Parque Maria Luisa

In Ireland I have the privilege of living next to one of the biggest city parks in Europe, it's one of my favourite places and makes suburban life more bearable. I love having wide open spaces of grass to walk across and tall trees to look up at right across the road, and when I'm there I can forget that I live in a city. It's actually something I miss a LOT in Sevilla. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not one for inner city living, however much you might like pretty buildings (and I love pretty buildings) the noise and traffic and people get a bit too much sometimes and I'd love a field to go sit in and just be still for a while. The closest I've come to this in Sevilla is the Parque Maria Luisa in the south of the city just beyond the Plaza de España.

wouldn't be Sevilla without some oranges

 Other semi-green areas in the city would be better described as gardens, and while the Parque is still a little too tame and organised for my liking (a good comparison for my Dublin readers would be St. Stephen's Green) with its little fountains, statues and gazebos, it at least has grass to sit down on. I can't say I've been there much lately, February and March have had terrible weather and when it rains in Seville there's not much to do beyond sit in your apartment and look out the window, but on a nice day it's a lovely place to be. You won't find deer or foxes like in my park at home, but there's a selection of birds, including white peacocks (always fun) and I did see a rat swimming in a pond there last week. Nature, wonderful.

I know you love learning, so here's the smart bit. Originally the park was the gardens of the Palacio de San Telmo, a building I know next to nothing about other than that it is red, but were donated to the city of Sevilla for use as a public park in 1893. Sound. They were rearranged into the current layout of the park in the early twentieth century and of course a lot of work was put in for the Ibero-American Expo of 1929, just like the neighbouring Plaza. 

There are some smaller buildings around the edge of the park that I don't know a lot about yet but I'm making it my business to do so just as soon as I return from my little holiday at home, where I am now. Hasta pronto amigos x

When It's Good It's Great, When It's Bad It's A Nightmare

Now for something a little different.

Today I'm not going to talk about Spain or Seville, rather it's just going to be about Erasmus/studying abroad in general, so as to give anyone considering it some information and anyone at home a little perspective of how things are sometimes. I don't think I have had a 'typical' Erasmus experience, partially because I don't really think one exists. Yes, everyone is living in a different country with a different culture, and everyone ends up making enough international friends to create their own United Colours of Benneton advertisement, but when it comes down to feelings and emotions we're all a bit unique, and so everyone, I believe, handles those aspects of the year differently.

Now, I found the beginning hard. No one's denying that, I even wrote a post about it. And it took a while to settle, not so much because of any tangible difficulties (beyond admin. Puta admin. Seriously.) but due to plain old anxiety and fear of the unknown. Nowadays I'm liking the whole thing, it's an experience and it's all a story to tell one day. But because Erasmus, contrary to popular belief, actually is real life, there are bad days as well as good ones. The thing is, those good days and bad days are like exaggerated forms of the ones you have at home. Everything is so strange, even quite a few months in, that while average days do exist, the ones that fall either side of 'normal' fall often very far to the side.

The Good Days

"Sometimes Life's a Party, Sometimes You Love Your Life" (erasmus in-joke)

When you have a good day on Erasmus it's like a dream. The really good days are usually sunny, they involve few classes and a lot of "School of Life" style learning, typically involving faffing about doing nothing (but enjoying yourself) and maybe having a beer. You're with your friends, you're somewhere beautiful and new and exciting and yet you feel at home. You might be eating (I'm definitely eating) something you love from the place you're in. Maybe you've traveled somewhere new and you're basking in that glow.  You've made new friends. You're practising your host country's language and you're having fun. Someone might have thought you were a nationality other than the nationality you are, or even *gasp* the nationality of your host country! Today is a day you'll talk about to friends at home next year. It's like you're in Oz or Wonderland and Kansas or Generic English Meadow are very very far away. Everyone's having a good time and yep, those words go through your head; why would I ever want to go home? Forgetting for a moment the reality that you will have to go home, this is a good thing. This is why Erasmus is so amazing. When you're having a good day you're living the dream, you're on an adventure, everything is SO. MUCH. FUN. 

