May 26th, 2010
Bitter Fruit
Sevilla is repleat with Seville orange trees, a bitter fruit not fit for consumption. They are instead harvested by the city and sold for the making of marmalade. Right now some of the trees are burdened with full ripe oranges and some just with little green pre-oranges that fall on you when the wind passes through.
These oranges can also be found in the local sangria we found out today at lunch.
So you know how in movies and tv shows when someone goes to a bar and orders a beer they never specify which beer they want, as if the bar only had one kind? Well in Spain it really seems to be like that in most places. You say “una cerveza” and you get whatever they serve. Usually you don’t have anyway of knowing. Fortunately none of it has been Bud or Coors so it’s been working out ok.
Last night we met with Estefania, a friend of a friend who had spent a year living and studying in Sevilla. She was kind enough to meet with us and show us around even though she hadn’t spoken to my friend in 16 years. He’d tracked her down when he heard we were coming through. She took us to a good bar for tapas and ordered us a wide variety of very tasty dishes. It was the kind of tapas experience you are supposed to have in Spain but can be surprisngly difficult to have if you don’t speak the language and don’t know where to look. After, we went to a place for dessert that had the most amazing looking (and tasting) concoctions. We ordered some to share and I ordered one made with the local oranges. It had a slight bitter edge off set by the sweet merangue and cake.
Today was laundry day and a bit of a revelation. The place that our hotel sent us to had a drop off and pick up service for the bargain price of 6€. Considering the time saved (and the fact that in Venice we spent more than that just trying to get our clothes dry) it was more than worth the price. I’m never going to do my own laundry in Europe again if I can help it.
In the afternoon we took a guided tour of the Alcazar with Concepción Delgado (suggested in Rick Steves). It was well worth it. Simmilar in styling to the Alhambra but not moorish. It was mujahideen. That is: remodeled and built atop a 10th century palace by arabic workers left behind after the reconquista at the behest of Christian king Pedro I.
The extensive gardens were quite lovely.
Tonight we are going to a flamenco show (because that it what one does when visiting Sevilla) and tomorrow my parents head off to Barcelona while we stay here for another day. Saturday we fly to Valencia.
Posted in Journal Entry, Spain | 1 Comment
All sounds wonderful. Isn’t it nice to have a local to show you around!