El Ayntamiento and Portugal and Ubeda
March 23-25
Friday now I call this weekend with Mario political weekend. Today is one of the main reasons why. We made an early trip to the Ayuntamiento of Sevilla where I was allowed a personal tour of the building with Mario and his brother Danny. Danny works for the political party Partido Andalucista and their main office is located on the bottom floor of the ayuntamiento.
Ok some background information before I get too far into this Andalucia is an autonomy which is pretty much like a state in the US. This autonomy is broken up into provinces. Sevilla is one of these provinces, kind of like counties. Next but deffinately not least we have the cities, and Sevilla is a city as well. So you can imagine that I live in Spain, Andalucia, Sevilla, Sevilla. Now Sevilla (the city) is the capital of andalucia, so the president of Andalucia lives and works in Sevilla. Now the Ayntamiento is like city hall the mayor and the political parties of the city work in this building. The government is set up as a ,.parliamentary system (people vote for the party more then the candidate). Now in Andalucia there are 4 political parties first is PP (partido politico) and PSOE (Partido Socialista Organizacion Economico). These two parties are like democrats and republicans in the US. They are the huge parties that the whole country has. Now the two smaller parties are Mario’s Partido Andalucista, which as he tells me is a pretty progressive party and The other is Izquierda Unida (IU) communist. Partido Andalucista is only a political party in Andalucia but it is pretty strong in andalucia.
Now the President of Andalucia works in the Lope de Vega building which is located across the street from my university and is under construction right now so he is currently not working now. The mayor of Andalucia works in the Ayuntamiento and lives in Triana (yeah Mario showed me his window he lives in a huge apartment complex) and is from the PSOE political party, the same as Zapatero the current president of Spain if you recall, however the president of Sevilla does not advertise that and does not help Zapatero- not a lot of people like Zapatero. Elections for the mayor of Sevilla are coming up in the end of April I believe so the political candidates are out hitting the streets and talking to the voters. I met the candidate for Mayor for the Partido Andalucista on Dia de Andalucia when I went to the discoteca with Mario and again during our trip to the ayuntamiento but have not sat down and talked to him. Mario tells me he is a nice guy- all politicians can have this appearance. Pedro believes he is nice but worries that he will put more time in changing Sevilla then just fixing the problems that arise.
Anyway the tour itself went through the part of the building that has been redone that is really nice but the old section is still intact and has imaculate detail. The bricks, the ceiling, the walls etc. They still use these two chambers for meetings today. All the chairs are like royalty with the red fabric surrounded by a gold frame. There is a huge room upstairs for banquets, weddings and big press conferences. Decoration in this new part of the building are portraits hung up by a bar placed between the ceiling and the wall that has gold bars that resemble cords running down the walls from the bar on top to hold up the portraits. The portraits are interesting because the pictures are mostly of past kings, and cardinals. Which I found of interest, there is not a seperation of church and state here. There is also a very strict security in the Ayuntamiento so we were stopped multiple times by the guards to check on us. So we returned to Danny´s office and I met a couple people in the political party ( Danny was very good at making sure everybody met me and knew I was from Wyoming) It was funny because one older man missunderstood him and said friend of Wyoming- who is Wyoming? this is because in Spanish the word from and of are the same word- thus it took a bit to describe that Wyoming is a state in the US- who actually knows about our small, untouristy state? Another time he told another man that I was from Camas a pueblo nearby but that joke lasted until I opened my mouth. We then went to a bar nearby for a fanta and then me off to a BBQ with my program.
The BBQ was a blast and I definately ate way too much and got a lot of sun, but I loved it. We had to drive out of town for 10 minutes to go to an area with trees and open grassy areas. All the directors were there and they cooked on huge grills pimientos, shishkababs, hamburgers, and potatoes. Then their kind of marshmellows that are strawberry flavored- they had never had roasted marshmellows and we fixed this immediately- they loved them. Then melon and watermelon for dessert. They also had huge coolers with pop and beer. The beer ran out about half way through- you know what happens when you get some americans around free beer. I drank a lot of pop though- I love this orange fanta.
We got back into town and I slept then ate dinner at 8- alone because Reyes was in the hospital for a tumor in her stomach to be removed, so Alfonso was with her. So I went out for sundaes with Pedro and a beer at pub before we met up with Cari Anne, another Cari friend, and another girl from the program I can never remember her name (Pedro is telling me right now here name is oh wait he forgot too- and remember he never forgets anything well except my cell) . We went to Buddha (it is nice having a spaniard who can talk to the bouncers) and had a great time dancing together on the top floor. Then around 1 am we moved to the second floor for a change of music and there Cari Anne saw a cute guy and next thing I knew they were talking and his friends (which I had thought were really cute) were lining up to meet us. They were from Asturias so Pedro had a long conversation with them. One of them was studying in Morocco and was in town just to drive to Ronda with his friends on their motos. They offered to take us with them tomorrow morning for the ride but we turned them down because they wanted us to go home with them. Oh well it was a blast dancing with them - especially one who was a professional dancer, and it showed.