The Bad Days

And sometimes you feel like this.

Bringing you all down to earth with a bang now, sorry. Bad days happen, they always do, whether you're home or abroad. And sometimes bad weeks happen. If a bad month happens you might have a problem. And speaking from experience, when you're out of your comfort zone and, to use some very fancy lingo, away from your usual emotional support structures (Read: family, friends, tea), bad days hit a little harder then they usually do. The fact that students in general aren't known for taking very good care of themselves comes into play here, certainly in my case that's led to me getting ill quite easily and more often. And when you're run down but you still have to take care of yourself everything is difficult and painful and why can't I just stay in bed. Case in point: I was sick for almost a week. I couldn't walk very far without feeling faint, but I needed food. I went to the supermarket, a task worthy of Hercules. I forgot my purse and had to put everything back. I cried. There are days when you need a hug and you'll find there isn't anyone there to give you one, and that's not a good feeling at all. But the thing to remember is that all things pass and a bad day is just that, a day. Tomorrow is another one. And there's always someone who can help. The important thing which I learned is to ask for it. How are things going to get better if you don't try to make them better? All in all you just have to chalk it up to experience, have something nice to eat, and go to bed.

*****

Ideally, your good days will far outweigh the bad. It's just not going to happen that you will never have a bad day. It's really all part of the experience, and you come out of things a better and stronger person if you find them a little difficult sometimes. Nothing worth having comes easy and challenges are good, and you become more mature blah blah inspiration blah. The good days and the bad days are what make up Erasmus and you won't be the same person at the end, in a good way, hopefully. You find as time goes on that you learn an awful lot about yourself. I'm well past the halfway point now and I feel like I've aged about 10 years. Some days that even feels like a good thing!

Hasta luego muchachos x

Being a Tourist: Plaza de España

I'm not a good blogger anymore. Was I ever? Don't answer that. I have many uninteresting excuses that I won't go into now.

I took this with my phone, why does it look so fake?

One of the first places I heard about during my pre-Erasmus research of Seville (this is after I had been accepted here, I didn't know anything about the place when I applied, except for "oranges". I'm a thoughtful person like that.) was the Plaza de España. I knew it was beautiful, and popular with Sevillanos and giris*, such as myself, alike. It was also one of the first touristy places I saw, when we stumbled upon it accidentally while waiting for the All Ireland hurling final to come on in the pub. Sadly, like most beautiful places in Seville, it is about 3 minutes too far away for my lazy self to justify visiting on a regular basis, but really every time I am there I'm struck again by just how beautiful it is. 

It was built in 1929 (so a lot newer than you'd think, judging by the style of the place) for the Ibero-American exposition. Expositions seem to be a big thing for Seville, it's when they build half the things in the city. I'm pretty sure they're still riding the wave from the one in 1992. It's right beside the biggest green area I've found here, the Parque Maria Luisa, and is best enjoyed in the sunshine, like most things in Seville. As you can see in the photo there's a small river/moat thing involved in proceedings where you can rent row boats. Surprisingly I haven't managed to get anyone to rent one with me yet but never say never. The most popular activity seems to be lolling around in the sun on one of the many benches.

The building is in a semi circle shape and all along the inside are small alcoves representing each province in Spain, which seem popular for people taking photos. Above we can see a pretty tiled map of Vizcaya (or to give it its Basque name, 'Bizkaya') in the Basque country. Each alcove is also decorated with tiling artwork which I assume bear some relation to the province involved.

Apparently government buildings are housed within the Plaza de España but I can't say I've checked. Another fun fact is that the Plaza features in two Star Wars films. Sadly, I believe they are two of the bad ones. 

I'll be addressing the lack of bloggage in the next week, I do have lots of ideas but what can I say, me falta el empuje. Our next tourist post will most likely concern the neighbour of the Plaza de España, the aforementioned Parque de Maria Luisa. Hasta entonces. x

*Spanish equivalent of "bleerin' foreigners"