The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It finally feels like the holiday season. Everyone and their mother was out to see the city turn on the Christmas lights, it was ridiculous! But it was so lovely! And, they have so many street venders selling smoked chestnuts on the corners it is beautiful.
This is throughout the centro of Sevilla, I only took pictures of the big lights, but all of the streets have something illuminated.

how can I leave this.....?

I'm running out of time. This doesn't even capture how busy the streets are. It's ridiculous

 

Sevilla Ghettos Part II

They don't put this neighborhood on the postcards, either. 

While Tres Mil Viviendas is stricken with poverty, despair, drugs, and crime, another neighborhood is worse off financially. Called “El Vacie,” this broken down neighborhood lines the cemetery and is home to many many gitanos (gypsies). This area, however, does not have the same drug problems as the public housing areas. As my tutoring girl phrased it, “they are too poor for drugs.” This didn’t really make sense to me, because in the US, where there is poverty, there is crime. 

These are just pictures from Google- I'll have my own soon! 

This area is made up of mainly gypsies who have recently come to Spain, many times from Romania, and are literally living to survive. They don’t have houses; they build houses out of what they find from “the bin,” which is British English for trash cans. At school they are given their food and even new clothes many times. I inquired about this neighborhood, and was told it’s not dangerous, but I still shouldn’t go. 

This is the true gypsy culture. There is an organization that will take people through that is safe though. HOWEVER, I was asking the faculty at the middle school about it, and one of the teachers volunteers there every Saturday at one of the schools. I have the opportunity to accompany him next Saturday (as of now, hopefully it happens!) and see the area, and the school, with the students that he works with. I am very excited about this potential experience, especially since this is beyond inner city schools. 

The gypsies speak a different dialect of Spanish, and it is very hard to understand them. However, regardless of everything they don't have, no one can compete with them when it comes to flamenco. They were where the dance originated.

They don't pay taxes, the government barely has a hold on how many people are living there. In actuality, they have no idea. "If you stay on your side, we'll stay on ours..."

Sevilla Ghettos (Part I)

 These are the parts they don't put on the postcards. 

Last year, for my History of Urban Society class, I wrote a 20 page paper on the Chicago Public Housing projects and how they came to be as bad as they are now. This led to extensive research on the Chicago ghetto neighborhoods, and reading many personal testimonies about growing up there. 

Everyone always told me Sevilla was the safest place you could be. And, realistically, for a city of 700,000 people that doesn’t allow concealed weapons, it is. However, after talking to one my tutoring kids, she mentioned a barrio I had not heard of yet, and I think I know Seville pretty well. The infamous “Tres Mil Viviendas,” is the public housing forum that Seville has in place. 3,000 federal housing units all in the same neighborhood (mistake number 1).  Similar to those in the US, it is not exactly the ideal place to call a home. She told me it is drug-ridden, and I went on to Google the area and was bombarded by articles of crime and violence that occur there. Having this interest in Public Housing neighborhoods, I chatted with a friend and we decided we had an overwhelming curiosity to check it out. My question was though, just how safe it was. Obviously, going at night in provocative clothing was not an option, but I have gotten various opinions from people as to whether it is a good idea of not. It is the home of a lot of “gitanos,” or gypsies, which really didn’t bother me, because in the Centro, they really don’t bother me. What made me think twice was the fact that:

Not even the garbage men, postal services, or firefighters will enter without a police escort. 

That is pretty extreme. I was told it’s a land of anarchy, the people live without laws. They don’t pay taxes, because the government hasn’t collected in so long, and they have no actual count on the amount of inhabitants live there. It is just one of those, “you stay in there, and we won’t bother you.” They are all unemployed and there are fires in the middle of the streets to keep warm and to cook. The trash is rarely picked up, so it is strewn all over the street. When I asked my director if it would be a good idea she panicked and quickly told me no, just to look at Google. When I asked the principal of the middle school, she asked me why. When I said out of curiosity she said I could only go through in a car, and not get out. They know who is from there and who isn’t and it’s safe to say I would no longer have my beautiful iPhone.

When I asked the other teachers, they all said the only way I could is if I went to the Police station and got a police escort. However, I asked my host mom, and she told me if I went during the morning on like a Sunday, I wouldn’t have anything to worry about. I’m still not sure. 

