Category Archives: spain

tunas galore!

13 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by in culture, music, sevilla, spain, video

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I’ve mentioned the Tunas here before, but can’t find where now. They are usually university students and each different faculty (medicine, law, engineering etc) has its own group of wandering minstrals who dress up and play traditional songs, usually to make a bit of beer money and pick up girls. Though I remember once in Salamanca seeing a group of Tunas below a balcony serenading an 80-year-old woman, which remains in my mind as one of the most endearing things I have ever seen.

For the past week or so I’ve been seeing all sorts of Tunas wandering around, and many a bit long in the tooth to be university students. So I finally stopped and asked what was going on and it turns out there is an international Tuna competition going on here. Tonight I saw a group from Mexico! But this group in the video are from nearby Granada.

I do love the Tunas…

gourmet tapas tour review!

04 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in food & drink, spain, tapas, tapas tours, wine, work

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Remember back at the end of August when I had that freak operation? Well, one of the reasons I was keen to get home and back on my feet was because I had a Gourmet Tapas Tour booked for the following weekend and I really didn’t want to have to cancel it. Nog had helped me out by doing three tours during the week, but this was a Gourmet one and, well, it had to be me.

So that Saturday night – about ten days after the op – I headed out to pick up Lucy and Dave, with my “faja” firmly wrapped around my middle. It turned out that we were “neighbours” as the holiday apartment they had rented was about a three minute walk from my place, and so I was able to let them know about the best places in the barrio for coffee or a quick snack, along with the list I gave them of other wonderful tapas bars that weren’t on the tour. And, in spite of initial doubts about my stamina, I made it through the evening no problem and had a wonderful time. Nog came to pick me up at our last stop – the rooftop bar – and had a beer with us. Then we walked Dave and Lucy back to their place and headed home.

And so I was very pleased the other day when Dave sent me a link to a post he’d written on his blog The Wine Mule about our tapas tour and their other Seville gastronomical adventures. I already knew a bit about these as we’d been in touch by email during the rest of their visit, and a bit afterwards, but it was great to see the photos and read about what fun they had. And of course it was wonderful to read such a glowing account of their tour with me.

Thanks guys – it really was a great night!

summer returns

07 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by in sevilla, spain, summer, weather

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Last Friday afternoon I took a taxi from the hospital to the Plaza Alfalfa, a square near my house, so that I could pick up the various drugs I needed at the pharmacy there. While inside the skies opened and this very unsummerlike scene left me stranded while Nog raced home to get umbrellas so I could get home as soon as possible without getting soaked through.

All that week up until Sunday the weather was lovely and fresh, with a couple of rainstorms to clean the air. But this week The Heat is back. At the moment the thermometer reads 32º in my livingroom but I refuse to turn on the airconditioning because another thing waiting for me when I got home was a 173€ electricity bill for August (!!!). I’m still in shock. That is just for one month! And I only used the aircon for maybe three hours a day in August. So for the rest of the summer I’m just going to sweat it out and look forward to the cooler weather to arrive. Though I could do without another rainy winter…

symbolic

27 Saturday Aug 2011

Posted by in photohunt, photos, sevilla, spain

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Today’s Photohunt theme is “symbolic”.

NO8DO. If you ever come to Sevilla you will see this symbol everywhere, from manhole covers to newspaper kiosks, and from Christopher Columbus’s tomb to most official signs. But if you look closely you will see that the central symbol is not an “8”, but a skein of wool, “madeja” in Spanish, and the whole word can be read as “no-madeja-do” which run together sounds like “no me ha dejado”, Spanish for “she hasn’t abandoned me.”

So what’s the story behind it? When Fernando III reconquered Sevilla from the Moors in 1248, he made it his capital. His son, Alfonso X, was known as “The Wise”, due to his prediliction for poetry, art, astronomy and learning in general. Alfonso’s son, Sancho IV of Castile, however, believing that a Spanish king would be better employed in expelling the Moors, and that he himself could do the job, tried to usurp the throne. Many Spanish cities followed Sancho, but Sevilla remained loyal to its scholar king, and NO8DO became the official emblem of the city, symbolic of its loyalty.

photohunter

rick stein’s spain

16 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by in cooking, culture, sevilla, spain, video

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Remember back in May when that rascally Del sent me a surprise package containing the DVD of Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes? Well, he did it again with the latest series that features Spain.

As it was recently shown on tv in the UK, I’d been hearing various opinions about it on Twitter and couldn’t wait to see it for myself. And then it arrived today, which also happens to be WeeRascal’s birthday, so after getting home from an amazing lunchtime gourmet tapas tour, I just had to sit down and watch some of it.

Against Del’s and Ian’s advice I went straight to the fourth (and final) episode, which featured Sevilla. I was told that this was the best of the four and that it would be better to watch them “in order”, but how could I resist seeing my Sevilla on film? And… hmmm. I liked it, and will watch it again, but my first impression was that it didn’t really capture Sevilla very well. Which made me wonder if everyone who sees their “home town” represented in series like these feels the same. But it’s still great fun to watch and I am now wanting to travel more around Spain, especially the north.

Who wants to come with me?