Okay, when I sat down to write about Jerez I had only intended to write a short vignette, but the story got away from me a bit. I apologize for that - I actually have a bunch of other things I want to relate, so I am going to try out using a series of mini-entries.
Preparations for Semana Santa
Beth is excited for spring….really excited. I think that I mentioned that each of us has a statement we seem to say almost everyday; Beth’s statement is “This is going to be amazing in the spring.” However, she has two specific things that she is particularly excited for in the spring: the orange blossoms and Semana Santa. She has done a fair amount of studying about the timing and duration of the orange blossoms...I have suggested that they will be pretty hard to miss, given that the city is absolutely full of orange trees. I hadn’t really shared Beth’s level of enthusiasm for Semana Santa until this past Monday. I know it is supposed to be a remarkable event, but I just don’t think I truly understood the magnitude. We went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, La Bulla, which is behind our apartment and just across from a small church. As we ate, we watched as a group of about seventy men met, talked and worked on a large platform in from of the church. When I paid the bill, I asked the waitress what they were doing, and she explained that it was the first day of training for the men carrying the church’s Semana Santa float. Many of the floats are spectacular silver sculptures that date back to the 16 and 17 century - they are on display in each of the churches. Many of them weigh more that two tons and they are paraded through town for eight hours on the backs of about 40 “costaleros.” Yup - forty guys huddle under the 4000lb float and carry it on their shoulders all night. So, Monday was not instructional...it was actually the beginning of two months of physical training. They aren’t fit enough right now to carry the float. Look at the picture - it looks like a miserable task. In fact, it looks like torture, but apparently being chosen as a costalero is a huge honor. Men cry in the street if it rains on the night of their parade and they lose the chance to carry their brotherhood’s float. This, in a way, helps me understand the motivation needed to build a new cathedral! Well...now, I am excited for Semana Santa. It sounds like many of the floats come directly under our window...so cool!
Our Fridays and the Petit Comite
Just a short note on our Friday evenings...which I love. On Friday Maya has soccer practice under the lights at 7:00, which provides a nice opportunity to enjoy the afternoon before heading to practice. After her practice, she and I run the 2.5 miles back to our house - getting to see the people emerging for Friday night copas, beers with friends, etc. The city really opens up and comes to life on Friday evening, and we can feel the energy as we run home. After the brisk run, we all shower and head to our favorite restaurant, the Petit Comite, which is just a couple of blocks from our apartment. Some of you might question the fact that we have returned to the same restaurant five times...and plan to continue to do so. If we are exploring a city, how can we keep going back to the same place? Well - I have three answers. 1. Maya loves it...and for more than just the Couland, an oozing chocolate cake served with two flavors of ice cream. It is delightful to watch her try, and love, new foods and new flavors. 2. The food is stunningly good - by any standards. We may be swayed by the overall experience, but every dish we have eaten rivals anything we order in any restaurant at home. And the meal and wine is basically a third of the price we would pay for a lesser meal at home (We don’t seem to be able to get a bill of over 75 Euros...regardless of what we eat or drink). We have begun to eat our way through the entire menu- we tried the spinach salad with duck confit last week, for example. Our problem is that each time we return we want to have things we have had before...hard to try new items while sticking to those we know we love. We do get the burrata salad with thin cut kumato tomatoes every time...I think one simple key is the liberal use of flavorful large flake salt. 3. Finally, we are now becoming regulars at the restaurant. We are greeted by the entire staff when we come in, we enjoy the conversation, and we have been getting a gradual education in sherry each week. Each dinner has ended with a different sherry...on the house...to aid in our education. We will explore new spots at lunch - yesterday was amazing (El Puntal), with scallop salad with cubed lardon, but we will continue our weekly dinners at the Petit Comite.
