Day: March 7, 2014
Here’s What You Missed
After going out of town last weekend to visit Madrid, I’m already getting ready to go somewhere else! I’m leaving in a little bit to go to Morocco with some of my friends! We’re going with a tour company called Discover Excursions that will take us to the cities of Tetuan, Chefchaouen, and Assilah. I’m very excited! However, I haven’t had time to put together a post talking about my trip to Madrid! I’ve been busy with class projects this week, and also getting ready for my family to visit next week!! My brother and sister have their spring break, so the whole family is coming over to see me and Seville!
However, I wanted to post about some of the museums and other random places I’ve been visiting in and around Seville lately! This is a less text-heavy post than some of my previous ones, but I think the pictures are enough to get a good impression of what these places are like. Enjoy!
La Casa de Pilatos is a palace and museum where the current Duke of Medinaceli lives. The son of the family that originally lived in the palace was very religious, and the house was said to be like that of Pontius Pilate (hence the name, “Casa de Pilatos”.) The building itself is an excellent example of mudéjar architecture mixed with Italian Renaissance styles. It features beautiful tile work, gardens, as well as Greek and Roman sculptures.
El Museo Arqueológico was originally built for the 1929 Exposition. It was the Pabellón del Renacimiento, intended to capture the “look” of one of Seville’s more popular architectural styles. During the Expo it was the Museo de Bellas Artes, but that collection was moved to another building, so the Museo Arqueológico was moved here. It houses sculptures and artifacts from the Iberios and Tartessos (some indigenous peoples in this region), as well as from the Romans, Visigoths, and Moors.
El Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares (Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions) is housed in a building that was constructed to showcase the mudéjar style for the ’29 Expo. It contains items related to everyday life in order to demonstrate the Spanish lifestyle and culture. While not my favorite of the museums I’ve visited in Seville, it was still interesting to look at antique items that people commonly used, and a great lens into what Spaniards consider important when showing off aspects of their own culture.
El Museo de Bellas Artes is housed in a former monastery that was built in 1594. It contains an excellent collection of Spanish art, especially religiously-themed artworks, and is organized in chronological order. It contains many works by Velázquez and El Greco. This was probably my favorite of the museums in Seville.
I took a day trip with CIEE to visit the nearby towns of Alcalá de Guadaíra and Utrera. Both towns are very cute and are known for their medieval castles. I also really loved the Puente del Dragón in Alcalá de Guadaíra. Spanning the bridge near the castle, there is a sculpture of a dragon. It was designed with mosaics to resemble the artistic style of Antoni Gaudí, and symbolically represents the dragon protecting the town.
That’s all I have time for right now! I need to finish packing my bag for Morocco! However, I plan to post all about my adventures in Madrid when I get back next week.
Besides exploring Spain, things are going really well. In my Arte Español class, I finally met the professor, so now he knows I’m a foreign student. (Which is good, but it came back to bite me when he randomly stopped in the middle of a lecture to check if I could understand him! It was a sweet gesture, but having 100 Spanish students turn around and look at you in the middle of a lecture hall was a bit embarrassing!) In my Antropología de la Organización Social class, I’m trying to get the hang of prácticas, which in this course are small group work assignments. In my Geografía de Europa course, I have several assignments I need to be working on, but the due dates are pretty far down the line so I don’t think it’ll be too hard to get them all done. One of our assignments actually involves watching several movies, so that’s been kind of fun! I’m really enjoying my Psicología del Aprendizaje de una Segunda Lengua course. It’s very relevant to my experience as a study abroad student trying to learn a foreign language, and I really like how it connects to other psychology courses I’ve taken in the past.
I must be off! Gotta catch a bus (and a ferry) to Africa! (Studying abroad is pretty surreal!)
kelseygoestospain 