La Taberna del Alabardero

For anyone looking for a place to stay in Sevilla, I highly recommend La Taberna del Alabardero. My parents and I chose it on a whim the night before we left, having no idea what to expect and hoping for the best. As soon as our cab dropped us off at the front door, we couldn’t believe this place was so reasonably priced and easy to book. The hidden gem is an elegant converted mansion, known more for its gourmet restaurant than as a place to stay. It is close to the train station, and a two-minute walk from the bridge connecting the two major sections of the city of Sevilla – Sevilla and Triana.

Inside the hotel, every wall is vibrantly colored in southern Spanish style, adorned with mosaic tiles and paintings of bullfighters, flamenco dancers, and other Andalusian icons. Vines grow all around the railings, hanging down over the walls to make each floor look more like an outdoor courtyard. Many of the windows are stained glass with distinctly Southern Spanish patterns, incorporating Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic artistic styles. The windows are all perfectly sized and positioned to illuminate the most beautiful aspects of the interior with the natural Andalusian sun, while never overwhelming visitors with too much light or glare. A continental breakfast comes free every morning, including coffee, orange juice freshly squeezed on the spot, and hot croissants and pastries. Accidentally stumbling upon La Taberna del Alabardero was the best thing we did in Sevilla.

El Patio Sevillano

I went to my first pure flamenco show in Sevilla this past weekend at a small, intimate venue called El Patio Sevillano. The dancers were all incredibly well trained and well rehearsed, but with an ability to improvise freely that can only come from a lifelong connection to the art. When the first male flamenco dancer came on, I was subjected to a gracefully forceful display of fundamentally Spanish machismo. His routine was a passionate and prideful showcase of mankind’s physical and mental prowess and his dominion over the rest of the animal kingdom. With a controlled, thunderous stomp and an authoritative spin, he flung his sweat in a sparkling mist through the spotlight on the otherwise dark stage, like a summer night’s rain highlighted under a streetlight. As I sat bewildered, sipping the beer that came free with the 37-euro entrance fee, he whipped around and backhanded the air like it owed him money. It dawned on me that a flamenco stage is perhaps the only setting in which a man in a scarf can twirl his wrists and shake his hips and still look like a badass. After the first male solo, a woman in a scarlet, red, and black ruffled dress took the stage by force, combining delicate beauty and surefooted confidence for an almost boastful reminder of the fact that women are included in the term “mankind” and share that dominion over all else. I was fully captivated for an hour and a half straight, and the show struck me as a quintessential Spanish experience.

The Road to Córdoba

The five-hour bus ride from Madrid to the quaint historical Andalusian city of Córdoba is one that must be undertaken in the daytime. The trip heads from the Community of Madrid, through the Community of Castilla-La Mancha, and into the Community of Andalucía. The clear and sharp distinction between the three communities highlights each community’s unique character. Shortly after leaving the bustling metropolis of Spain’s centuries-older version of our Big Apple, Castilla-La Mancha made itself apparent. The bulk of the road trip took place in this huge, centrally located community. Castilla-La Mancha is known primarily for being the area in which Don Quijotethe world’s first modern novel, and Spain’s greatest literary masterpiece, takes place. The community consists almost entirely of wide expanses of farmland. The most striking thing to anyone who has read Don QuijoteDon QuijoteDoDo is the abundance of windmills atop distant rural hills, calling to mind Don Quijote’s epic battle against the imaginary monsters that came in the form of ordinary windmills. Gazing out the window in Castilla-La Mancha, with few modern distractions in the vast fields, I could easily picture Don Quijote and Sancho Panza leading the charge against the structures that have become unexpected symbols of Spain. Little bars, shops, and restaurants in tiny rural villages in the community pay homage to the Renaissance novel through their names and decorations. Along with the windmills, immense black cutouts of the bull, Spain’s national symbol of pride and strength, stand upright in fields on the side of the highway.

