

Secrets in the Open Seas made concrete the power of saying less in its series of four prints in various shades of blue, color chips from a paint store in which the price was too high. At the bottom of each image, a Pantone number identifies the tint and a single strip of images, printed as if contact prints from a single roll of film, tells the story of the group photographs each frame contained. The images, taken from 29 photographic prints in varying shades of blue, were found in the rubble of Beirut´s downtown commercial district. Every person in the photographs, man and woman, identified by The Atlas Group. Every person dead, in the Mediterranean, during the years of the war.

I can say the Museo Nacional del Prado is magnificent--Guernica, and Picasso's series of charcoal studies of the horrified mother cry out at the unimaginable. So much to see and absorb, the Joaquín Sorolla exhibit is a casualty.

I can say that the Museo de Arte Thyssen-Bornemisza reveals the passion of collecting art, personalizing its depth and highlighting its idiosyncrasies. I can say the museo´s temporary exhibition, Matisse: 1917-1941, is intriguing, revealing the artist´s path in his middle years. Gallery 5, focusing on form, particularly his nudes and the study for the Dance Mural Composition, captures the tension of his work in the early 1930´s.

I can say that My Things, an exhibition of work by Beijing artist Hong Hao at La Galería de Art Dolores de Sierra, part of PhotoEspaña, overwhelms me in a meticulous Where´s Waldo dimension. The minutae of his life broadens into a mosaic that resonates in Spain but offers me nothing new.

I can say that Petra's International Bookshop is a stolen gem of one morning´s hour, a Charing Cross transplant down a small, tucked away Madrid street. An ex-pat's oasis of English language books, some beloved and some still in line on the same shelf since the 1970's. In a word, it is tiny, stacked full of used books, some still in the suitcases in which they were purchased. A pen-and-ink portrait of Petra, the bookshop's eponymous cat, hangs in memorium over the shelf entitled,"Chick Lit." It is about the books; it is about being able to hold them in hand.

I can say that I am left wanting. I reach Madrid Sunday afternoon, too late to visit El Rastro, the famous Madrid flea market. S and I venture forth on a weekday, determined to ferret out some of the shops that parallel the streets that brim with blanket vendors on Sunday mornings. Treasures abound. I find wooden bobbins for making lace. S finds three fans, hand-painted and restorable, and a toy boxed compass. She wins.

I can say that having someone in your group who speaks Arabic and knows Moroccan cuisine can yield the best dining experience of a trip. Mint tea, tagines, incredible. Thank you, S!

I can say that the Madrid Metro is a den of thieves. W loses his camera and euros in two separate incidents. His face tells the story.

I can say that Madrid must work hard to win my affection, despite some stolen moments.

Alhambra - The Red One

2009-07-06T11:48:00.079-05:00

The bus winds its way up the hillside, impossibly long bus, impossibly tight corners. Impossible to see even a glimpse of this modern world wonder.

Alhambra-fortress and palace-the red one. It sits atop its hill, guarding the view of Gránada below and hiding its incredible beauty until it slowly unfolds through the Islamic aesthetic of tranquility, cleansing through sight, sound, and scent.

Gardens of roses, orange trees, myrtle and more frame the walls of the fortress and the palace, kept in impeccable array by an army of gardeners.

Intricately carved plaster evokes both elaborate piped icing and continuously forming stalactites, invoking Allah in the repetitive calligraphy and motifs that cover vast walls and ceilings.

Finely tuned geometric patterns dance across richly colored mosaic tile, fancifully interpreting mysteries such as the heavens and the oceans.

Coffered ceilings, pieced from honeyed wood richly highlighted with gold and paint, warm the heavens they represent.

Water burbles softly from serene marble fountains and flows gently in gazing pools lest the view be distorted. They are fonts of gentle sound, saving symphonic overtures for the sea just beyond the mountains to the south.

Quintessential Mudéjar architecture, isolated from mainland Islamic influence, allowed to grow and literally flourish at the hands of hundreds of skilled artists and artisans.

An earthly paradise.

Museos de Sevilla - Archivo General de Indias

2009-07-06T11:48:00.045-05:00

Every building in Sevilla´s center is a museum, intact exteriors and extant subterrany, thousands of lifetimes. Constructions projects surely factor in archeological studies as part of the timeline. How much higher is street level in modern times--10 feet, 20 feet, or more?

El Archivo General de Indias captured my imagination in an exhibit called El hila de memoria, The Threads of Memory: Three Centuries of Spanish Presence in the United States. From 1513 to 1822, Spain explored, established missions and forts, and supported the United States in its fight for independence. The exhibit says that this presence is unfamiliar to many Spaniards. It is my pentimento, tracings of a language and culture familiar on many levels of my life in Texas.

People, places--Coronado, Álvarez de Pineda, Navarette, Dolores, San Antonio de Bejar, Los Adaes. . . Maps of the Texas coast, muster books for presidios listing pay owed to foot soldiers and commandantes, correspondence from George Washington.

Coastal map of the Gulf of Mexico, 1544
Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla, España

Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Archivo is a treasure trove of original documents detailing Spain´s history in the Americas. Fittingly, it is housed in a building that once served as a merchant´s exchange, the focal point for Spain´s commerce with its empire.

I eye this thread of entwined history with Spain; it is not yet unraveled.

Incisive Moments

2009-07-06T11:47:00.035-05:00

Penas tiene mi mare
penas tengo yo y las que siento
son las de mi mare que las mis no.

Heart wrenching strains of a cante jondo grip my heart and stop me mid-stride.

Overhead the sound bubble showers the aching music over me, drawing me into Prohibido El Cante. Flamenco Y Fotografía, an exhibit at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo.

Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo is a converted monastery, repurposed as a regional arts center. Its walls and spaces echo its cloistered past,

and oddly contain and soften the sounds and images of flamenco captured in the exhibit.