Maya’s phone
Maya has not yet sat down to read what I have written in this travel journal, which is what allows me the freedom to tell the following story. Yesterday, after our coffee and juice at the Puro Sevillano Bar across the street from Maya’s school, I walked with Maya to the doors to the school, which remain locked until about 9:03 - just before school starts at 9:05. After I gave Maya a hug and wished her well, a boy in her class (Adrian) came up to me to ask me a question. He had clearly been waiting for Maya to go into school before he asked me. It took me a minute to figure out that he wanted to know if he had Maya’s phone number right. He had it memorized; I was impressed. You see, I don’t even know Maya’s Spanish phone number - I had to look it up in my phone. We got her a phone once we got here so she could contact us if she needed to from school. However, there are strict rules about bringing phones to school, so the phone has been sitting on the table turned off for two weeks. It turns out that Adrian had been texting Maya, and he had included her on a big group text for the class, but she hadn’t responded because the phone had been off. He wanted to make sure that he got the number right. Pretty sweet, right? So, yesterday afternoon Maya turned on her phone to find 127 Whatsapp messages - mostly group messages - and she started texting a little with her classmates. This morning when I saw Adrian before school he told me that Maya had responded to the group text…
Parrots and giant white storks
Two weeks ago as we walked past the Sevilla Cathedral, we saw a medium sized green parrot fly into a palm tree. Our first thought was that someone had lost their pet. We actually saw a tourist couple a few weeks ago eating lunch - each with a large parrot on their shoulders. The woman was actually feeding the parrot from her mouth, which was a little gross. Anyway, this smaller parrot made me think of them, but then I saw a second parrot up in the tree. It appeared to be a nesting pair - not a recent escapee. I hadn’t thought much about the parrots again until Sunday when we were waiting to watch the runners in the marathon in the Maria Luisa Park. We heard a similar skwak, and there in a tree, framed by the Plaza Espana, was another nesting pair of medium sized parrots. I guess it is likely that they are escaped pets, conures probably, that have adapted and bred. I like those little discoveries that could so easily go unnoticed - cool thing about having some extended time in a city. Much harder to miss, though also weirdly out of place, we saw two giant white storks in Jerez. At the intermission in the horse show, we looked above the stables to the Sandeman sherry bodega, which has two large chimneys, both of which were topped with large nests with giant white storks in them...cool.
The Sevilla Marathon
On Sunday, we headed out to the Plaza Espana to watch the Sevilla Marathon. We have continued to run every evening at dusk, and our route takes us through the Maria Luisa Park and then around the fountain in the Plaza Espana - the fountain is often lit up in various colors when we pass it, which is simply spectacular. The runs have been a real highlight of the trip for me so far. So, we were thrilled to hear that the marathon would follow our exact route through the park and around the fountain...of course we run only about three miles to their 26.2. It ended up being the perfect spot to watch because we could watch the runners go around the fountain, allowing us to see each runner for almost 30 seconds or more. The eventual winner, a Kenyan named Erik Titus, won the event in 2:07, which is stunning, as it looked like he was just jogging. Apparently the course is supposed to be the flattest and fastest in Europe. They said there was only 10 meters of elevation gain, which seems almost impossible. Maya did try to see how long she could run alongside Titus - I think she made it for about 40 meters…
If you build it, they will come
In the mid-1990’s a small group in Sevilla pushed for the construction of bike lanes in the city. Their campaign was not taken very seriously at first. Many people basically responded that building bike lanes didn’t make much sense because so few people rode bikes in Sevilla. Remarkably, they managed to get the project approved, but it was quickly shut down by a city construction manager who didn’t actually believe that it had been approved...why would it, no one rides a bike in Sevilla! Anyway, they eventually built 50 miles of the lanes, two-way bikes lanes on the side of the sidewalk (not on the road). They are smooth, green, and well marked. As it turned out, as soon as they were built, people simply started riding bikes. In fact, the construction crews had trouble with people riding on them before they were done with construction. Within a year, the city construction manager apologized to the head of the program, amazed at how quickly the lanes were put to use. Today, Sevilla is a shining example for city biking; Beth read an article that calls Sevilla the 4th most bike friendly city in the world. There is even a whole fleet of city bikes that rent and deposit in installations around the city. I have begun renting a mountain bike from the shop below our apartment and just heading out for two hour rides in the mid morning. It is a glorious way to see all parts of the city - I ride to parks, past old city walls, past depressed neighborhoods, and into undiscovered gems. The only problem is that the bike rides seem to take away my travel journal writing time…
Delightful groups of Spanish women out for lunch or a drink
We have noticed that Spanish women seem to have great communal friendships. Of course, we have no real basis for this assertion aside from observing them in Sevilla, but what we notice is sort of delightful. Yes, we see groups of young Spanish women out for the evening...or even laughing hysterically on a segway tour in Granada, but more notable is the group of 8-10 older women out for a long Sunday lunch...each one drinking their small beer. The groups are jovial and comfortable...these are not special outings but a regular occurrences.
