Sevilla, Spain

I was in Granada for about 4 days. On the third day, Saturday, I decided to go to Seville, which is 3 hours away by train, for a day trip. As soon as I got off the train, I was immediately surprised:All over the streets were women dressed in flamenco and men riding on horses. It made me realize that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had actually just planned a day trip to Sevilla to see the “feria de abril” (it’s hundredth anniversary, actually!) I had no idea what it was about or what the celebration was like, only that it would be a waste not to go when I was so close. I also realized that I was going to have to settle for an extremely tainted version of Sevilla (as in, I wasn’t going to get a chance to see what Sevilla is like when there is no “feria de abril” – do people dress in flamenco all the time? Is horseback riding in the street common?)

Due to the feria, everything was either closed or free. I got into the Plaza de Espanya for free, for instance:
This is the only plaza with this name (there was one in Madrid and Barcelona, as well) whose name makes sense – all around the circle are little murals depicting individual cities. I have a picture of Barcelona, above to the right.

I walked by the university in Sevilla, which is near their main street, avenue de la constitution:

Like in almost every city I’ve been in so far, a river cuts Sevilla in half:The feria is so huge that there’s even a big chunk on the map of Sevilla dedicated to it. It’s literally labelled “feria de abril,” which I found quite shocking. Imagine this exchange:
I say, holding a map, ”Hola! Perdon – donde esta feria de abril?”
They point at the big section called ‘feria de abril’ and say “aqui,” and probably mutter something under their breath which means “dumbass.”

What happens in this mini-city, exactly? The women dress up in these fantastic outfits, frilly dresses with matching roses in their hair (like, black and white dress? black and white rose) while the men dress up in archaic suits and ride around in horses. (I’ve seen some women, in the suits or dresses, riding around on horses. I haven’t see any men in dresses, though.)

You can see in the background in these pictures that there are loads of tents (called casettas) around. Well, in fact, this is quite literally a tent city, and most if not all of the tents are privately owned – your family owns a tent, and nobody’s allowed into it unless they’re invited. They serve beer and food in them, and sometimes there’s entertainment or music playing, and they all have a bodyguard standing in front of them to kick out tourists.

You can also see the frickin’ amusement park! Ferris wheels and carnival games and the whole shebang! And they put it all up just for 5 days a year!

Some locals asked me to take a picture of them in front of the big feria-light-show-sign-thing, so I asked to get a picture with them. They were extremely entertained by my request: “a picture with ‘real spanish’ people,” they all said, and laughed.

Sevillisms

The street names in Sevilla are all like this:That is to say that the street names aren’t printed on signs as a whole but that they have individual letters and put them up to spell out the names. Basically every street is like this. I imagine that vandals have a great time with these.

-Square tree (who thinks that looks good?):

The following two are from the feria.

-A Tom and Jerry ride:
I wonder what the actual title says. Clever mouse and silly cat? Any translators? I’m not online atm. In a train. You knew that.

-A Mr. Bean ride:

I’ll admit that when I first got this far West in Spain, I had secretly wanted just to go to Sevilla to catch the feria, without even knowing what the feria was all about! My only regret is that I was never able to get a hostel for the night to see what the festivities are like in the evening. I met someone who was here the last day, and she said it was basically “bullfight, flamenco dancing and fireworks.” Sounds awesome.