The 24th
We went to Portugal. Now this was a blast! We started out by going for a picnic on the ruins of an old castle
that has an amazing view of the sea down the cliffs below.
That is what makes this part of southern Portugal beautiful the green hills, that turn into cliffs and then the blue blue Transatlantic below
. We sat here enjoying the site for a while then went to an area that had big caverns, well they were holes 
that were big and with me scaring Pedro to death (he is a worry wort like my dad). I could look down and see the clear green water below.
They were pretty dangerous though, but amazingly beautiful.
Next we went to the end of the world, Cabo San Vicente- well at least it was thought to be the end of the world. It is the farthest south western point of Europe and has a lot of cliffs, beautiful views, looks out on a huge ocean and a lighthouse.
Kind of touristy and the wind picked up so we didn´t spend a ton of time here- but I did get two ¨end of the world¨ rocks.
Last stop was a beach that had fun sand and I was like a little kid running in the sand and then standing on black rocks that had high tides barely running over them.
Problem with this is these rocks are slippery and when the waves came up I fell down and my camera got the brunt of the fall, and water soaked. We tried to dry the camera but it is definately broken thankfully I have now been able to add pictures of this place.
We went to a little portuguese village and had a nice pot of arroz con mariscos, which is a bunch of clams, crawdads, oysters, and other seafood cooked (shell and all) in rice. It was good but I really am not a fan of seafood so it wasn´t amazing to me. For dessert was a piece of almond cake. When I say almond I mean almond all almond. It is a traditional dessert for Portugal. We were pretty full and it was late so back to Sevilla we went.
25th
We got back into Sevilla at 4 am (now when I say 4 I mean 5 because the time change took place which really sucked for me on this day in particular as I got very little sleep) . Pedro got tired and had to keep stopping to get a little nap before continuing so that is why we got back so late. I was walking into my apartment and there was Mario waiting for me to catch the bus to go to Úbeda. I packed a bag in 15 minutes and was out the door to start my next big traveling day.
The bus ride to Úbeda was around 4.5 hours (pretty long) I made attempts at sleep but could not get comfortable. Danny on the other hand, was out for the whole trip- even the 20 minute stop at a roadside cafeteria he didn´t budge when the bus was reparked and left by the driver. Danny was locked inside but he never knew.
Well I should explain that we were in Úbeda for a political party funtion. It was a huge fiesta for all the people in Mario´s political party with talks by people, and concerts for andalucían pride in the central square. However, Juanito- Mario´s other brother, gave us 10 euros and we were away from that in 10 minutes. We explored the town looking at churches, to a wall that was placed on the cliff the town was built on to see the countryside below, into old streets to see the millions of churches and convents, we walked around the muralla (the big defensive wall that surrounds the city) and into plazas with religious statues. We ate bocadillos traditional to Úbeda called Ochío, which had a lot of flavor and the spices make the bread orange leaving marks on your face from the bread- pretty much I loved it. We listened to the concerts and looked at all the old buildings around the square and then after looking at the ayuntamiento we had to leave. Which we ended up being late by 10 minutes to meet the bus because of Danny calling us to say ¨where am I¨ to Mario a couple times which made us laugh. We tried to find out where he was by saying do you have the saint being burned by flames in the plaza with you, how about the big convent with the main doors split by a column in the middle (which I called mediopuerta but the technical name was parteluz) and even can you hear the music from the concerts. All of this was really funny. He was only a few minutes after us and we were on our way back to Sevilla.
Now some things I learned about the spanish culture while in Úbeda were first the ayuntamiento is usually placed in the middle of the old part of every town in Andalucía. Second each town has 4 flags, town, providence (which was not on display), autonomy, country, and nation-Europe. The neat thing was the flag for Andalucía was higher then all the other flags- which I found interesting. And it launched a huge talk about people having more pride for their autonomy then the nation itself. Through my talk with several Andalucíans I have begun to realize that Spain pulls together in times of war but its autonomies are very different and not very united like the US, in my opinion- Pedro contests this a lot. I could say more but its not important.
Also something I like. The train for a dress is cola here which means tail. In the United State this is a joke when a guy calls the train of a dress a girl´s tail so I found this really funny. KJ and Adar are going to hear about this more on their wedding days when they have ¨tails¨.
I was tired as you can guess so when I got back I ate dinner while listening to Anne talk about her weekend in Barcelona and then said goodnight and passed out.
That´s the weekend.
