it’s coming down to the wire here. two more full days left in sunny and too-hot sevilla. seriously the temperature here has been near 110 for the last four or five days and i’m running low on sweat. i found out today that my friend’s grandparents that put me up in paris will be able to do so again when i visit the city next week for the french open. that was great news because it will save me quite a bit of money and because they are nice people and i like nice people.

i ended my guitar classes on thursday and learned my favorite “falseta” so far. that’s like a piece of a flamenco song. it’s nice when you can play flamenco music, but even better when it sounds so good, like this one i learned. i said goodbye to more people yesterday at the going away party. i gave my final presentation at the archeological museum. tomorrow i think we’re going to the davinci code those of us that remain from our core group.

these are some non-themed last week pictures. friends, torsi, the cathedral bell tower.

consider this the end of my sevilla blog. any other blogging will take place on the road. i’ll probably post something in about 4 or 5 days from my hostel in madrid where there’s wireless. thanks for reading as always.

there are several things i could count down today. let’s start with the soonest thing which is leaving sevilla. that countdown has 9 days left on it.

the next countdown would be until the beginning of the french open. that one is 15 days away.

the next one is until the flaming lips concert i’m going to see in belgium. countdown shows 24 days.

next countdown is to the beginning of the world cup. that one’s got 27 days left.

then i guess my last countdown would be until going home, cause there’s not really any other major dates besides those. 60 days until i fly home.

it’s finals week right now, so i’m spending a lot of time in the dorm or at the library studying for the tests/presentations. i really need to take some time out today and get some more hostels reserved in rome, brussels, zurich, and barcelona. this week i thought a lot about my upcoming travels. it’s going to be really fun and i stopped worrying about all the problems that could happen and just think about the adventure that i’m going to have. so, that’s nice.

that’s all i got. here’s a few pictures. i went to a flamenco show the other day where my guitar professor ruben was playing:

there’s ruben on the left.

Lagos, Portugal was my destination this weekend. i went on friday morning with a company called “discover sevilla” that offers excursions for students. the trip/hotel/misc benefits cost me 100 bucks, which was nice for a whole weekend. lagos is notoriously the postcard photo capital of portugal because of its ridiculous beaches and rocky cliffs. the pictures below are not postcards that i set on the ground to take pictures of, but rather whatever i happened to walk by during my days at lagos. roll the clips!

these first two pictures from the edge of our hotel’s parking lot. first, a secluded beach that i never did find the route to (unless swimming out around the cliffs). and second, the Playa Doña Ana. cookie cut for postcards.

here’s the beach i spent friday and some of saturday at: the Playa Camilo. it is less crowded than the other ones because it took a little bit of walking to get to. i spent my time laying in the sun for a few hours, reading books or trying to not count the abundant topless sunbathers.

this is a little niche i found while hiking around the cliffs. it was really impressive the deeper i climbed, as you can see in photo number dos. there were fishermen going in and out of these rocks. i guess the fish like the views too.

here’s a little street in lagos. it’s a typical nice little mediterranean town. white houses, stoney streets, and lots of restaurants.

it just occured to me that “aaron and the end of the world” sounds like a good children’s book title. well, where i’m standing was literally the end of the world up until about 500 years ago. the southwestern tip of europe. and the last sight columbus saw before he found the greatest nation the world has ever known. the sunset was nice too.

ok, well i’ve got two more weeks here in sevilla before i hit the road. it’s time for paper writing and final studying. which i should be used to at this point. so, wish me luck! see you in a couple months.

these two are likely going to go down as my two favorite cities in spain. toledo will always be number one for sentimental reasons, but salamanca just blew my socks off last week. the city has a very unique feel to it. vibrant antiquity is all i can come up with to describe it right now. but it’s definitely unique and i loved loved loved my time there. it also helped that i was hanging out with my long lost friend olivia. it was good to see her again, and to meet all her cool friends.

this is the view from my hostal terrace. pretty nice. the next one on here is the plaza mayor, which i would say is the best plaza mayor i’ve seen in spain. much better than madrid’s. note the golden sandstone that everything is built with.

this is a cool guy from peru that i hung out with a lot. his name is alejandro, but they all call him “jano”. next is the front of the monasterio san esteban. pretty exhaustively decorated. next is the staircase of the universidad pontificia of the to-be-clergymen. the writings on the wall are what they get to do when they graduate. the buildings of this city are covered with them, from all the centuries.