Part of PhotoEspaña, a year-long celebration of photography, the 200 photographs of Prohibido El Cante span an intriguing aesthetic of dance, music, artistic vision and technique. Visually drawn to flamenco, artists such as Robert Capa, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ortiz Echagüe, Isabel Muñoz, Paco Sánchez and 64 others sought to elicit the passion, the movement through gelatin silver, photogravure, carbon fresson and other photographic processes.

MAN RAY
Danzas horizontales, 1934
copy of original in Georges Pompidou Center, Paris

ARCHIVO SERRANO
Academía de baíle del Maestro Otero, Sevilla, ca. 1905
Copy of original, Fototeca Municipal de Sevilla

In the end, though, flamenco is about attitude.

Summer

2009-07-01T13:27:00.003-05:00

Sevilla´s hearth stones--sidewalks, streets, buildings--slowly regain their ancient heat. Pedestrians trace shadows of buildings with steps slowed by calendar pages. Tucked away in shaded corners, coolness lingers, poised to extend a delicate finger. A touch, a remnant of spring.

For Want of A Good Map

2009-06-29T07:03:00.049-05:00

We board the train for Puerto de Santa María, in search of salt water, in search of the people who sailed miles of blue water only to come up short in expectation but long in exploration and, sadly, exploitation.

Google maps can be wrong, as wrong as the many hand-drawn maps of the West Indies and the traced edges of two continents. We follow our map and walk a mile and another half before turning around to backtrack, to head in the right direction from the train station.

At last, we recognize where we are, a seaside town, seagulls overhead, masts with their halyards clanging in the distance, and the faint odor of a port, seasoned with sailors, salt, tobacco, and here, sherry. Our hotel sits next to the quay where boats tied up to take on water, cargos, crew. Down the street, water, no longer potable, still pours from spigots where ships, including those of the Colón family filled their casks for trans-Atlantic voyages.

Smaller than Sevilla, Puerto de Santa María sits across the Bahía de Cadíz from Cadíz proper. It looks out to the Atlantic, still west of Gilbraltar, of the Pillars of Hercules guarding the Mediterranean. There are the expected sidewalk cafés, narrow cobbled streets, confetti and rosemary remains of Corpus Christi processions, and a small, brown beach.

There is a community cultural center displaying the work of a local artist, paintings of the waterfront and of his apartment. In the foyer, a model of La Niña draws us to its case and to the map of the new world, made shortly after the turn of the 14th century. It is flowered with compass roses that orient the many lines radiating from their centers, headings that led mariners across the Atlantic and beyond.

Drawn by Juan de la Cosa in 1500, pilot for the Colón voyages and owner of the Santa María, it is the first map to show the coastline of the Americas. We find his memorial, tucked away behind the Castillo de San Marcos, built by Alfonso X as a church castle. A Cristina Carreño bust of de la Cosa shouts defiance and arrogance. What can be said about a man who redrew history!

There is a central meat and fish market, new, clean, filled with meat, meat and more seafood than we can begin to identify. I ask to photograph a case brimming with fish, shellfish and crustaceans of every imaginable and unimaginable shape and size. The fishmonger holds up a giant lobster, its eyes visibly twirling as it tries to make sense of where it is.

There are also sherry bodegas, strategically built close to the wharves to disburse this liquid gold around the world. Sherry is a fortified wine, produced only in the triangle of soil, sea air and sun of southern Andalucía and capable of withstanding long ocean voyages. We sign up for a tour and tasting.

A few steps beyond our hotel, we enter the dark cloistered world of the sherry bodega, literally. Sherry bodegas are built like churches with steeply pitched roofs to siphon off hot summer temperatures. Natural climate control. Inside, American oak barrels, stacked in an offset pattern three high, exude the sweetish, vinegary smell of yeast at work and form the basis of the solera system used to maintain consistency. Fino, manzanilla, amantillado, olorosa, each variety is a far cry from the familiar cream sherry so popular in Great Britain.

On our way to the tasting room, we pass barrels signed in white chalk by chefs, a marketing strategy to encourage the current resurgence of interest in sherry. Signatured blends by signature chefs. ¨Josep Roca" is florished across a barrel, beneath his handwritten sentiment,"¡Botas llenan de lagrimas!"

Fortified by four varieties of sherry, we board the ferry for Cádiz. Hopes run high for sailboat sightings. At last, a triangle of white appears. This trip we are green with envy, only, not seasickness. One of us is haunted by ferries, of a Great Lakes trip that ends in an unplanned shore run back to the parked car, avoiding a repeat of the outward ferry ride. The bay is calm today. The sea air cools us in the heat but generates its on heat of longing to be under sail.

Cádiz is hot, and we zigzag along shaded sides of the streets to the beach. We have not come with swimsuits, only sandals, so we plunge only our toes in the Atlantic surf. Our return trip tickets send us back to the ferry terminal, and we are rewarded with the sight of 50-foot yacht motorsailing in the bay.

Sunday morning, we breakfast and check our bags before one last Puerta de Santa María excursion. We board a bus, hoping that it takes us within walking distance of a marina across the bay. To change buses, we step off and are told that the bus we want leaves from the bus stop on the opposite side of the traffic circle. We thank the gentleman who has advised us.

It is Sunday. The bus schedule is abbreviated. We sit at the stop, heat building up under its plastic canopy. We are objects of curiosity in this area less frequented by tourists. And yet, we are greeted. One such greeting comes from a twinkley-eyed gentleman, who escorts an older woman. Our return greeting immediately stamps us immediately as tourists. He smiles, and exchanges a few pleasantries with us before indicating that he must continue, for the sake of his companion.

