This afternoon, my class had three students. I have had the same teacher since starting seven weeks ago. She will be taking a two week vacation starting next Monday - I am not sure who our substitute teacher will be or what students will be in the class, but for this week it appears that it will be the same three students and the same teacher.
After class, one of the other teachers, who has lived her whole life in Sevilla, offered a walking tour. I am happy to report that with her slow and clear Spanish, I was basically able to follow along. PROGRESS!!! It was about an hour and a half and her goal was to show us things that we might not otherwise notice. She was awesome. I offer a couple of highlights - in English.
First, if you spend any time in Sevilla, you will hear that lots of buildings are built on top of the ruins of other buildings. If you go into the first floor of the Metropol(waffle building) for example, you can look down and see Roman ruins. In the photo below, you can see what look like columns and arches built around the doors of a builiding. In reality, they are merely the top couple of meters of some very tall (10 meter?) columns from a no longer existing building on the site.
Plaza de la Alfalfa is a busy square in the center of the city that had from 1852 until 2005 an open air animal market. (A slaughterhouse stood in the same place from 1500's until early 1800's). Finally, in 2005, the European Union disallowed groups of animals in open spaces because of the risk of bird flu. Our guide was not sorry to see the market go - she remembered the bad conditions of the animals when she came a couple of times as a child. Now there is a plaque to mark the spot -and a playground in addition to the cafes and stores around the square.
We also visited the "Cabeza del Rey Don Pedro" (yes, the name of the road is Head of the King Don Pedro). There is a legend/story about King Pedro going out "disguised" as a common man. He got into a fight and killed a guy in a bar. At this time, the mayor had claimed that no crime would go unpunished, and the family of the slain man wanted justice. Sadly for Pedro, there was a witness. She came forward after the king assured her that there would be no problems for her if she would just identify the killer to him in private. She did. The king made a clay bust of his own head and put it in a locked box. He told everyone in the city that with the woman's help he had put the head of the culprit in the box -which should only be opened on his death. The woman's home was on this block and a modern replica of the king's bust was placed on the side of the building in the early 1600's.
We visited quite a few other sites, each with their own interesting story. My guess is that none of them were places that I would have even noticed without someone pointing them out.
Even though the "after class extras" are interesting and probably really help my Spanish - I come home exhausted. After cleaning up and making a quick dinner, it is already midnight. So, as soon as I finish typing this, I will fall into bed.
So - from one of the city's newest Sevillanas - good night.