After kilometers and kilometers of Castilla-La Mancha’s farmland, we came to the grandiose mountain range that divides the communities of Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucía. The bus scaled mountainsides, introducing butterflies to my empty stomach with aerial views of hollow space and jagged rock extending as far as the eye could see. A particularly remarkable feature of the mountainous area was the subtlety of the modern usage of ancient landscapes – holes were drilled through enormous mountainsides to make way for highways without upsetting the natural beauty or compromising functionality. Once past the majestic mountain range, I said “hasta luego” to Castilla-La Mancha’s windmills and was welcomed by the never-ending expanse of Andalucía’s characteristic olive trees, dotting smooth red dirt hills.

The Sun Also Rises

But when is it going to make its presence known? I didn’t expect Spain to be a tropical paradise, but I certainly hoped for a hint of spring by mid-March. According to what all the Spaniards I’ve spoken to about this issue tell me, this has been a very uncharacteristically long and dreary winter. We’ve been bombarded with frigid rain in a typically dry and reasonably mild region. The past few days have finally been without precipitation, but I still haven’t found the sun’s warmth over here. I blame the North African Arab influence throughout the country for my quixotic expectations. I cannot describe what it does to one’s mind to be surrounded by vibrantly colored palm trees and Arab arches but simultaneously still need a heavy coat. Perhaps it is also difficult not to associate Spain with its old colonies in Latin America and subconsciously half expect more similarities than are present. I thought I escaped ceaseless winters when I left Massachusetts, but I’m still anxiously awaiting a much-needed change in temperature.

Beyond the Community of Madrid

Now that I’m sufficiently settled in, I have been starting to experience the sides of Spain that lie beyond the area in which I have been placed to live and study. There is so much more to this country than can be seen in one place at one time. Every region and city has its own character and its own feeling. This weekend, I went with a group of friends to Sevilla, located in the south of Spain in the community of Andalucía. Sevilla feels distinctly Spanish – almost more north African than European. Whereas Alcalá is flooded with constant reminders that I’m living in Europe, Sevilla demonstrated what sets Spain apart from the rest of the continent and offers an experience consistent with my lifelong perception of the nation. The most striking aspect of Sevilla is the heavy Arab influence. Nestled in the heart of Spain’s old Muslim territory, known in the Middle Ages as Al-Ándalus, every corner of the city is reminiscent of its Islamic past. This mixture of Arab Muslim culture and Spain’s staunch Catholicism makes for a stunningly beautiful cohabitation of customs and architectural styles. The sidewalks are lined with African-esque palm trees and vibrantly colored orange trees, and ornate Arab architecture makes every building stand out. Even the old Catholic churches and cathedrals are extremely Arab in their details, constructed in the mozárabe style, which comes from the medieval Catholics that lived within the Muslim reign of Al-Ándalus. Throughout the country, Spain’s Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish histories come together, lending their own features to the mix to create a rich and distinctive culture.

The Beginning of My Temporary Expatriacy

After a month in a new country, I’ve finally decided to get my act together. For anyone who cares, which as of now refers only to a professor and a few boastful relatives, I’m ready to stop hogging my journals and convert them into reasonably organized and cohesive thoughts. I have been living and studying in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, in the Community of Madrid. My initial impression was and still largely is that it’s hard to believe this is a real place and I actually live here. I walk through cobblestone-lined alleyways, passing the heavy, ten-foot wooden doors and worn-yet-in-tact walls serving as a breathtaking reminder of the city’s medieval past. After a month here, I still marvel as I walk and wonder how Alcalá’s permanent residents can go about their daily business so matter-of-factly in such a beautiful and historic setting. As an American with the entirety of his family history located over 2,000 miles away and across an ocean, I struggle to wrap my head around the idea that ethnic Europeans still living in Europe need only to step outside to see thousands of years of their bloodlines’ time-honored culture. How can walking from work to the corner store on your break be business as usual when that trip takes you through the spot where your great-great-great-great grandfather might have defended his medieval honor in a swordsmen’s duel? How is it that Alcalá teenagers can graffiti meaningless tags on gorgeous architecture representing a style not seen since the sixteenth century? Growing up in an immigrant country in its comparative infancy has given me a much greater respect for the extensive history evident in almost every building and sidewalk in this city.