Rain, Dancing and History
Man, it poured yesterday. Like a genuine tropical downpour. We
went out late morning to consider a trip to the local hill town of Carmona,
stopping first for coffee and the amazingly open Los Milagritos, our once
favorite coffee shop. The waiter was busy running around opening the café
umbrellas for reasons unclear to me until I started to feel the occasional
misty rain drop. But still the sky was not all that threatening. Since I’d
forgotten to bring the bus schedule we made a forced landing at Starbucks for
their WiFi and I ended up saying a lot of bad words because they’d suddenly
started requiring a registration to use it. Unlike 2 days ago. That solved, I
looked up the bus times and the decision was “no” as it would have been an hour
out and an hour back for maybe 2 hours there, constrained as we were by having
Flamenco tickets for this evenings performance. So we made a half-hearted
attempt at walking across the bridge to Triana before deciding to just go back
home and eat lunch.
It started sprinkling in the early afternoon but we felt we
could brave it enough to visit some of the local curio shops. Walking first
down to Constitución to my favorite ATM, we stopped and read the menu at
Iguanas-Ranas, Sevilla’s premier Mexican restaurant. It was quite enlightening
- all the same tapas as every other local place with an enchilada and burrito
thrown in for color. While there was never a chance that we’d go there, it was
fun to see what counted as Mexican on this side of the Atlantic.
By the time I’d withdrawn my money, it was starting to rain
in earnest. Enough so that we stood
under the eave of the banks roof to wait it out for a few seconds. When it let
up a tiny bit we headed back towards the stores we’d planned on visiting, only
to get caught in the next squall. There are two things you learn about rain in
Sevilla – one, it makes it impossible to safely walk on the cobblestones and
two, if you think you have it bad, consider what it’s like for all the carriage
horses whose feet are shod with steel shoes. It was very hard to watch the poor
guys taking mincing steps down every incline only to almost lose their footing
at the bottom. Thankfully most of them were parked to wait it out.
There was only one umbrella between us and it was not
adequate to keep my outer arm from getting soaked through. “Water repellent” is
just what it says it is, and it stops repelling pretty darn soon when faced
with a deluge. My shoes were failing me also, soaking through on the tops which
was quite a surprise since I had slathered them with water-proofing before leaving
last week. We made it to one shop before it really started raining but when we
left there, we simply beat a hasty retreat for home. Water in shoes and water
in jackets takes all the steam out of shopping as far as I’m concerned.
After a few hours of drying it was time to head off to our
favorite Flamenco show at Casa de la Guitarra, just around the corner from our
apartment. This would be our 3rd visit, and we keep coming back
because the music and dancing are so very good. Simple, straightforward and great
to watch. There are a lot of places in town that offer their version, but from
what I’ve gathered they’re far less intimate (this place has maybe 40 seats)
and far more expensive (usually involving food and drinks) and more a spectacle
than a show. For our $18 euros we get a guitarist, singer and dancer doing a
total of 5 or 6 pieces. About an hour, maybe more, but really hard to beat.
This year we had the same guitarist as the first time we went and different
singer and dancer. There are some 40 styles of Flamenco and most of what we
heard on this night was in the style of Cádiz, a nice little connection to our
trip of the previous day. Their Flamenco tends towards the happier, lighter
side and not like some of the gloomy-emotional pieces we’ve seen in the past.
The host gave us the house rules – photography, yes, video
and flash-photography, no, and interestingly had to specifically mention the
use of tablets. In his words, if you spend the entire show taking photos with
tablets, the people behind you will not see anything. Good point I thought.
The guitarist, Javier Gómez, began with a solo piece in the
Aranhuez style. He was joined for the next number by the singer, Pepe León, one
of 5 generations of cantadores,
singers of Flamenco. No singing in this number - he clapped and stamped his
feet to a pretty fast Cádiz piece. They were then joined on the stage by Rocio
Sánchez, tonight’s dancer. Resplendent in red, she was very fast and powerful
and quite a bit less outwardly emotional than we’ve seen in past. Often you can
feel the grief that is being portrayed, broken hearts and wasted lives. Tonight
dance seem to be more about spirit and happiness. Two more pieces for guitar
and voice and then a second dance and then it was over.
After some debate about where to settle for food we went
back to La Tradicional for a plate of fried cod and a big bowl of chopped
tomatoes feeling that it made perfect sense to cap a cultural evening with food
of the region.
This morning’s weather was far more applicable to yesterday’s
plans so we packed up and headed out, deciding to stop first at the “other”
Starbucks, not the one we normally go to and not the one we used to go to, but
rather the one in the middle. There were not too many people in the street, it
still being too early for the travel groups to have risen and planned their
day. We thought perhaps we might re-visit the cathedral today, having skipped
it last year, so we spun by to see what time it opened. 11AM meant we had an
hour for coffee so off we went.
I ordered my normal Americano and MLW ordered a Dirty Chai.
That request was met with a “sorry, no” so I explained in Spanish what it is,
although lacking to word for “shot” I used that word to convey the request. The
lights came on and suddenly “sorry, no” became “que tamano” or “what size?”
When we got our drinks I asked for the correct word for a shot,and the barista answered,
“recarga.” Another new word for me.
It was getting busier outside although now with locals
heading to work or running errands. Tourists were popping up here and there and
when we’d finished our drinks and walked back to the church, the line was now
all the way down one side of the building. So we went on, taking a long route
to Corte Ingles for the last of our grocery needs and then back home for lunch.
The weather was still holding at 2PM although some thunder
clouds were building up in the west. And it was getting hot. One nice thing
about the last couple of days, it’s been pretty mild. Not today though. I shed
my sweater pretty quickly.
The cathedral line was much more modest so we decided to
brave it and found our place. It really only took 15 or so minutes to get
inside, and it always amazes me how a big scrum of people can turn into almost
nothing once you get inside. It’s that huge.
Having been here before, we decided to just take our time
and shoot a lot of photos of things we’d missed previously. I got those long
hoped for photos of Christopher Columbus’ tomb and many of the very beautiful
stained glass windows. But no matter what you seek in these places, you always come
away with the same feeling – one of overpowering excess. So much gold, so much
finery, all in the name of someone who ostensibly lived and died simply. It
really makes you appreciate the rape of the New World and the amount of death
that went into these riches. The real beauty of the place though doesn’t come
until you step outside into one of the remaining features of the mosque that
stood here before, the orange tree garden with its complex geometric brickwork,
bubbling fountain and flowing water. Religious dogma aside, the 10th
century Muslims had it much more together when it came to conveying a sense of
spiritual peace with their sacred architecture.
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| The Tomb of Columbus |
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