Still no bus. We give up. As we walk toward the hotel, we encounter again, the courtly gentleman and his companion. He delightedly engages us in conversation and introduces us to his companion, his mother-in-law, su suegra. Proudly, he states his good fortune in having such a handsome, young-looking mother-in-law. Because of her, he knows that his wife will be as young and handsome as she grows older. She blushes.

We collect our bags and head to the train station, sitting outside on the platform. We catch the hot afternoon wind and wonder about maps--those generated from billions of bits of electronic data and those generated from sightings, landfalls and legends, from the decks of small wooden ships.

An Unlikely Oasis

2009-06-19T06:37:00.008-05:00

I enter the small tiled street on my way home for comida (lunch). My clothes stick to me in the heat. And then, cool air envelopes me, soothing away Sevilla´s calor, a small oasis found on our daily walks. Today, there is more. A window is open overhead. An aria flows down the plastered walls, it´s origin unknown. I chastise myself for not knowing and then stop. For today, it is enough for the notes to follow me along the street, sprinkling themselves among the sweet, high voices of children going home for siesta.

Munro Leaf and Ernest Hemingway: A Romance

2009-06-17T13:06:00.013-05:00

Leaf and Hemingway are bedfellows, not in the carnal sense, obviously, but in the literary sense. They both romanticized the bullfight, one as a child´s tale of marching to a different drummer: the other as a glorification of manhood. Oversimplication, of course, but interesting reads.

For those who know me, it will come as no surprise that Ferdinand the Bull was one of my favorite books as a child. Wonderful illustrations and a great story about pacifism, personal identity and last, but never least, reading! A keeper that still sits on my bookshelf.

I came much more slowly to Hemingway, to Death in the Afternoon. That also should come as no surprise to those who know me. Steeped in the feminism and pacifism of the 60´s and 70´s, I put off reading anything Hemingway until adulthood. Words, images, a travelogue of places I longed to see.

Growing up in South Texas, bullfights were literally in my backyard, the Reynosa bullring barely 20 miles away. I never attended. I waited until now to attend a bullfight, somehow the thing to do when visiting Spain.

And seeing a corrida on a scorchingly hot afternoon in Sevilla, I think that both Munro Leaf and Ernest Hemingway, somehow, both told the story.

Paradoxes abound. In this bloodletting sport, the Cruz Roja (Spanish Red Cross) rents seat cushions to spectators who must sit on hard, sunbaked brick seats for two hours. It is a fundraiser. The disposal of the bulls includes selling the meat, proceeds from which go to charity. Toreros (matadors, creators of death as I knew them growing up) reap fame and fortune in 15 minutes that can end brutally. Finca (hacienda) owners protect their stock of fighting bulls from human contact to prevent the ¨Ferdinand¨effect. It is about bloodsport and artistry of motion. It is about cultural identity.

Travel is about revelations. On this afternoon in June, in Sevilla, I discover a need to read both Leaf and Hemingway again. I also know that I will not see a corrida again.

Corpus Christi - Feasts and Family

2009-06-17T11:54:00.031-05:00

Cristina´s older brother (75 years old) is here for Corpus Christi. She says that he, Pépe, only comes to visit for the big stuff--Navidad, Semana Santa, Feria Abril, and Corpus Christi. It is perhaps the ultimate of the Christian feast days, the celebration of the gift of the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrement by Jesus Christ. Big stuff, indeed!

In Sevilla, Corpus Christi is a labor intensive event. The hermandades, brotherhoods that once served as local peacekeepers in medival times and now as social services arms of the local parishs, work through the previous day and night to prepare los pasos. Los pasos are elaborately decorated, hand-carried floats that display icons of saints and virgins pertinent to Sevilla, El Niño, the Baby Jesus, and most importantly, the Host.

Early on the day of the procession, the streets of the route are strewn with rosemary. People gather to get favorable positions, with single rows of reserved chairs for the hermandades use lining the tiny streets. Stores along the route create magnificent window displays, enshrining statues of the saints, virgins and El Niño in flowers, lace and gilded ornamentation.

It starts and ends at the Catedral. The pasos, members of the hermandades who carry their emblematic banners and staffs, and the marching band component of the local guard begin the 2+ hour event. In current times, women and children are included in the hermandades. Some staffs are long candles and provide fun and distraction for the children who walk, tipping out the accumulated melted wax or lighting the branches of rosemary readily available at their feet. The scent of hot wax and incensed rosemary drifts with the procession.

The pasos are the primary focus. People rise and stand quietly as they pass. Massive, heavy, unwieldy moveable altars, they are conveyed by as many as 16 people who carry them atop their shoulders. Guides pilot the pasos through the narrow streets, serving as the eyes for the carriers who are hidden from view by heavy drapes of velvet, brocades, and other rich fabrics. We see only their feet, clad in customary white. Coordination of their steps is paramount in keeping the paso moving and, more importantly, upright.

For rest stops, they carefully lower the paso to stand on its own legs, reversing the process when they resume. Handlers signal starts and stops with heavy "doorknockers" mounted on top. Some pasos have a mesh band at eye level that allows carriers to see out and to get air; others move blindly.

The carriers pay for the honor to carry the pasos, usually as penance. The cost is high; forgiveness is rarely cheap.

Ranks of clergy usher the Host paso as it passes slowly and solemnly through the street swollen with onlookers. Military emphatically brings up the rear. Not an unlikely pair of bookends, history often shows. The procession comes full circle back to the Catedral. The crowd melts away into the cafés and bars as the street crew sweeps up the rosemary and sprinkles sand over the dripped wax.

At home, Pépe has already been at siesta for a while. Cristina wakes him, and he joins us for lunch. He wears crisply ironed pajamas. Cristina pesters Pépe, as a little sister does, when W hops up to help clear the table. She is impressed that W actually helps with chores. Pépe gamely hops up with a plate in his hand. Cristina laughs.

The next morning we leave at our usual hour, Cristina and Pépe still asleep in the morning cool. At lunch, he is gone, home until the next fiesta.

