Espana

Hello all!

I am back aboard the MV Explorer after four days in our first port of Spain! Though it’s disappointing to have to leave already it’s about time I catch up on my sleep. Spaniard’s definitely know how to party… no one in southern Spain sleeps until 6:00 am and when you have to wake up to catch a bus at 9:00 this makes for a long day. The Spanish guest lecturer we had onboard our ship suggests that perhaps this is the reason for his country’s relative economic inefficiency but this makes Spain such a lively place. It seemed to me that the lives of Spaniards are much more focused on being social than are our lives. I’ll tell you a little about that later.

Our ship docked in the little city of Cadiz in southwest Spain. To me, the coolest thing about Cadiz is its history. Cadiz is the oldest city in western Europe—it was founded 3,000 years ago by the Venetians. Since then it has been ruled by the Romans as well as several Islamic, Jewish, and Christian empires. It’s said that Cadiz was founded by Hercules himself; images of the Greek god can be found in artwork throughout the city. Cadiz accumulated immense wealth in the 16th century because, for a time, it was the main port for trade between Spain and the New World. Because the city is on a peninsula surrounded by high sea walls created hundreds of years ago to protect the prosperous city from invaders, Cadiz is also the only city in Spain that never fell to Napoleon. Sorry to bore you all with the history lesson but I just thought it was amazing that Cadiz has been around for so long and has been through so much yet it still remains a lively, functioning city. Another piece of the history that was shocking to me was the fact that people still live in these houses and buildings that are 300 to 700 years old. I mean, people probably died of the bubonic plague in those houses.

Some friends and I also went to Seville which is an absolutely gorgeous city inland about an hour from Cadiz. There we saw the third largest cathedral in the world, the oldest palace in the world that is still in use by a royal family, and the final resting place of Christopher Columbus (I’ve never seen a more elegant crypt). Not just in Seville, but in all of the cities we visited I was amazed by the beauty of the churches but even more than that I was amazed at the lack of religion in a place where people had once spent such vast amounts of money to erect and adorn these beautiful churches. We visited a huge old cathedral—one that even had the bodies of two five hundred year old saints displayed in it—on a Sunday morning! Apparently there was only one mass a week there and it was held in the afternoon. For a country in which 80% of its citizens consider themselves Catholics, Spain seemed to lack religious presence everywhere other than in its grand old churches which have truly become religious relicts.

Though the Spaniards lacked religious tradition, there was so much culture elsewhere. One of my favorite experiences was when some friends and I visited Ronda, a city high in the mountains of southern Spain. It was another beautiful old city with tiny roads that only Volkswagen Beetle size cars could drive through. There were many grand, several hundred year old houses crowded together on this mountaintop because it was where many of the wealthiest families in Spain, and even France and England, had their summer homes as it was known to have the cleanest air in Europe. Back in the day the best way to try to live long lives and be healthy was to have (1) proper nutrition and (2) fresh air so this is why they headed all the way to Ronda. And I digress again. Anyway, we just so happened to be in Ronda during the week they celebrate their fellow Rondian who created the sport of bullfighting several hundred years ago. To celebrate, of course, they have bull fighting events. Our tour guide said the worst ticket would cost at least eighty euros. I guess people pay that for an Eagles ticket, but it wasn’t the price that amazed me—it was how much of an event the bullfight was. We didn’t get to go inside the arena itself but we saw all of the Rondians, young and old, dressed in their best for the event. Young women rode to the arena in carriages pulled by lavishly decorated horses. The young women themselves looked so elegant. They wore long beautiful dresses and lace veils that our tour guide said were often two hundred years old—passed from mother to daughter—and could cost up to one hundred thousand euros for the very best ones. I was so surprised and fascinated by all of this because I had never previously thought of a Western country having such rich, distinct traditions.

One of my favorite aspects of Spanish culture is how important their meals are. It’s not just about great food, it’s so much about spending time with family [and in our case, friends]. One night some friends and I went out to a nice restaurant on the river in Seville for my roommate’s birthday. We got there around 8:00 and stayed until 11:30. No one bothered us to leave, in fact, after three and a half hours we finally had to ask for the check.

Drinking and partying also seemed to be important to Spainards, as I have previously mentioned. In order to be good travelers and really immerse ourselves in the culture my friends and I tried to do as the Spaniards do and went to some bars. I had “cerveza” down, but communicating our wants for other drinks with my broken Spanish required a bit more creativity. In trying to order my friend her whiskey sour we ended up with a shot of whiskey, a glass of ice, and a bottle of lemon Fanta. Still, it did the trick and we had a few good laughs with the bar tender.

And now, as if it wasn’t difficult enough trying to communicate in Spain where I actually knew a bit of the local language, we’re off to Morocco—a country whose official language was unknown to me until our pre-port lecture this afternoon. [F.y.i. They speak Arabic. Who knew.] It’s sad that now we have one less stop to see but I am so excited for what still is to come—cultures that will be even more different from our own. When we wake up tomorrow we will be in our first African country! And it should be something else--we’ve been told that us women need to cover up and that none of us should eat in public because it’s disrespectful to the 99% of Moroccans who are Muslims and are fasting for Ramadan. I’m going to need to brush up on my Islamic customs!

Well I need to get that rest before I embark on new adventures! I’ll be sure to write back soon to tell you all about Morocco!

Se amo!

svc