Rainy Andalucian Days and Nights

Today it was gray--all day. Rainy off and on. This evening around 8 the heavens opened and it rained for forty days and forty nights. I was happy to be safe and dry in the hostel common room. Reading.

Since there's no beach to lie on here, I can't say that I mind a quiet, rainy day or two. Not when I'm armed with some delightful light reading and cups of tea. I've been in need of some quiet days, anyway. And at the hostel I found a lovely "art history mystery"--Death and Restoration, by Iain Pears. If you want an easy read, check him out. His characters are delightful. And the whole idea of crime novels surrounding works of art is a wonderful development of the murder mystery industry that the British have been perfecting since Sherlock Holmes. So, for the past three days, I've been spending delightful, quiet evenings, in a quiet hostel (off-season, you know) assiduously reading.

Finished tonight. Just in time for my departure tomorrow. I didn't want to carry yet another book, since I've got a couple with me already--The Kite Runner (fabulous book), which I'm saving for the bus ride to Granada tomorrow, and another book, The Queen of the South, which I'm considering ditching since my newly-acquired sleeping bag has made my pack a little overstuffed.

The sleeping bag story is this: another thing I've done during my five days in Sevilla is arrange a last-minute tour in Morocco with the company Intrepid Travel. It is 14 days, beginning in Casablanca and traveling through Meknes, Chefchaouen, Fes, Midelt, traveling to the Saharan desert and some Gorges, finally finishing in Marrakech. Doesn't it sound wonderfully romantic and exotic? And since it is an organized group tour, I will have the luxury of sitting back and enjoying it, letting someone else figure out the details. I'm quite looking forward to it. And since Morocco isn't known for its advanced views in regard to independent young women, my belonging to a group will put some parties concerned with my whereabouts a little more at ease--including myself.

So I called up and got myself booked for this trip that leaves November 2 and finishes the 15. One of the things they recommend bringing for this trip, if taken during the winter months--defined as November through April--is a good sleeping bag. I wasn't quite sure where I would manage to find one until one guy at the hostel suggested El Corte Ingles. Of course, El Corte Ingles--the wonderful Spanish department store, purveyors of everything imaginable, from kitchen spatulas to bike helmets!

They seem to have one in every city of any size, each one several stories, and the one in Sevilla is comprised of four buildings, all within a couple of blocks of each other. It took a little while to find the right one. The first one I found had kitchen wears on the ground floor and small appliances on the first floor (note the European floor numbering system). Across the street was the furniture store. A third building was the bookstore. It took a while to find the fourth, but I came across it after some wandering down a couple of commercial streets filled with stores like Sfera, Zara, Footlocker, and the Body Shop (and, strangely, a group of World Wildlife Fund canvasers, one dressed in a panda suit and the others sporting black grease paint animal noses and whiskers. They picked me out right away to talk to--must have been that Indian style woven shoulder bag, skirt, and sports sandal combination, not particularly Spanish-style high fashion, though I'm lacking the dreads of the local hippie population. (Sorry I can't contribute! I'm a penny-pinching traveler at the moment!)).

The fourth store was fashion, "la moda," which also included, on the floor with the kid's clothing, the sporting goods section--los deportes. And, indeed, they had sleeping bags! Not as great a selection as I would find at an REI or EMS in the States, but sometimes limitations can be blessings. I was looking for a small bag (not too much extra space in my small pack) that I could afford. It wasn't cheap at 69€ (small bags always cost more), but I had been prepared for worse, and I was willing to pay for convenience.

I've managed now to squeeze the bag into my pack with my clothes wrapped around it, and I'm still considering if I can get rid of something. Thus, the thoughts of donating my book to the hostel bookshelf.

In spite of the rain we've gotten here everyday, I have also managed to see the Sevillan sights during the sunny bits. The cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Europe, my guidebook tells me, and it certainly seems quite large. And the Alcazar is larger and more beautiful than the one in Cordoba. Walls of colorful tile and moorish-inspired, lobed arches. The gardens are huge--courtyard upon courtyard of orange and palm-trees, fountains, pools, flowers blooming in October. All quite magnificent and fully satisfying every image I have of southern Spain.

The Sevillan streets are quite lively, too--full of tourists and street performers, quite talented ones, at that. There's a puppet master who makes a small woman play a small cello, so well-timed that you almost think that the music is coming from the cello instead of from the hidden speakers. And there's the Belgian with his homemade kangaroo costume, complete with ingenious bouncy stilts made to look like kangaroo legs, who juggled and breathed fire, even swallowed it!

And there are gypsies, begging forlornly on the ground, or seeking alms from tourists eating ice cream cones. Some try to give tourists small sprigs of rosemary, somehow expecting to get money from the transaction. There are street vendors who turn out bracelets by the dozens as the sit behind their wears spread out on towels spread out on the sidewalks. It's a happening place, and also seems to be full of American students. I've heard more American accents here than in the university town of Salamanca.

Tomorrow I'm off to Granada, my third Andalucian town, and home of the famed Alhambra. Will it live up to the hype? Some have warned me of disappointment. I hardly expect that, but I do hope it won't rain.