Hello everyone,

It's been forever since I have updated and I apologize for the huge gap. I have a lot to tell you all about my travels. March was a crazy month and I was in Granada for only half of one weekend. March began in Brussels and ended in Barcelona. I will put this month into three separate entries to make it easier to read. First, I will write about Sevilla and Barcelona, the Spanish legs of my journeys. My third post will be about my week-long Spring Break to Rome, Vienna, and Frankfurt with my one of my closet Bucknell friends, Bryce.

On March 7th through the 9th, the Bucknell En Espana traveled about four hours west to Sevilla. I believe Sevilla is probably the prettiest city in Spain but I am still glad we live in the more fun and more live-able city of Granada. Sevilla is exactly what I would expect a Spanish city to look like.

On our first day, we went to the Corrida de Torros, or the bull fighting stadium. There are two sides of the stadium, the shady side and the sunny side. As Sevilla can boost temperatures well past 100 degrees, you can assume which side is the cheaper side of the stadium.

We also visited the famous Cathedral in Sevilla. It is originally started out as a Muslim mosque, but after the Christians politely asked the Muslim population to kindly leave the country, convert or die, a cathedral was built. The outside walls of the mosque still stand as well as its famous tower or minaret, the Giralda. We climbed this 320-foot tower to get a picturesque view of the city. This cathedral happens to be the third largest in the world, after St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London. (That's what our tour guide said at least. Wikipedia says differently.) Since I am a cathedral expert, I still think that the cathedral in Toledo is the prettiest in Spain. (St. Peter's is the prettiest in the world, as I saw it in Rome soon thereafter.)

We also took a short river trip of the city along the Guadalquivir. Unlike Granada, there is actually water in its river. It was a nice and relaxing way to end our day. We also got to tour the famous Jewish quarter of the city.

My favorite parts of Sevilla were the Alcazar and the Plaza De Espana. The Alcazar is a former Moorish fort that was then expanded by the Christians but still used Moorish architecture. This type of architecture is called mudejar. Since Muslims do not use images in their architecture, they utilized Arabic script to decorate their palaces. Ironically, the Christians copied this style and used the same phrases as the previous habitants and have the words "Mohamed is the prophet," inscribed on their walls. The place is modeled after Granada's Alhambra and certain parts look the same. The Alcazar is absolutely beautiful and when I make my first million dollars, I will model my summer home after it.

The Plaza de Espana was also breathtaking. It was built in the early 1900s and has a mural for each region of Spain. A scene in Star Wars was filmed here too. We took a good group photo in front of its fountain.

The weather in the city was great, with sun and temperatures in the mid 70s, just like Bucknell. I would also like to point out, in my humble opinion, this is the best smelling city in the world. The entire city had a slight odor of lilacs, which is a step up from the stereotypical smell of NYC cabs.

One night, we were at a bar and met five large dudes who were from NASA. Apparently, Sevilla is an emergency landing site for the U.S. Space Shuttle. (I Wikipedia-ed this to confirm their story's validity.) Using their meal stipends, they bought my friends and me two rounds of drinks. In Spain, I was able to see my American tax dollars at work.

We also went to the Roman ruins of Italica, which were quite cool and look similar to those in Rome. I'll post pictures. Read my next blog entry on Barcelona.

Bull Ring	View from the Giralda	The Giralda	Brittany and Lauren
Me at the Alcazar	Gardens at the Alcazar	Water at the Alcazar	Group Shot
Plaza de Espana	Boat Trip on the River	Roman Ruins	Italica amphitheater