Gothically Speaking

2009-06-15T13:49:00.022-05:00

Constructing monumental buildings takes time--procuring materials, placing those materials in ways and places that defy gravity, and incredibly, using those materials to create magnificent works of art. There is no 1% for art in Gothic cathedral construction. Two hours is an insultingly small amount of time for visiting the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and the third largest cathedral in the world. We are pressed for time.

This time, the mosque is razed, save for the minaret transformed into the bell tower, the Giralda. Flying buttresses arch overhead, vaulted ceilings rise to the heavens, stained glass tints sparse natural light, and carved and gilded altars glorify God, Jesus, saints, and a few presumptive nobles. Enormous columns march solemnly in rows, bearing the weight and sinking under it. One very large statics problem.

Private chapels ring the interior, tombs attesting to the regional power of this church, still in use. Parishoners bundle flowers before the main altar, decorating the paso (hand-carried float) that will carry the Host for tomorrow´s observance of Corpus Christi. Bishops lie noblely entombed in marble. Engraved floor panels cover ladder entrances to family vaults, where generations rest, their places reserved through generous donations and patrilineal affiliation. Remains lie in boxes, consigned to smaller containers after lying in coffins until only bones remain.

Columbus lies at rest here, or at least, a part of him does. His remains make several more voyages before coming to rest in Sevilla. The bones in this tomb are his, genetic testing says this is so. It is simply that not all of the bones are here. Claims to his final resting place abound in the Americas--Dominican Republic, Cuba, and others. Billy the Kid or Jesse James intrigue on a larger scale.

Art to the glory of God fills the Catedral. Intricate carvings and magnificent paintings testify to past largesse while gathered dust affirm declining Church attendance and support. A Goya, recently cleaned, pays homage to the patron saints of Sevilla, Santa Justa and Santa Rufina. Like the painting of the sainted sisters, another, of the crucified Christ, stands in contrast to other paintings nearby, Goya´s brushwork introducing an earthliness to the rendered figures.

And last, the challenge of the Giralda, iconic symbol of Sevilla. We benefit from ancient engineers and architects who lay ramps instead of stairs. Each landing offers a view in one direction. At the top, the robust panorama of rooftops stretches outward, striking in contrast to 1920 photographs of a dustier, poorer city as seen from the same vantage points.

Our time is up. The Catedral is closing. A guard, working sweep, shoos us down the ramp. We vow to return, to mass, to hear the twin pipe organs perhaps.

Antiquity in Italics

2009-06-15T13:28:00.014-05:00

Antiquities and ruins intrigue me. Not in the sense of time, though that is incredibly humbling, the continuity of human endeavor stretching back past the edge of what is conceivable. It is the mystery of what survives, the how, and more importantly to me, the why. Itálica poses these questions.

Itálica survives. Excavations reveal stone, mosaics, statues, house foundations, plumbing, the things of everyday life needed in a novus urbs (new city) of 206 BC. Its 25,000 seat coliseum, used for games and theatre, nestles against a small hill. Like a modern theatre, or a bullring, it reveals its backstage intricacies--tunnels, wings, and mysterious engraved footprints at one entrance. What did vendors sell here?

Up the hillside from the coliseum, a small Roman town reveals itself, signage interpreting the platting of the streets and the design of buildings. Foundation vents and recesses for marble walls in the foundations speak of early methods for coping with the region´s intense heat. Underground plumbing tells the engineering story of baths and fresh water taps. Lead pipes tell the human story of lower classes dying because wine is too expensive to drink.

School children populate the streets again, crowned in laurel leaves and tiaras.

Lying dormant, concealed by dirt of the centuries, amazing mosaic floors remain at Itálica. Tiny bits of glazed ceramic piece together images of sights unseen, Roman gods and goddesses and African jungle animals, including hippo, ibex, and crocodile. Excavation continues as does conservation. Floors retire from view under a fresh layer of dirt, like crops rotated seasonally.

Other odd bits of emphemera rest hidden in drawers and lockers at the archeological museum of Sevilla. Arms, heads, and of course, genitalia of Roman statues lie locked away from public view, victims of a prudish Spanish ruler. Few statues remain in situ. They, and other bits and pieces of Itálica, find their way into the buildings of Sevilla. A marble column serves as a corner bumper for a building. Millstones support weighty stone walls. Trips down small calles reveal Itálica as one grand recycling center.

Built as a retirement town for Roman soldiers, Itálica falls victim to nature. The Rio Guadalquivir meanders away, leaving the town literally high and dry. A new novus urbs grows at the base of the hill and serves as the foundation for subsequent towns, including the current Santiponce.

Itálica, built on a rock, survives as one answer to one why.

Everything Old...

2009-06-12T05:28:00.009-05:00

Barrio Santa Cruz is the oldest part of Sevilla. Buildings, repurposed over hundreds of years, wear their historical cloaks proudly. Often, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle, the old meets the new.

New plaster covers wounds in old facades, etched and painted al fresco to preserve the look. Faux antiquity, civic pride.

A Sunday in Sevilla

2009-06-12T04:40:00.010-05:00

Saturday in Sevilla is the night for family, friends and staying out until dawn or later. Sunday is to recuperate, to spend quiet time, to be with family. Plazas sprinkle small playgrounds for children throughout the city. A shopping center goes over the top. W wants to do the bungee cords a la Olympics.

Seneca, Elder and Younger, ibn Hazm and Maimomides, or Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

2009-06-10T16:04:00.031-05:00

It is Saturday, and we board the bus for Córdoba, birthplace of Roman, Muslim and Jewish philosophers, seat of Roman and then Muslim rule for Iberia.

