Sevilla Sonnets
Unlike the capital, a bit chilly and ominous, Sevilla hammered us with a Spanish heat, made only more execrable by the fact that the SNAKES in our midst had applied sunblock from a private stash without informing the rest of us. Selfish and unfucking acceptable behavior. They were properly reprimanded.
Things looked up when we were shepherded by foxy older uber driver to an Airbnb with a downright palatial bathroom and informed about an EDM festival occurring in the ancient city. While there was an early optimist or two in the back seat about such an endeavor, we would ultimately not attend such a festival. It was the correct decision.
No longer in starched, Catholic Madrid, we were struck by the familiar beachy, drunken oeuvre of a seaside town despite being 40 km (about 720 miles/1830 galleons) from the sea. Akshay struggled to find restaurants that satiated his catch-22 of (to paraphrase, perhaps dangerously, Woody Allen) “I’d never join a club that’d have me as a guest.” And by “me” here, he means “us”. More nosh than posh. But the city also contains multitudes. Its ancient religious history brings in a melange of folks from all walks. Some older Italians on cute little salvation tours might walk by a church awash with altar-boys sweetly serenading on the stoop, mere metres from proper Lads on Tour on a stag-do with matching ducky short-sleeve-button-downs leaning on the stairs and ogling the local clientele.
The city center meanders through tight alleys, some smelling of urine, but many clean and bubbling with modern retail. Not in a terribly gross, over-consumerist way, but in a slightly gross, over-consumerist way. It’s made a deal with itself, and a known calculation of GDP decay, to convert its old-town into an effective commercial hub that still reeks (positively) of breathless history.
I was surprised to find out that the most beloved and oldest part of the city was the Jewish quarter; the area is full of artisans and map-wielding, bucket-hat-toting travelers during the day, while night offers music and bread. Shalom! We love it. I was less surprised to learn that there had been no shortage of massacres of the chosen peoples, and that many (read: all) of these past synagogues had been turned into homes for its more popular monotheistic brother.
We arrived too late for the local walking tour, clearly a hot commodity (they somehow repelled our sweet pleas), so our group took turns playing tour guide as we hoofed it through town and across the gentle river. Castles, forts, churches, tobacco factories, book stores, gelaterias. You get the idea. Dre obviously had to stay for fucking ever at every point staring at the yellowest of old rock. Solid day’s work. We even stumbled into a excellently-costumed clash between the rebels and the Empire of the Sith (May the 4th be with you). I hope they’ve been able to settle their differences over paella.
Theo – and we’ll lay the entirety of the decision on him – was also keen on attending a bullfight. It made the stomachs churn to think about, but there was also a bit of a group bloodlust at that point. Or at least a desire to immerse more deeply into “local” culture after a decidedly more touristy few days. So we made our way to the Plaza de Toros. A gorgeous, red adorned stone roman coliseum. And frankly… it was breathtaking
The matadors arrive as sex gods through a throng of adorers in tight, sequined uniforms that sitrring men, women, and children dizzy at the sight. The city’s refined class is there, sunglasses on, with the whole clan. Grandma, Auntie, and little Pepe are on their bedazzled pillows, ready to watch ritualistic slaughter. The vibe is familiar and community strong. Now I don’t know exactly how the Romans felt funneling into the coliseum, but it can’t have been all that dissimilar. The crowded stone building becomes hazy, transportive, and whispers of the centuries past. The same sky and dirt, the same buzz in anticipation.
The performance is a full 4-act drama. Maybe a tragedy. Somehow a comedy too. It’s indisputably beautiful and grand. An opening number with a dozen or so bovine creatures and faithfully-costumed, equivalently well-fed riders saunter through the ring. The pageantry is precise and somehow maintained even when the bull enters and begins to run. The matador and his lil homies, each with their own feather-adorned spears and hidey-holes in the wall, engage in the choreographed torture as a team. They send the poor creature sprinting around the ring, taking the off-blade through the spine every now and then to season it like a cast-iron skillet before the final kill.
The blood is hardly noticable at first, but once that dark inflection point is met, the dark, endless drip on the bull’s fur is hard to look away from. You know how this all ends. We prayed for a zoo-break.
As an aperitif we took an uber directly from the fight to Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium to watch Europa League LEGENDS Sevilla put a beatdown on the squalor 11 from Gibraltar. A few (World Cup champion) Argies in the squad satiated Theo and Dre set a stadium record for glizzies (no condiments). Akshay would never dare touch that sweet sweet horse meat.
The Spanish crowds are my favorite. Back-slapping genial seat neighbors long bonded by their sight lines. Some of the loudest whistlers on earth, each a real ball-knower who would have seen the back-post run if only their knees hadn’t given out in 1975. An absolute joy to eavesdrop, well more just enjoy the largesse of their gesticulations for 90 minutes.
And just like that, we were off to a new city as the bright, blinking lights of Cordoba awaited