My Weekend

Hello All!!

I had a fantastic weekend in Spain! My group from Central and I went to Sevilla (approximately 3 hours to the west of Granada via bus) and to a fútbol game in Granada! I had a great time and there are more details below...

February 18, 2012--Sevilla

Today was Saturday and the day trip to Sevilla with my Central College group. We left at 8:30 am this morning and took a 3 hour bus ride to Sevilla. When we arrived we stopped first at the Plaza de España, which is a grand, gorgeous plaza in Spain. It is famous for being the site for a scene in one of the Star Wars movies. I fell in love with the plaza. It was stunning; it looked like a palace that was shaped in a half-circle. There was also a creek/river around it that people could rent boats to row in. Over the creek were multiple bridges, and these bridges were decorated with perfectly hand-crafted porcelain.  Absolutely stunning!

Next, we were allowed free time for a couple hours, so Amy, Shannon, and I started walking around for a while. We started by walking down one of the typical neighborhoods of Sevilla, Santa Cruz. The buildings there are typical Spanish buildings, with the colorful buildings and cafes and shops on the lower floor. It was fun to see.

After, we headed down to the river where we saw the Torre de Oro, unfortunately we couldn't climb the tower. We also saw the Teatro de la Maestranza and the Plaza de Torros (a bull-fighting stadium), both of which we did not go into either. After that we wandered the streets for the rest of our free time. We got some helado (ice cream) while wandering. One of the shops we passed had a tiara made with diamonds and pearls that cost almost 1400€! I thought it was very pretty. We also wandered through a couple streets with wedding dress shops.The dresses were very different and slightly different from wedding dresses in the United States; lace was a very common theme between the dresses. Also, during our wandering time we came across a man doing a show where he was bent over and on his back were puppets that he made to dance by moving his hands and feet. It was very interesting to watch!

At 3:30 pm we met up with our group again to go to the Real Alcazar, which is the palace used by the current royal family. We walked through the perfectly manicured gardens and the detailed rooms of the palace. All the walls within the palace were perfectly preserved, detailed, ceramic tiles. All the tiles were in a different design depending on the room.

In the palace we started off in some of the common rooms used by everyone in the palace, then to the room where all the business transactions took place concerning the Americas when they were first discovered. The room was paneled in two shades of pinkish red, there was also a picture of the saint that controls the seas (because the Catholics wanted to pray to the saint that the boats would make it safely across the sea). Next was the king's quarters. He had his one wing basically, which consisted of a courtyard area surrounded by a building two stories high (the rooms in the surrounding building were for his use as well). In the courtyard was a small, long pond stretching the length of the courtyard. It was amazing to see. Next was his actual bedroom, which was kind of uneventfully compared to the courtyard.

After the king's quarters we moved over to the princesses' quarters. In this area were the play rooms for the young children and the birthing room for the Queen to give birth to the princes/princesses. Our professor/guide said this is where ALL the kings were born.

We continued on our journey through the palace through various courtyards used for different purposes, we saw from a floor below, the quarters were the current royal family stays when they are at the palace, the ballroom, and part of the old Arab part of the castle (this is actually one floor below the current palace because the current palace was built on top of it.

After finishing our tour of the palace we departed Sevilla and returned to Granada. Overall, I loved Sevilla. It is a gorgeous, bustling city (over 1 million people live there) and I would love to return.

February 19, 2012---Granada Futbol Game

Granada Fútbol! Yay! Obviously I went to a Granada Fútbol game today. It was fun! Granada played Real Sociedad (I have no idea where that team is from...) and Granada won 4-1.

The atmosphere at the games is very interesting, in that it is very similar to the atmosphere at an American baseball game. Everyone is there to watch the game, cheer on their team, and to have fun. There are the calm members of the crowd that sit and watch the game and cheer and shout when necessary and there were the fans that were standing the entire game singing various cheers, waving flags and scarves for their respective team, and cheering their absolute hardest. They were the fans that in was enthralled by the entire game. At this game there happened to be a two large groups of people (enough to fill an entire section of the stadium) cheering on Granada and Real Sociedad. At a couple points during the game that two sections were having a cheer-off, it was the pinnacle of entertainment.

Oh yeah...the game was fun to watch too! Lol... Granada is a very fun team to watch. They are aggressive with the soccer ball and not afraid to get down and dirty. I enjoyed watching the game because it was very fast-paced and always moving.

Even though the atmosphere of the game was very similar to American baseball games other parts of the game were very different. There is a lot less entertainment during the breaks (the only break during soccer games is half-time) and there is a lot less of the glitz and glamour, they prefer just to focus solely on the game, which I think is great!

Now, I know I said that the atmosphere of the fútbol game was very similar to that of an American baseball game, but I also want to compare the fútbol game to an American football game.
1. Obviously they are two completely different sports.
2. The game is focused much more on the game, there is no announcing of the players when they run onto the field, nor a half-time show or commercial breaks.
3. There is no one announcing the games like there is during American football games
4. There are no breaks for commercials, like there are during football. There are two halves during a fútbol game that last for 45 minutes each and the clock runs continuously the whole time.

Before today I have watched a couple other fútbol games in bars around the city, boy is the atmosphere in there crazy! It's fantastic! Everyone in the bar is staring at the tv, shouting, and cheering when necessary, and this is not normal cheering where you clap and shout a bit, everyone in the bars screams and jumps up and down when their team scores. It is so entertaining to watch!

Most people have to go to bars of they want to watch the games because you have to pay extra to have the tv channels they are watched on, and plus it is much more fun to watch the game in a bar full of people than alone in your home. This is one major difference between game watching in Spain as compared to the U.S. I have grown up where you watch the game in your home, I have never gone to a bar to watch whole game nor has anyone in my family.

I particularly enjoy going to a bar to watch the fútbol games because you get to enjoy other people's company. I wish this atmosphere would be more pervasive in the U.S., but watching the game in your home is also nice too...






I will update my blog again on Thursday, just to give you all a heads up. :)