Friday now I call this weekend with Mario political weekend. Today is one of the main reasons why. We made an early trip to the Ayuntamiento of Sevilla where I was allowed a personal tour of the building with Mario and his brother Danny. Danny works for the political party Partido Andalucista and their main office is located on the bottom floor of the ayuntamiento.
Ok some background information before I get too far into this Andalucia is an autonomy which is pretty much like a state in the US. This autonomy is broken up into provinces. Sevilla is one of these provinces, kind of like counties. Next but deffinately not least we have the cities, and Sevilla is a city as well. So you can imagine that I live in Spain, Andalucia, Sevilla, Sevilla. Now Sevilla (the city) is the capital of andalucia, so the president of Andalucia lives and works in Sevilla. Now the Ayntamiento is like city hall the mayor and the political parties of the city work in this building. The government is set up as a ,.parliamentary system (people vote for the party more then the candidate). Now in Andalucia there are 4 political parties first is PP (partido politico) and PSOE (Partido Socialista Organizacion Economico). These two parties are like democrats and republicans in the US. They are the huge parties that the whole country has. Now the two smaller parties are Mario’s Partido Andalucista, which as he tells me is a pretty progressive party and The other is Izquierda Unida (IU) communist. Partido Andalucista is only a political party in Andalucia but it is pretty strong in andalucia.
Now the President of Andalucia works in the Lope de Vega building which is located across the street from my university and is under construction right now so he is currently not working now. The mayor of Andalucia works in the Ayuntamiento and lives in Triana (yeah Mario showed me his window he lives in a huge apartment complex) and is from the PSOE political party, the same as Zapatero the current president of Spain if you recall, however the president of Sevilla does not advertise that and does not help Zapatero- not a lot of people like Zapatero. Elections for the mayor of Sevilla are coming up in the end of April I believe so the political candidates are out hitting the streets and talking to the voters. I met the candidate for Mayor for the Partido Andalucista on Dia de Andalucia when I went to the discoteca with Mario and again during our trip to the ayuntamiento but have not sat down and talked to him. Mario tells me he is a nice guy- all politicians can have this appearance. Pedro believes he is nice but worries that he will put more time in changing Sevilla then just fixing the problems that arise.
Anyway the tour itself went through the part of the building that has been redone that is really nice but the old section is still intact and has imaculate detail. The bricks, the ceiling, the walls etc. They still use these two chambers for meetings today. All the chairs are like royalty with the red fabric surrounded by a gold frame. There is a huge room upstairs for banquets, weddings and big press conferences. Decoration in this new part of the building are portraits hung up by a bar placed between the ceiling and the wall that has gold bars that resemble cords running down the walls from the bar on top to hold up the portraits. The portraits are interesting because the pictures are mostly of past kings, and cardinals. Which I found of interest, there is not a seperation of church and state here. There is also a very strict security in the Ayuntamiento so we were stopped multiple times by the guards to check on us. So we returned to Danny´s office and I met a couple people in the political party ( Danny was very good at making sure everybody met me and knew I was from Wyoming) It was funny because one older man missunderstood him and said friend of Wyoming- who is Wyoming? this is because in Spanish the word from and of are the same word- thus it took a bit to describe that Wyoming is a state in the US- who actually knows about our small, untouristy state? Another time he told another man that I was from Camas a pueblo nearby but that joke lasted until I opened my mouth. We then went to a bar nearby for a fanta and then me off to a BBQ with my program.
The BBQ was a blast and I definately ate way too much and got a lot of sun, but I loved it. We had to drive out of town for 10 minutes to go to an area with trees and open grassy areas. All the directors were there and they cooked on huge grills pimientos, shishkababs, hamburgers, and potatoes. Then their kind of marshmellows that are strawberry flavored- they had never had roasted marshmellows and we fixed this immediately- they loved them. Then melon and watermelon for dessert. They also had huge coolers with pop and beer. The beer ran out about half way through- you know what happens when you get some americans around free beer. I drank a lot of pop though- I love this orange fanta.
We got back into town and I slept then ate dinner at 8- alone because Reyes was in the hospital for a tumor in her stomach to be removed, so Alfonso was with her. So I went out for sundaes with Pedro and a beer at pub before we met up with Cari Anne, another Cari friend, and another girl from the program I can never remember her name (Pedro is telling me right now here name is oh wait he forgot too- and remember he never forgets anything well except my cell) . We went to Buddha (it is nice having a spaniard who can talk to the bouncers) and had a great time dancing together on the top floor. Then around 1 am we moved to the second floor for a change of music and there Cari Anne saw a cute guy and next thing I knew they were talking and his friends (which I had thought were really cute) were lining up to meet us. They were from Asturias so Pedro had a long conversation with them. One of them was studying in Morocco and was in town just to drive to Ronda with his friends on their motos. They offered to take us with them tomorrow morning for the ride but we turned them down because they wanted us to go home with them. Oh well it was a blast dancing with them - especially one who was a professional dancer, and it showed.
