History and jogging (and ice cream)

My mom told me that I should write a blog post about trying to buy train tickets for a day at the beach. And while I don't think I'm going to write an entire post about it, here's a somewhat shortened version of the story. My friends and I spent an extended period of time looking into the best way to get to Cadiz, for a day trip to a cool beach city, and ultimately decided that we'd take the train. After class we tried buying tickets through the national train website, but the site wasn't working. So we each downloaded a third party ticket app and bought our train tickets. We then found out that if we purchased our tickets through the train company directly, we could save 20%, so we cancelled our original tickets. We also wanted to make sure we could sit together, so I spent the next two hours on both my computer and my phone trying to purchase these four train tickets, with sites crashing left and right, oftentimes when I entered my credit card information. It was a bit stressful. Finally, I gave up and walked the 35 minutes to the train station, stood in line for 10 minutes, and after two minutes at the counter, had all four of our tickets in my hand. I later looked up information about the train website and found out that in general no one is able to successfully purchase train tickets. Moral of the story: walk to the train station, buy tickets.

In other news, classes are happening and life is happening. I've eaten more ice cream in the last week than I have in months, purely because it's  literally anywhere and everywhere. And it's delicious; flavors thus far have included almond, kinder bueno, coffee, hazelnut, and chocolate mousse.

A pretty typical plaza, that just seems to announce "history."

I am quickly realizing how little I knew and understood about Europe before coming here, in the sense that I really know nothing about the history or politics of any piece of the continent. More than anything, I'm learning that history is on every corner; Spanish culture has so many centuries on the United States, and I'm starting to see what that looks like. Many buildings in the city center (where I live) have big plaques, announcing whichever historically famous person died in that building. This weekend at the beach in Cadiz we came upon an ancient Roman theater that is currently being excavated from under more contemporary construction. In a different town, before beginning a hike, our program brought us to a random Arab fortification castle on a hill. Last week I visited the royal palaces, and was blown away by the beauty of the tiled decoration that represented centuries of varied artistic style. Also in Cadiz, we visited the cathedral and its crypt, and walked to another random castle. Oh, and many of the streets here are still cobblestone. So basically there is a lot to take in. Maybe I'll write a blog post soon about all the little trips that I've done to places around Sevilla.

In terms of more current events, this morning Gillian, my wonderful roommate, and I found massive potted trees on the commercial pedestrian street that we walk on our way to school each day. This street is located in the city center, and is extremely popular among both tourists and locals; it's also a few blocks from where we live. The concrete-potted plants were spaced at intervals along the middle of the road. Gillian pointed out to me that perhaps they have been installed as obstacles against terrorism, and I think she's right.

The river, after my run. (Path sort of visible along the water.)

The weather is starting to cool down now (80s during the day). Since arriving here, I've been going on runs in the evening along the Guadalquivir river, and the cooler weather has made it unbelievably more bearable than it was last week. I'm much less smothered by the heat. Cooler weather also means more people on the beautiful pedestrian path that runs along the river bank. So though my runs have become easier climate-wise, they now consist of dodging bicyclists, walkers, families, joggers, dogs, dog poop, and random children. It keeps me on my toes.


P.S. Gillian and I discovered the "Gourmet Experience" floor of the biggest department store in town, and were amazed to find a product labeled "Minnesota maple-flavored syrup." It left us puzzled.