Adventuros en el Día de San Fernando

Hola amigos!

The more time I spend here, the more I am really enjoying Sevilla. It´s a really neat city!! You always hear about Spain and the siesta, when everything closes in the middle of the day. well, EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays too (hard to find food!), and also on holidays. Well, we found out last night at about 10 that today was going to be a holiday - nothing was open! The closest supermarket in town that was open today was a 15 minute walk away - it was crazy! But it was okay, because me and a couple friends from my hostal (Tim from Toronto and Lydia frmo Wisconsin!) went to the grocery store and bought some fresh bread, cheese, and meat and then took it down to a bench under a tree right on the river. it was so amazing. Yay for loitering in Spain! So a note to people visiting: beware of holidays and sundays, they can starve you :)

A really cool thing about Sevilla is that it is Kansas City´s sister city! There is actually a Calle de Kansas City (Kansas City Street!) and I even saw a fountain today that looks VERY much like one in KC - you know that tall one by P.F.Chang´s, with the dragon-looking heads on all four sides? i swear it´s based on one in the plaza by the cathedral here! It´s pretty cool :)

Ooo, about the holiday today! Apparantly today was el Día de San Fernando, and his remains are in the cathedral here in Sevilla. On this day in honor of him, they take him out of his crypt or whatever and put his mummified self on display in the cathedral, and then tonight at 7:30 they paraded him through town. It was so cool! Things like that don´t happen in the States and I´m really enjoying all the culture here. It´s so interesting!

Also - I was looking at the itenerary for my Study Abroad program today, and I realized that on Sunday we´re taking a daytrip to Cádiz, the oldest city in Europe (on the coast in Southwest Spain, south of Portugal), and then in a few weeks we´re going to take a weekend trip to Lagos in Portugal. I´m really excited because those were two side trips that I was really hoping to make. I will get to add another country to the places I´ve been! :) I would love to do Lisbon, though, before I leave this area... anybody want to go with me? ;)

Okay, I´m off. Next time: the Spaniards´ obsession with the 80´s.