olivia took a picture of me doing nothing. then we went to this really dark church that was very cool (temperature and just coolness).

the decoration in the convento las dueñas was amazing. very neo-gothic with its grotesque figures and designs. i loved the diversity. grotesque carvings are the kind that began to unite human forms with all that is non-human (i.e. vegetation, mythology, and animals).

the salamanca cathedral is a stunner. a magnificent tribute to the gothic form, and as far as i have found, the only one you can climb up. the views from the catwalk were fantastic.

cathedrals really don’t get old for me. they make me feel so small. it’s a fun feeling.

the last night we went to this small old bar that had chains hanging from the ceiling and a jazz trio playing. they played some surprise beatles covers such as “lady madonna” (sorry jeremy) and “something” (my favorite abbey road song). the atmosphere was fantastic. i talked to a friend of olivia’s about tennis for probably an hour.

salamanca was so great. i could have easily spent a semester there if i wanted to. the nightlife was so different from sevilla’s. everything is in such a smaller area that we went to 5 bars in about two hours one night. and everything is built out of beautiful sandstone blocks. history rings loud in salamanca. number two in spain.

or “holy week” is spain’s easter. a whole week of processions through most of the cities here of depictions of jesus and mary. the “pasos” move very slowly and are proceeded by a series of candle holders, and followed by a band playing traditional songs of the week. i love things like this because they are such wide windows into cultures, so i had a great time this week indulging in the piety and flocks of people (sevilla is by and large reveared as the center of semana santa). most of the processions take place after dark, lasting until 2 or 3 in the morning. my first encounter with semana santa took place in Tarifa on sunday night on the way back from morocco. here’s the procession i found:

right before this procession began a man sung in front of the platform before it was lifted up to be carried. it was beautiful.

later on in the same procession.

now try not to be alarmed by the KKK resemblance. semana santa has its roots a few centuries before before the klan had adopted their standard dress (1915).

i did this for a day on monday. it was really nice. tarifa is some kind of world capital when it comes to kite/wind surfing so there’s lots of rental shops and people taking part.

these pics are back in sevilla on wednesday and thursday respectively. on thursday i found a really good spot by the cathedral to watch the pasos. it was cool.

i moved on later in the night and snapped these pictures of the cathedral and what was actually the same paso i saw before going by on my way home.

and that’s semana santa. it’s over and i’m back in school. however, this friday starts the next long weekend as i have next week off school too. i’m taking a trip up north to visit my house family from 2004 in Toledo before going west to see my friend Olivia from France that’s studying in Salamanca. exciting stuff!

dum dum dum… AFRICA. the lion king, charlize theron, and pygmies.

but first… the night in tarifa was filled with beach walking and castle exploring. i know i got my fill.

the tarifa castle was re-traversed and all of the mystery held behind the door was revealed. dum dum dum! i wish i could put music on here, but i can’t. here’s what the place looks like, to refresh your memories:

so that’s all i saw the last time. let me tell you that this time i went alone to the castle. at midnight. so i was crapping my pants. i moved down through the stairwell past the door and i came to this doorway:

beyond this doorway was a room:

you can see a door in that photo. this door opens to a passageway that looks out over the sea:

and that’s all there ways down there. just the castle basement/dungeon/lookout/who-knows-what. but i was very satisfied with my ability to explore that place alone. i bought a flashlight for the occasion. later on, after i got out and found the mexican girls i was traveling with, i convinced one of them to come back with me.

this is Jade being all blair-witch in the corner.

the next day it was on to morocco. duh duh duh DUM duh DUM. charge! we left europe in our dust…erm, spray.

here’s the first view of tanger, morocco from the docks in the bay.

my favorite moroccan friend Behiya was conveniently on her way home to visit her family and we rode the same ferry over, so she helped us find a nice and fair cab driver that would take us down the coast to the quiet beach town of Asilah. on the way there our driver Ahmid stopped us at this little outlet to give camel riding a try.

that’s right. i rode a camel in africa. bam!

after we got to Asilah and found our hostal we headed down to the beach to play some frisbee (i’ve been dying without it) and do some swimming if it seemed like a good idea. we headed back after sunset.