Dark clouds hover over the olive orchards and rolling hills. A bull´s silhouette stands sentry over this stretch of highway. His enormous blackness towers over the hilltop. A billboard for liquor, it remains despite a nationwide ban on billboards, its text painted over, its iconic shape a promise, and for some, a threat. A few kilometres more, a black guitar points to the sky. Someone quips, "Buddy Holly," and my mind sees the familiar black frames, corraling the guitar.

Rain falls for a mile or two and then stops, only to start again as the miles click off. It stops again, and the sun bleaches the clouds to brilliant white, a luminous foil for ancient structures towering over the city. We arrive.

As we cross the Puente Romana (roman bridge) to reach the city center. the Rio Guadalquivir flows beneath, on its way to Sevilla and the Atlantic Ocean. I ask if people canoe or raft it but get an incomplete answer.

A towering monument to San Rafael greets all who cross the bridge. San Rafael, the patron saint of Córdoba, saves the town from earthquake in the 1800´s, a miracle worthy of this memorial.

And then, the Mezquita (mosque). Massive doors centered in arched frames of mosaic tile hint but do not give away the incredible architecture inside. A courtyard of trees, orange now (Spanish), palm before (Muslim), suggests its former use for Muslim pre-prayer abulations only in the network of irrigation channels that course through the laid stone to the trees. Fountains spout water into the channels, a drink against the hot Spanish sun.

Inside, an infinity of red and white double arches perched atop reclaimed and reused Roman marble columns. The story goes many ways, that the first caliph of the conquered Roman province bought this site of a former Roman/Christian church, or that the caliph simply razed the church and built the mosque on top. The mechanics of the story´s how fall away in the magnificent of the Mezquita. It is a quintessintial example of reduce, reuse and recycle, though the reduce has connotations more fitting for conquering than living green.

Marble floors, paved with reused Roman stone and sprinkled with inset headstones of Spanish notables, lead beneath the incredible arches and into the small family chapels that outline the perimeter of the vast space. Marble, brick, tile and plaster, a glorious assemblage of found architecture.

There are no corners,and there were no walls until the Reconquista, when Spain regains control of its peninsula. And then, in predictable but lamentable fashion, the Catholic Church remakes the Mezquita in its own image. It builds a soaring Gothic cathedral, complete with elaborate vaulted ceilings, gold leaf, painted frescoes and flying buttresses, in the middle of the Mezquita. History is nothing, if not incongruous. Incongruity has an order unto itself, a pattern that weave its way through a place, a people, a culture. Philosophers know this and explore its vagaries and its instances.

A few metres from the Mezquita, is an instance, vagaries swept aside through a culture narrowed by fear, greed, and power. Though heralded as a progressive city for its inclusiveness, its architecture often tells a different story. Tucked away one of many narrow, cobbled streets, the 14th-century synagogue stands. Its walled entry courtyard suggests a home, like any other found in Córdoba. The front door, however, opens into a prayer room complete with a women´s gallery. It is less than 550 square feet in size. The walls are covered with plasterwork in the Mudéjar style, intricate patterns incised into the carefully restored walls. People speak softly in deference to the small space, to the realization that the last prayers, the last Shabbat in this place of worship were in 1492. We leave. From across the narrow calle (street), morning prayers rain down, and we see glimpses of a tallit through the barred open window.

The limit of our four-hour visit speeds us to the Caliph´s Baths. Speed was of essence in the building of the Mesquita, for the care of the soul. The baths, of parallel importance for the care of the body and of business, showcase the skill of the Moors in harvesting and using water. Skilled plumbers, the Moors. And busy! A Moorish town was known for the number of its baths.

The church bells sound 3pm, and we return to Sevilla. Cristina is horrified that we give Córdoba only four hours. She insists that we go back for at least a full day. We promise ourselves, and her, to return.

Election Day

2009-06-10T15:10:00.022-05:00

Our first night in Sevilla, Cristina, our host mom, launchs immediately into the state of the world. We frantically sift through her words, picking out the ones we know. We share sympathies for the state of the global economy. She says that it is as bad as 1939.

Supper, several days later. I lose the word for envelope. She points to one on a side table for clarification. It is the envelope that contains her ballot for the upcoming provencial elections on Sunday, June 7th.

We venture out on Sunday, comfortable in our sneakers (dress is more casual on Sundays), uncertain about the culture of election day in Sevilla. It is quiet, slowly awakening after the customary extended Saturday night social life.

Evening falls on our wandering, and we make our way home. We pass through Plaza Nueva. The ayuntamiento, the town hall, anchors the east side of the plaza. It is festooned with greenery. Media cameras hover as a crowd fills in. Ah, we think. Election results! We continue toward the Catedral, following the trail of people. Ah, we think. It is an election parade! We stop when we hear the band, marching slowly, emphatically, sans Sousa, along the parade route. I think of the Alamo, a small chill of understanding surrounds each pounding of the drums. We stand, transfixed by the ponderous music. As the band passes in front of us, the spell breaks. Band members wave and smile at friends and family as they wait for the next note.

We continue on and find ourselves swallowed by the crowd, swimming upstream. Slowly,we find a sidestream that appears less congested and escape. It is not an election parade; it is another saint; it is La Esperanza de Triana.

From Antonio Pizarro, El Diario de Sevilla.

At lunch on Monday, we ask Cristina about the election results. She says that the party leaning to the right won, no triumph in her voice.

1492, or As The Inflatable World Turns

2009-06-10T02:39:00.009-05:00

1492. Another date imprinted in memory. The cadenced mnemonic about Columbus flashes in recall. The known world expands to the unknown world. Las indias! 1492. The Spanish world contracts, hardens, expelling the Moors and the Jews from Spain, consolidating errant kingdoms and languages under Isabella and Ferdinand; a superpower is born.

Plaza de Toros

2009-06-07T04:47:00.021-05:00

It is Friday afternoon, and the Archivo de Indias (the archive of Spain´s interactions with the Americas) closes before we arrive. Dregs of time remain for the Catedral and Alcazar hours. So, to the Plaza de Toros.

