nuns, tapas, and a giant metal bull

in the plaza where maria and i take our break between morning classes, a giant bull is parked behind a row of park benches. i say parked because it has wheels. four wheels, instead of feet, which support a wide angular frame of sheet metal. in fact, there is nothing particularly bull-like about him. only a pair of horns, and the fact that this is sevilla, would lead you to conclude that this hollow tank with antennaes is a work of public art, and a bull. this is one reason i love spain.

from this angle it looks like a bull, i guess

another is that my spanish teacher paints her toenails black. i see them as she darts back and forth between a regular whiteboard and an electronic one, and tries not to ruin the latter by writing on it with normal markers. i´m distracted by her eclectic fashion and bypassed by technology, but i still manage to pick up a lot of spanish in four hours a day. nine other students ring the table. a few come and go over the weekends, but for the last two weeks the core group is the same: a handful of brits, maria and another german, a filipina. a japanese guy spent only one week and joseph from israel left after two. i like the mix and am relieved to be the only american, even if the burden of explaining american customs rests solely on my shoulders. at my level, of course, we are talking "popular meals." this is not foreign policy.

i made the decision to come to spain the way i make most decisions: deliberate, delay making said decision, suddenly commit, see what happens. i came directly to sevilla from morocco, have stayed two weeks and have two more. it took about two days for me to establish a routine: class from 9 to 1, rush to do errands before stores close at 2. lunch and siesta, study, then go out in the town, and either a) do tapas/drink beer or b) go to sleep. spain is definitely not africa, but it also feels less than 100 percent european. take all the napping, for example. and the prayer call has only been replaced by church bells. i´m undecided over whether clanging is more agreeable than a loudspeaker-distorted Allahu Akbar.

the minaret/bell tower

in sevilla i live in a first-floor apartment on a small but busy street. peugeot drivers fight for tight parking spaces, and in the morning a tiny streetcleaner storms past my window. the room i get to call mine is easily the nicest place i´ve stayed in the last three years. when i showed up on the first day all i could do was nod and say "no, this is great" as i got the tour. i´ll spare details since deep down i know that having a bed and an antique dresser is not that big a deal. i´ll say only that a huge window reaches nearly to the top of the high ceiling.. and that above my bed there is a four by six foot painting of a rooster. (the owner of the apartment is recently divorced from an artist.) in the rest of the house, walls are hung from floor to ceiling with art featuring one prominent theme: naked women and dogs. not in separate works, but together. a few have rabbits, and a pottery period has been identified which highlights chickens. so in spite of this, or maybe because of this, i love the apartment. the owner took off for germany, so for the duration of my stay it´s only me, another student, and the women and dogs.

could an art major please interpret?

knowing that i´m here for awhile has made me take my time seeing the place. class takes up my morning hours, and during the siesta hours you may as well not even bother going outside. the two biggest tourist attractions--a cathedral and a palace--i have not gone into yet, though i walk past them at least a few times a week. by now i know some shortcuts. i have a route through the barrio santa cruz that takes me by the palace wall and to the river, for the days i make it up in time for a run. every corner i turn in the old city looks like something from a postcard: another line of three-storey buildings, vines and flowers falling from wrought-iron balconies. bars selling Cruzcampa beer, neighborhood grocery stores and, well, tourist shops with postcards. if i ever take more pictures, you would find them here.

i´ll see it all though. this week looks promising. class is out wednesday; it´s a holy day.