john fulton

my spanish art teacher is this whimsical older lady who has lived in spain for 22 years after spending her first 40 or so in southern california.  she moved here for the love of her life, or in her words, her "media naranja", a bullfighter, painter, and the first american matador by the name of john fulton:

anyway so this is all great, but i have been pretty terrified by this whole bullfighting thing since i got here.  i became MORE scared when she presented us with paintings of his that he had painted with the blood of the bulls he had killed.  all that came to mind was ani difranco's line,

if there is one instinct i just can't get with at all
it's the urge to kill something beautiful just to hang it on your wall

...so....i'm not going.  to hell with it. 

gratitude

just feeling grateful for my life, all the challenges and rewards, for my brain, for the people i love..por todos :)

i've had so many interesting experiences and learned so much in the last few days.  mostly of the spanish language...not to be a pompous ass, but i'm getting pretty good.   this week i will start intercambio, so i will be assigned a spanish student at the university with whom i'll practice my spanish while they practice their english with me.  also, our neighbor has two little ones (2 and 4 years old), and asked if i could teach them english for one hour a week, so i'll start with that in a couple of weeks. 

javier grew these tomatoes at his mountain refuge, and sandra made this amazing (and very aesthetic) salad.  my roommate maranda and i are going to camp at the refuge with several other american students in the next few weeks.

maranda and me at el parque maria louisa, which is pretty much in our backyard:

a lot of the stores have these pig legs chilling out in the heat all day, it's pretty gross:

the view of the city from el torre de oro:

i get a kick out of this painting of the virgin mary protecting the nina, the pinta, and the santa maria.  and i know somebody is going to say "you like EVERY painting of the virgin mary."  but this one i really like because it was painted in the 15th century, so you can still see the muslim influences, like the light around her face and her black cloak.  it's too bad i couldn't get a better shot of it.  i think it's great. 

both the old and the new architecture in this city is stunning as all hell.  me encanta mucho:

aaaaand this perrito i just photographed because i felt so bad for it:

mi companera de piso

finally arrived after being stuck in portugal for a couple of days.  :)

el dia segundo

last night before i had a map or a camera with me, i stumbled upon this endless gathering of little cobblestone paths with the most colorful gardens, buildings, etc, but after exploring all day and night today i couldn't find it again...i think it is a hidden city reserved only for the lost and mapless.  oh well. 

the place where christopher columbus's voyage was planned:

museum of folk art:

the archaeology museum:

persephone:

apollo:

ancient tomb guardian:

a little bit of la plaza de espana (this is seriously so off the real thing that i hesitate to even post it, but  my photo making skills are not so good):

neanderthal:

Chaos.

this is the chain of causes and effects leading to me being exhausted right now: my plane from dc to madrid is declared four hours late --> i buy a time magazine to pass the time with a headline that says something about israel --> the guy i'm sitting next to on the plane speaks, tragically, worse english than i do spanish, but we managed to talk about israel among other things for 6 of the 8 hours, and the rest of the time i was way too captivated by the richard dana inspired horizon as we were catching the sun to get any sleep --> once i get to seville i realize i have to walk about a mile with my luggage in a city without traffic signs let alone english ones--> i was exhausted at this point, but not deterred: i still adventured around this breathtaking city for the rest of the evening.