It is Friday afternoon but there will be no death this day. The corrida de toros is Sunday evening. We visit, images of what we see on television still fresh, of toreros in failed paso doble agony.

This day, it is quiet, small in size and in the emptiness of the 14,000 seats.

The ring is swept clean, replendent in the yellow sand and brilliant red paint, the colors of Sevilla. On Sunday, through gates now closed, there will be an explosion of people, toreros, picadores, banderilleros, horses and bulls.

In the quiet we walk past stables, rooms where toreros dress and chapel where they pray before entering the ring. Paintings and displays in the small museum trace the early development of the corrida from games similar to tournaments to the present day spectacle.

High on the wall, the heads of famous bulls project from the wall. We see ears! They are the mothers of bulls who have killed toreros, killed, we are told, to keep from producing such dangerous offspring again. It is interesting that temperament of the bulls is assigned to the female.

Sealed in display cases, the costumes justify their high price. Gold trim and intricate surface design create dress appropriate for this ultimate dance of death.

How different it all will be on a Sunday evening.

Mercadillo

2009-06-05T04:09:00.018-05:00

It is Thursday. I itch to explore, an itch that started upon discovery of Sevilla´s weekly flea market, mercadillo. Flowing along Calle La Feria for several blocks, it tempts with antiques, junk, clothing, and a shell game for gullible souls. Nothing daunts Sevillano drivers. Shouts and whistles pass back and forth to steer a delivery van as it backs clear of the tangle. The non-emergency ambulance trying to pass through, ¿quien sabe?

As elsewhere in Sevilla, construction projects carry on.

The tempations are many but I spend only 2 euros for a book with illustrations by Maurice Sendak and a photograph of two young sevillanas dressed for fiesta.

An Explanation of Time

2009-06-05T03:33:00.012-05:00

Two days ago, one week flew off the calendar of our visit. And yet, there is an odd since of having been here twice as long. Each calendar day feels as though it were two. Breakfast to lunch is one day, filled with class, exploration or email. And then, there is this significant pause called siesta, followed by an entirely new day of additional work, walks, supper, more walks, a glass of cerveza or vino tinto, and finally, bed.

At lunch on Wednesday, Cristina invites a young woman, Vicky, and her novio to lunch with us. Vicky lived with Cristina two years ago while studying Spanish. She speaks easily and familiarly with Cristina. I envy their conversational ease. Vicky confesses that she still only understands 90% of her conversations with Cristina. At supper, I clumsily tell Cristina that I am impatient with my Spanish. She says to be patient; she says I´ve only been here one week! Should I expect to learn Chinese or Japanese in one week!?

Barrio Santa Cruz

2009-06-03T04:47:00.022-05:00

Images at last. Though I love white space and creating an image through my thoughts and words, these past posts are like the glass that is half-full.

The walk to the TTU Center each morning takes through a confluence of small streets. These are some of the sights we see as we make our way through the neighborhood.

Sometimes, a door is open. A glimpse inside reveals the blues and yellows of the tiles, the green of the plants, and the cool breath of the air flowing from inside. A contained oasis.

Door and cabinet hardware is a study in itself. The shop in the building below specializes in this. The building stands alone on this triangular block. The apartments above the hardward store invite speculation with their acute corners.

Churches abound in every neighborhood, some plastered with posters calling devout pilgrims to the many celebrations of saints. We are told that church attendance averages only 10% or so though nearly 90% of the population is Catholic. It seems that in times of hardship, the Church did not deliver and the people do not forget.

An elementary school reveals itself through its wrought iron fence and elaborate facade of plaster.

An empty storefront becomes a community bulletin board ephemoral images, poetry, and love cures beckoning secular pilgrims. A poem laments the night.

Morning Walk

2009-06-03T04:32:00.006-05:00

The walk to the TTU Center each morning takes through a confluence of small streets. Leaving earlier this morning, we joined the first of the four walks to school that parents make with their children each day. To school in the morning, back home for siesta, back to school, and then home again. Some in plains clothes, others in uniforms, the children pull backpacks on wheels along the brick-paved sidewalks and cobbled streets while their parents firmly but lovingly pull their children along. Even the tiniest preschoolers trail their small packs behind.

Faith, Futbol and Fashion

2009-06-02T06:18:00.011-05:00

Faith and futbol. Oil and water. Passion and order. Sometimes things do not mix well. Two local teams play the final game of the season. One has to win, one lose. Losing at futbol is not taken lightly:

http://www.diariodesevilla.es/article/galeria/437295/tragedia/heliopolis.html

Things were not pretty after the game. Some Real Bétis fans brought out the crowd control we had seen earlier. And later, those two rather major sparks of passion, religion and sports, came together at the procession we had also left. No major injuries reported but tempers flared.

Today the paper reports new graffiti on the walls of the stadium, demanding that the coach (I think!) leave or die.

Sometimes it is well to heed gut feelings, including those about one of my own passions. Fashion is everywhere here. I am in fashionista heaven. El Cortes Ingles, the department store mecca, is filled with incredible clothing. And, Zara, a major clothing store chain, is everything that I have read about.

Restraint ruled today. I looked longingly but only bought two magazines for fashion sewing: Burda and Patrones. Both include pattern sheets in the issue. The fabric department (tejidas) in El Cortes Ingles reminded me of the incredible fabric shops I grew up with in the Valley, and particularly, the fabric department at Joske´s in downtown San Antonio. The stock was small but exquisite.

Weekends, Students and Futbol

2009-06-01T04:29:00.018-05:00

Saturday is not a day for slumming around in jeans and t-shirts in Sevilla. We dress as much like sevillanos as possible, W in slacks, woven casual shirt and leather shoes. He has not tucked in his shirt and worn a belt which would be more customary. I wear a skirt, brightly printed with a tank top. Though we blend in better, we are still a few degrees less formal that others we meet on the street, particularly those our age.