the Asilah nightlife was kinda cool. we tried to find some wine but to no avail. i did watch some of the valencia v. celta vigo match at a bar with a cool moroccan guy that i met. other than that though, we just hung out in the room. here we are with our friend Erik (from Texas) that we met on the ferry.

the next day we hit up the markets. hot times!

we said goodbye to Erik who was going to venture farther south for a couple days and headed back up to Tanger with Ahmid who came back to Asilah to pick us up. 4 amigos and 1 chauffer.

so Africa was great, a super blood-pumping adventure. monday we came home from tarifa and i had a nice sleep last night without any worries. this week i have no school because of semana santa (holy week) which is a pretty big deal around here. actually, more like the biggest of deals. the world comes to sevilla for semana santa and its saintly processions down the streets. i will be doing lots of homework in my down time this week, and will be spending many nights downtown watching the happenings. i’ll report back soon with photos as always. thanks for reading!

we’re trying morocco again. i will hopefully return on monday with piktures.

fabrício’s last night here went perfectly. we rolled into the sánchez pizjuan stadium at about eight on thursday and the match was scheduled for nine. so we had an hour to enjoy the stadium filling up, the perfect sevilla night at 60 degrees, and the nice view of the zenit fans fighting the security guards. it got pretty intense for a few minutes. i read in the paper today that 15 russians (zenit is from st. petersburg) were detained and 9 security guards received medical attention – one of which had a broken jaw! yikes.

let’s cut to the chase, though: sevilla killed them 4-1. now, it would be important to know that this is the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup, so no match is easy by any stretch. these are some of the best clubs in europe. so that makes it even more impressive.

this is fabrício and i pre-game getting pumped.

this banner dropped down and almost made me cry! “más que mi corazón me late tu escudo” is “your shield beats more for me than my heart” and was a really special thing to see as the team was coming out of the locker room. this is actually the clubs centennial season – it was started in 1905.

here’s the team celebrating martí’s goal off a penalty kick. it was 2-1 then.

here’s some sweet in-game action.

you should download these video files. they may take a little bit (16 MB and 9 MB respectively) but it will be worth it.
here’s a link to the celebration after goal number 3: http://www.savefile.com/files.php?fid=5891164
here’s a link to fabrício’s post-game video analysis: http://www.savefile.com/files.php?fid=5672940

so it was a great night. and here’s a hilarious story from after the game: we’re sitting on a bench and this very sad russian man walks up to us with an inquisitive look on his face, leans down close to us, and says as clearly as he could “Vodka”. as if asking which direction he could get some, we explained with spanish that he couldn’t understand and pointed the direction to a bar. then he walked off. the only russian i’ve ever talked to in my life said one word to me – “vodka”. it’s no longer a stereotype, it’s a fact. the end.

so i’m kinda behind on posts. so i’m going to do a big ol’ picture blog here so you can see what i’ve been up to. these first pictures are from last weekend. on friday i went to carmona and on saturday i went to mulva (mulva?). lots of old ruins in both places. here you go from carmona (about 30 miles east):

this is my friend from denmark, metta, going down into an old tomb from the 8th century.

this was a ceremony plaza outside a tomb of a king.

this is the alcázar in carmona. it was pretty cool and gave us a good view of the city as you can see.

these next few are from mulva, about 30 miles northeast:

Ok, so there’s a view of our destination: 2nd century roman village.

this is my moroccan friend Behiya. i have a really good time with her. she’s fun and speaks four languages: french, arabic, english, and spanish.

look how green things were this day!

well that post was sure a winner! one comment (thanks jeremy)! guess most people don’t appreciate castles, or nobody reads this.

well, after all that madness we walked around for another while, ending up down where i took the night photos of the cathedral. then we followed the old city wall around the city to end up at the sea.

so that was cool. then we found some more old buildings that were assumedly part of the ancient city wall around the city. from like the 11th century. in this picture you can see brandon standing at the top and me running up the steps cause i set it on the timer.

after that we went walking around down through the city and we came upon a bar that had some cool music playing inside, so we went in and had something to drink. after talking to the bartender we found out that the two arches in the the bar were actually the gates to enter the city in the 900s when the city was much smaller. wow. that only added to our “holy crap things are old and awesome here!” binge.

so that was basically the end of our night. we went home around 2:30 and slept and then got up and didn’t go to morocco cause of the cancelled ferries. so i went home. and that was the weekend. i did a lot of stuff this last weekend too, which i will post later.