Day 9:

Stupid things I say when I’m talking to myself:

As I come out of the shower-
“Now that I have dried myself with this umbrella-…”

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HA!
Fully functional wi-fi box is GO! I have internet while in my room now! YESSS..

Although I wonder why I’m only getting the Orion signal from here and not the Daedalus signal. Hrm..

So today we went to the cathedral. I shall post facebook pictures 8D The album also contains the bulk of description. But here’s probably what strikes me:

The Giralda

Part of the Cathedral, from the outside.

Embalmed Crocodile. KEEP READING FOR DETAILS!

Public album: Click Here!

Also great moment after classes when Sarah was trying to call the Discover Seville office
And suddenly she goes, on the phone,
“LO SIENTO, WRONG NUMBER.”

Allie Garrison and I were with her. There’s a pause, before Allie asks, “..Lo siento… wrong number?”
And then we just cracked up because Spain-iards really fail at understanding American English, somehow. Like, they have huge difficulty even when the words are similar, which is irritating because the language gap then becomes more apparent.
But imagine it like SORRY GARBLEGARBLE *hang up*
A fantastic moment.

SO the Cathedral. It’s the largest Cathedral in the world (superceded in religious-buildings by the Vatican and the something something Saint Peter. But by definition, those are not cathedrals :P)

It actually used to be a mosque, and when Spanish peoples took back the lands from the Arabs they just adopted the buildings left behind, so the Mosque was made into a church.

However, an earthquake made it structurally unsound, so it got knocked down and replaced by a Cathedral with similar floor plans to the Mosque. Two structures remained, the courtyard ground and the Giralda, a giant tall tower that has clear Arab influence in its architecture and design.

Home to many treasures of our ages, including a 700 year old embalmed crocodile corpse (a beloved pet of the city sent by the king of Egypt some 700 years ago asking the current ruler of Spain for his daughter to wed because she was a hottie. Croc was put into the courtyard because it was suspected to be dangerous, but it was also an attraction, as many came to see it and legend goes that it became tame enough to let people pet it. Upon its death, townsfolk were like NO DON’T BURY HIM D: so they embalmed him and HUNG HIM FROM THE CEILING.), a ridiculously priceless crown, and an amazing piece or architecture spanning Moorish, Gothic, Renaissance, Romantic, and other artistic epochs, it is a building that transcends history itself.

The Facebook album does it better justice, but their artificial lighting inside came out neon yellow with my camera. WEIRD.

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Day 10:

Today, I got up at 7 to go to Gibraltar with 3 other folks from my program, and the agency that took us is Discover Seville.

Bus ride there, we watched Good Will Hunting, which I’d never seen before. Glad I did now.

WE DROVE BY WINDMILLS modern windmills but still WINDMILLS <3

Upon arriving, we got a bus tour of the peninsula, and headed to Europa Point, the southern most tip of Spain and 15 miles from Africa. Unfortunately, cloudy weather prevented us from seeing Africa in the distance. Still a nice view.

We drove up the Rock of Gibraltar then, and on our way to the cave, some of the Macaques monkeys were on the side of the road and they JUMPED ONTO OUR BUS. One even climbed in through the driver’s window and leaned on the driver’s horn.

Then, we headed to St. Michael’s cave, which was AWESOME. Inside they built an amphitheater concert hall thing for events, because they actually DO have concerts in there because the acoustics are awesome. I WANNA GO BAAAACK they only let us wander the cave for 20 minutes, which was plenty of time if you were speedy and ADD like I was but hardly enough if you wanted to just stare at rocks, which I also wanted to do.

Upon exiting, next to the gift shop, More monkeys appeared. This time, we spent a while with them and let them climb on our backs. Cool little critters, really. FAR MORE ENJOYABLE THAN I HAD ANTICIPATED.
We were going to head to the legitimate Ape’s Den, but we lost two old ladies, so that venture was cut as we saw some monkeys at least and we still had the downtown free time to visit.

Nice downtown, but nothing that interested me terribly much. I LIKE SANTANA ROW BETTER.
Nestled in a store that looked like a Macy’s though was a shop with English goods, chocolate and marmalade and chips and pastries. I of course made a few purchases.

But pretty soon it was time to go. It would have been better if we spent more time in the caves and with the monkeys and less time in the downtown, but as it stood, it was fun. Gibraltar is tiny, and definitely doable in the five or six hours we had there. It’ll be a while before I decide it to be worthwhile to go again, as the only advantage really is the fact that it’s an English Colony with English goods that don’t have a tax on them. BUT, bring your own pounds, because most shops were making off with 30 extra cents per euro in the exchange rate. >( boo.

And now, I have a ticket to a Bull Fight for tomorrow, Sunday. Don’t know how I feel about this yet. I THINK IT’LL BE COOL but then the end will make me very sad D:

Another public Facebook album: Click Me!

Well, I’m tired. BED FOR ME I’ll be posting this in the morning. I’m SO glad I have wi-fi now, though.
This means skype chats should be even easier then
Anyone up for them? Let’s set a time.

Take care~