Perhaps it is the shopping and socializing that must be done. Perhaps it is the weddings and confirmations that must also be done today. We see evidence of both at the Cathedral followed by a military assembly, including small band, that gathers at the southeast corner of the Cathedral. They wait, tucked around one of the numerous corners opening into the plaza. At long last, they vigorously march in and stand at attention. But no one comes. Whomever or whatever is supposed to process or proclaim has not arrived. Starting from the ranks and moving up, one officer walks over to another officer, who then walks over to another officer. Motorcycle police call on their radios. We wait for nearly 20 minutes before deciding to move on.

To give our feet rest, we go for a double-decker bus tour, opting to sit below as the sun has already risen high in the sky. The route for the tour takes us through the neighborhood where the Iberian Exposition of 1929 took place. The buildings are still in place, and many have been repurposed. Some house government functions while others have become centers for the arts. The idea behind the Exposition was to facilitate renewed ties, primarily economic. As JB would say, this is "ironical."

Our bus crosses the Guadalquivir River into the Triana neighborhood where many of the ceramic tiles for which Sevilla is known are still made. It is also the site of the 1992 Exposition. Unfortunately, this exposition site has not been repurposed as well. Part of it has been turned into a theme park while other buildings remain vacant. Up river is the amazing suspension bridge designed by Salvatore Calatrava. It will need a closer look.

As we cross the river, again, back to the city center, we see many rowing sculls on the water and a handful of sailboats at small docks. Looking downriver, we are amazed to see the height of the masts. The bridge downriver of the boats is double; however, a drawbridge section seems to be permanently raised while the section with vehicle traffic doesn´t appear to move!

At 5pm we meet all of the students, save two who have not yet arrived. One we know is having a partial appendectomy via laproscopy so that he can travel sooner. The other simply has not arrived. Orientation is excrutiatingly long for most of them. After dinner, though, many are out on the town. Some take in a movie while others fall in with AM, a Venezuelan student, who has been in town since Thursday. AM, a high-energy organizer, has already scoped out things and is ready to lead everyone who is willing into the Spanish nightlife. They make it back to the hotel around 4am Sunday, a common time for calling it a Saturday night.

Sunday morning, they meet their Spanish moms. We look forward to their stories of adaption. A handful are fluent in Spanish; others who have studied it in high school. Placed as pairs, they should be able to cope between the two of them.

The morning is unusually cool, to date, so we sit, sipping coffee, in the café across the street from our home. Everywhere we look there are futbol fans, enrobed in team colors. With exuberant ease, they break into songs that boast of their team. After siesta, we decifer the bus system and ride to the stadium. We know we are heading in the right direction because the team colors become increasingly visible.

The stadium explodes into view. Masses of people surround it, competing seas of green and purple. We make our way to the ticket windows but are told by scalpers that theirs are the only tickets available. We bargain unsuccessfully and opt to wait until the game starts to see if the prices go down. As we wait, the crowd grows and more crowd control officials begin to filter in. It is a bit intimidating. Mounted police move through the throng, the size of their horses testifying to their potential. Overwhelmed, we head back to the bus stop and make our way back to more familiar territory.

Caracoles (snails) are in season. Just a few days before Hay caracoles is written in chalk on the menu boards at cafés and tapas bars. Today, we hunt for more than an hour before we finally find one. Small but very tasty with a Cruzcampos cerveza.

Home for supper and then out again. We encounter masses of people filling the narrow streets near the Plaza Nueva. It is a procession for a saint, the iconic statue held aloft by unseen hands and shoulders. Ablaze in gold, it floats above the heads of the gathered people. No camera!

Rule: Always take a camera everywhere, all of the time!

España - Day 3

2009-05-31T06:15:00.013-05:00

Christina is gone when we get back to the house Friday evening. The promise to her mother to participate in El Rocio is important but her gleaming eyes and animated description tell me that she expects to have much fun.

The refrigerator is full of food. She has carefully prepared all of our meals until she returns, making sure to introduce us to more sevillaño food. Tonight´s supper, per Christina´s instructions, consists of more of her wonderful gazpacho-light, crisp but not heavily spiced; tortilla, a delicate omelet of eggs and mashed potatoes; and sautéed squash seasoned only with sea salt. Christina says that the sea salt available in Seville is the best in the world! We are determined to taste everything but won´t come close to eating all that she has prepared.

After supper at 9:30pm, we stroll through the neighborhood to the Cathedral and to the shopping neighborhood beyond. We see more people than ever; it is Friday night, after all - fin de semana, time for food, family and friends. The sidewalk cafés and tapas bar beckon with delicious smells. Caracoles (snails) are in season!

The Cathedral is beautiful and impressive with the Giralda, the symbol of Seville, rising solid, ancient in the evening sky. The list of announcements at the Cathedral´s gate is filled with confirmations. Weddings are not listed though this is wedding season. The remnants of one slowly dissolve into the evening. We save a tour for another day.

We walk along Avd. De la Constitución, watching carefully for the smoothly silent electric tram that glides down the middle. High end shops fill the storefronts, and the stylish sevillaños are testament to their popularity. We intend to shop, too, as we learn from what we see on the street.

Though not acculturated, we do blend in fairly well—except for my gray hair. I am a curiosity for someone my age. Gray hair is almost universally avoided, a necessary expense, it seems, for sevillañas. W says that I should throw caution to the wind and color my hair. I´m not convinced. I like being different.

¡Bastante! Enough! Our feet are tired, not yet in shape for the many kilometers of cobbled street.

España - Day 2

2009-05-29T08:59:00.013-05:00

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

2009-05-28T11:09:00.010-05:00

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.