Granted, every city has bad parts. And it is true, these are the only ones in Sevilla, and are really on the outskirts. I wander all the time around the city and would have easily never seen them. I also want to add that, “dangerous,” here, means you will get pick-pocketed, “dangerous” in the US means you will get shot. While the Black Market knows no boundaries, shootings are not common here, and when I asked if there was any potential of getting shot they all replied not I did something to provoke someone, and even then, a very minimal chance.

Oh, the places I've gone.

What a semester. I've seen a lot, and know that I am pretty lucky.  I placed a red dot on all of my excursions

Click to enlarge

Very excited to Skype with people these next few days!

Barcelona Parte II

Woke up bright and early Saturday morning and made it to a free walking tour of the city. All these major cities have free walkingtours that usually last about 3 hours and then you tip them however much you think the tour was worth. We really lucked out with this tour guide though, he was so good! A poet, story teller, and screen writer, he made Barcelona come alive and made the history so interesting. I learned loads about the city, vitrually for free. This is the Barcelona Cathedral.

These are the remains of the the only Roman Aquaducts in Barca, built a long time ago. Just like all the other Roman ruins I have posted.

Ever wanted to see Picasso´s work? Here it is, and is one of the only pieces the public can view for free. You´re welcome.

Here are some more things we saw. This is the remains of the Jewish Quarter wall.

This is a famous statue in Catalunia that burns an eternal flame for the Catalunians that died defending Catalunia from Spanish siege, each year one Independence Day (9-11) the cities marches past and gathers to honor the fallen soldiers.

We ended the tour in this awesome park! It was so pretty, and I liked the map of Barca on the floor! Very creative!

The straightaway also had fruit drawn all over it, and I noticed it but it didn´t make sense until we got to the other side, it was Mario Kart! The creativity of this city never ceases to amaze me.

We found this pretty fountain, and you forget you are in a major city.

After the park we made our way to the beach. Located on the Mediterranean Sea, Barcelona is known for it´s beaches. It was a bit chilly, but we still touched the water.

Next stop was the infamous Las Ramblas. It actually is Arabic for sandy stream and is located on what used to be an estuary of the River. This is a strip filled with shops and a really cool market, where we grabbed dinner.

After Las Ramblas, we made our way to the "Magic Fountain," which dances at night! They play different songs from 7-9 and the water sprays to the beat in different patterns with lights behind it. Again, only something Barca would think of (disregard the fact that Buckingham fountain does that, Chicago is not as artsy as this city).

Then it was back to the hostel and went our for the night.

Sunday morning, once again, we were up bright and early! This time we went to the Olympic Stadium, where the 1992 Summer Games were hosted. It´s unreal that just 18 years after the rule of Franco Barcelona was in shape to host the games. We learned a lot about Franco on the tour as well, it is true that many people still don´t really talk about it, and part of the reason Spain is so liberal now and so anti-religion is because of his rule. He has strict censorship laws and women were not allowed to leave without permission from their husbands. The city was in shambles after he died, but they have done okay for themselves now! Until the conversion to the Euro that is, but that was out of their control. Anyway!

Next we walked through a musical park, where where ever you stepped,  a note would play. had some fun with that one. We also found a kid´s high ropes course! Something you would NEVER find in the US! All I saw was a law suit waiting to happen, but hey, I was raised in America. We climbed it though, and didn´t need to take anyone to court!

Our last stop were the ports of Barca. They were cool, but at this point I was so tired and so ready to go home because we crammed a lot into two and a half days.

This is the Christopher Columbus statue- he peers over the city and you can find him anywhere, pointing in the direction of America. Built in 1888, he is located at the end of Las Ramblas and towers over at 60 m high (197 ft). 

I also meant to add, we fly RyanAir, a discount flight service, where you can only take a back pack and you have to print your ticket before, etc. A ton of rules that make it cheap. The other funny thing though, is whenever they land, they play a little jingle and a sound track of applause comes on. It makes me laugh every time and shake my head, thinking, "only on RyanAir."
That was my last trip of the semester! For the next 18 days, it is all about enjoying Sevilla.
:)