The 24th
We went to Portugal. Now this was a blast! We started out by going for a picnic on the ruins of an old castle
that has an amazing view of the sea down the cliffs below.
That is what makes this part of southern Portugal beautiful the green hills, that turn into cliffs and then the blue blue Transatlantic below
. We sat here enjoying the site for a while then went to an area that had big caverns, well they were holes 
that were big and with me scaring Pedro to death (he is a worry wort like my dad). I could look down and see the clear green water below.
They were pretty dangerous though, but amazingly beautiful.Next we went to the end of the world, Cabo San Vicente- well at least it was thought to be the end of the world. It is the farthest south western point of Europe and has a lot of cliffs, beautiful views, looks out on a huge ocean and a lighthouse.
Kind of touristy and the wind picked up so we didn´t spend a ton of time here- but I did get two ¨end of the world¨ rocks.
Last stop was a beach that had fun sand and I was like a little kid running in the sand and then standing on black rocks that had high tides barely running over them.
Problem with this is these rocks are slippery and when the waves came up I fell down and my camera got the brunt of the fall, and water soaked. We tried to dry the camera but it is definately broken thankfully I have now been able to add pictures of this place.We went to a little portuguese village and had a nice pot of arroz con mariscos, which is a bunch of clams, crawdads, oysters, and other seafood cooked (shell and all) in rice. It was good but I really am not a fan of seafood so it wasn´t amazing to me. For dessert was a piece of almond cake. When I say almond I mean almond all almond. It is a traditional dessert for Portugal. We were pretty full and it was late so back to Sevilla we went.
25th
We got back into Sevilla at 4 am (now when I say 4 I mean 5 because the time change took place which really sucked for me on this day in particular as I got very little sleep) . Pedro got tired and had to keep stopping to get a little nap before continuing so that is why we got back so late. I was walking into my apartment and there was Mario waiting for me to catch the bus to go to Úbeda. I packed a bag in 15 minutes and was out the door to start my next big traveling day.
The bus ride to Úbeda was around 4.5 hours (pretty long) I made attempts at sleep but could not get comfortable. Danny on the other hand, was out for the whole trip- even the 20 minute stop at a roadside cafeteria he didn´t budge when the bus was reparked and left by the driver. Danny was locked inside but he never knew.
Well I should explain that we were in Úbeda for a political party funtion. It was a huge fiesta for all the people in Mario´s political party with talks by people, and concerts for andalucían pride in the central square. However, Juanito- Mario´s other brother, gave us 10 euros and we were away from that in 10 minutes. We explored the town looking at churches, to a wall that was placed on the cliff the town was built on to see the countryside below, into old streets to see the millions of churches and convents, we walked around the muralla (the big defensive wall that surrounds the city) and into plazas with religious statues. We ate bocadillos traditional to Úbeda called Ochío, which had a lot of flavor and the spices make the bread orange leaving marks on your face from the bread- pretty much I loved it. We listened to the concerts and looked at all the old buildings around the square and then after looking at the ayuntamiento we had to leave. Which we ended up being late by 10 minutes to meet the bus because of Danny calling us to say ¨where am I¨ to Mario a couple times which made us laugh. We tried to find out where he was by saying do you have the saint being burned by flames in the plaza with you, how about the big convent with the main doors split by a column in the middle (which I called mediopuerta but the technical name was parteluz) and even can you hear the music from the concerts. All of this was really funny. He was only a few minutes after us and we were on our way back to Sevilla.
Now some things I learned about the spanish culture while in Úbeda were first the ayuntamiento is usually placed in the middle of the old part of every town in Andalucía. Second each town has 4 flags, town, providence (which was not on display), autonomy, country, and nation-Europe. The neat thing was the flag for Andalucía was higher then all the other flags- which I found interesting. And it launched a huge talk about people having more pride for their autonomy then the nation itself. Through my talk with several Andalucíans I have begun to realize that Spain pulls together in times of war but its autonomies are very different and not very united like the US, in my opinion- Pedro contests this a lot. I could say more but its not important.
Also something I like. The train for a dress is cola here which means tail. In the United State this is a joke when a guy calls the train of a dress a girl´s tail so I found this really funny. KJ and Adar are going to hear about this more on their wedding days when they have ¨tails¨.
I was tired as you can guess so when I got back I ate dinner while listening to Anne talk about her weekend in Barcelona and then said goodnight and passed out.
That´s the weekend.
posted by Lauren Westling @ 4:18 AM
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