Grand Canyon Whitewater

2008-10-26T16:17:00.008-05:00

Three rivers in one year! A confluence of tugs on a divining branch soul in search of adventure.

Notes and images ferment toward cohesion. Jack London's The Sea-Wolf read again. For now, a rough cut, one outtake of a two-week adventure—Lava Falls!

Life on the Mississippi

2008-07-19T13:40:00.000-05:00

No camera. This is how I start a lifetime adventure to float the Mississippi River for a few days with my friend Justus on his boat, Big Getter. It is like tubing down the San Marcos River X 1,000—worth more than 1,000 words.

I embark at Canton, MO and disembark at Hannibal, MO with a stop at Quincy, IL along the way. An adventure of three days and three nights. Evidence of the recent flooding is everywhere but not as severe as the media shows in places like Iowa. I think of the Guadalupe River flood where my grandparents lived. Receding waters leave a powerboat hanging high in a tall cypress tree, snagged in its branches as casually as an errant kite. Nothing that dramatic here, just flotsam of logs and branches plus the occasional soft drink bottle for target practice.

The first night's anchorage is a couple of miles down from Canton. We moor in one of the river's many side channels to stay out of the way of barge traffic that is beginning to pick up after the flooding. Tall trees and thick undergrowth hint at a frontier past yet history chronicles several generations of clear cutting and regrowth. Cries of herons, bald eagles and red-wing blackbirds fill the air, jungle-like, mimicking an even earlier past.

Our closeness to the bank invites mosquitoes to buzz our ears and show their distain for the sprayed on repellent with their bites. Justus suffers the brunt. Come morning, he hangs mosquito netting over the bunks. He is speckled with red welts that itch madly and has belated empathy for Rhys on the Mariscal Canyon canoe trip.

Bill and Max on the Evangeline are making a parallel trip down the Mississippi this summer. At Quincy, IL, they persuade the local NBC affiliate to do a story on the Evangeline and Big Getter. We motor downriver to make the 10:30am shoot. High heels don't stop Katie, the morning anchor, from climbing aboard each boat for a short ride.

Bill, a Big Getter blog reader, meets us in person at the boat ramp to make good his offer of a driving tour of Quincy. Fine houses built by riverboat captains line the streets close to downtown, testaments to the lucrative history of river commerce. He drives us through the grounds of the Illinois Veterans’ Home, a refuge founded for Civil War veterans in 1886. It is disquieting to realize that wars will continue to populate it for a long time.

Washington Park in downtown Quincy is one site of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. The park is under renovation for the sesquicentennial this year. I borrow Justus's camera to photograph the memorial for my friend Emma, a long-time organizer of the annual Lincoln-Douglas debates at home.

Mosquitoes, and now flies. Justus is plagued by biting insects. For once, I am not! In Quincy, I buy fly paper. It works well but I leave countless gray hairs stuck to it among the flies. I cannot seem to remember that it dangles there as I move about the cabin.

Lock 21 below Quincy finally reopens to pleasure craft. I have locked through before, on a 1971 trip to Washington state with my grandparents. We lock through to Lake Washington from Puget Sound. The lock is packed solid with pleasure craft, a party on every boat.

Lock 21 is immense, slow, weighty in its work to best a river. Prosperity, a barge tug, allows us to go through first though it’s already queued up to enter. Pleasure craft and barges don't share locks. Barges are so large they move through in pieces, sectioning forward as if a giant inchworm. We see so few other pleasure craft the river seems deserted. BG is dwarfed by this hydraulic marvel. The water level drops about one-half foot, not so much for us but probably considerable to the barge traffic.

The other mechanical marvel is the lift bridge crossing the river above Hannibal. Unlike a drawbridge, it has one complete section that rises like an elevator to allow river traffic to pass. It is odd to use these engineering wonders and pay no fee or toll. The strange things tax dollars fund!

Hannibal is very Twainy with much effort in the last few years to bring in the tourism dollars. It is overwhelming—signs for three different Twain impersonators within one block, another sign at the Twain museum saying impersonators need not apply.

Justus and I hike all over town, even up to Lover's Leap. Clemens Field, home to a minor league team in the 50's, is coated with red silt from the flood. The mud cracks like the worn edges of a leather mitt. It is disconcerting to see the many fine old buildings re-purposed as down-and-out bars. Like many older towns, Hannibal has grown considerably out of its downtown; it struggles to justify its continued importance and the considerable investment that importance takes.

I eat my last breakfast of the trip at the Becky Thatcher Café. Only the name is meant to attract tourists. Inside it is the time-frozen coffee shop where locals (mostly older men) stop in for their morning coffee and a smoke before heading out to check on things. The lone waitress on duty sees them get out of their vehicles and has a cup of coffee waiting for them by the time they sit down at their usual table.

The usual table is at the door by the front window. I hear their stories—most of them about flooding and continued rains. One man with grizzled face and lengthening jowls fusses about a flood-related drop in water pressure at his house. "I can piss harder than the water comes out of the faucet!" I laugh and think about the dinner table at my grandmother's assisted living home, about a conversation on high heels, about who should still wear them and who could still wear them, about its final "schoolyard" end in boasting , to a one, that they could, too, wear high heels, if they wanted to, that they could, too, still jump!

I gather my gear and step off Big Getter as two cross-continent bicyclists hand aboard their bikes. We meet them on a street corner in Hannibal the day before, and Justus invites them to join him for the leg to Louisiana, MO. I think they won't show.

I catch a bus back to Canton to pick up my rental car. On the bus, I visit with a young man who has just crewed a sailboat from Antigua to the Azores. On this adventure, I near the end of Joshua Slocum's Sailing Around the World Alone. Sometimes, small familiarities surface in a large world.

Mark Twain says that you really can't decide if you like or hate people until you travel with them. In 2008 I have had two life adventures on the water with members of the McL family. I like them.