Sleepless in Sevilla
My Twenty-Four-Hour tour of Sevilla.
HOUR ONE: After three long months of feeling depressed and lonely in Spain, I decide not to be. I meet someone, take her on a few dates, and on my last night in Córdoba, she decides to take me home. Which is great. Except for the fact that I don’t get any sleep that night, and I have to leave for Paris the next day.
There are no major airports in Córdoba. The plan is to take a train with my friend Adriel to Sevilla and fly out from there, but my flight isn’t until 6 am the next morning, and I am running very low on dough. To save money I decide to stay up all night with Adriel, and then get a Cab to the airport. But with the pleasant surprise I received the night before, filled with drinking, dancing, and absolutely no sleep, this adds up to a full 48 long waking hours.
HOUR THREE: I don’t sleep on the train. I try to but it’s almost always been impossible for me. So, I load up on a few mugs of my favorite Spanish vice: Café con Leche. I know I’m going to pay for it in a few hours when I crash, but at this moment I don’t care.
We make our way from the train station through to rain to find Adriel’s hostel where we drop our luggage. I’m already regretting my decision, and even those thin, napkin-stuffed hostel matresses sound amazing at the moment. But I have Paris, Madrid, and Barcelona to see before I get home. I can’t afford to make any major purchases.
Much like Córdoba, Sevilla is a maze, only much bigger and more daunting. The walls were built high to provide its citizens with shade during the sweltering ancient summers. The cities are so old that to ask their streets to run in perpendicular lines, East-West and North-South would be asking entirely too much. This city piles on top of itself wherever it can find space. The streets curve, wind, and bend, It’s a city expressing itself with no need for planners.
After getting a little lost, we find the hostel. We have to spend ten minutes convincing the desk man that I am not sneaking in with Adriel. The bedroom sleeps eight, with four sets of bunks. While Adriel unpacks I stare out of the balcony and I’m reminded why I love this country so much. I feel like a spy, or a very important diplomat, or a remarkably good-looking assassin, sent to seduce a dictator.
HOUR FIVE: We near the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede, but this isn’t our destination. We’re heading for the bathroom. Yes, because we need to use it after all the coffee, but this isn’t the only reason. Underground at the Hotel Eme is the golden bathroom. We’ve seen it before on our first trip to Sevilla, and we’re drawn to it like moths to a golden flame. Everything and I meant everything (the mirrors, the walls, the stalls, the glowing sink and even the toilets themselves) are gold. Speakers above play the noises of cartoon bombs dropping in each stall as you attend to your business.
HOUR SEVEN: Walking by the river, we look for something to eat. We’re tempted by all the Mexican restaurants we pass, but decide that we can wait two more weeks for California. We decide to stop at a Kabab joint. Kabab is always a great choice for the traveler with only a few Euros left in his pockets. It’s good food, for cheap, and on many nights in Córdoba, it made great drunchies. The man at the restaurant sees us struggling with our Spanish as we order and he switches to English. He says he comes from Syria, spent some time in Paris, then the UK, and finally settled in Sevilla where he started this restaurant. I’m amazed at his ability to change and adapt to survive. I am stuck by his hospitality and kindness, but also his deep intelligence and grit.
HOUR NINE: The majority of our time here is spent walking along the Rio Guadalquivir. The same river that I ran along every day to stay in shape in Córdoba has followed me here. Its name comes from Arabic rule, but even before that the Romans would sail it from Cadiz to Sevilla and Córdoba. I think about my time in all of these cities and the thousands of cultures this river has brought to them. I think about my own unknown but certain Spanish Ancestor who left these waters for Mexico, and I shudder a little bit.
HOUR ELEVEN: While walking along the water, we do what all good poor tourists do. We use the city as a free museum. It doesn’t let us down. An organic and unstopping mural of graffiti art gives us plenty to look at as we walk. The majority are tag signs, but not all. Some are about Spain, or Morocco, China, the US, and Peru. One says “Feminism or Death.” One is about being black in Spain. One is about being gay. It’s like a never-ending scroll of self-expression.
HOUR THIRTEEN: We cross the river to see what’s on the other side and we’re not disappointed. We see a long mural made of tiles. In bright colors, we see the gods and glyphs of ancient Latin America. It captivates me and gives me a familiar feeling of joy and dread. I have a deep fascination with the fact that some part of me descended from these cultures. That you could trace the double helix code that an ancient family in Mexico carried across the centuries and eventually find some small part of it in my body. But I also feel that familiar shame, thinking that I shouldn’t enjoy this because I’ve never had to pay the price of the suffering that has come with it. Thinking that I sound like a fucking 23 and Me commercial.
The mural, called El Verbo America by Roberto Matta, has a poem at the end of it, and it translates something like this:
THE AMERICAN VERB IS SQUEEZING THE TRADITIONAL CULTURE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN WITH A PROBABLE ART OF AMERICA
ALL OF THIS IS STILL A RISKY CONVICTION
A PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION,
A CONCENTRATED FICTION,
A MEMORY MACHINE,
A MYTHIC TORMENT,
A COSMIC MATRIMONY,
A WORLD SO RECENT IT SEEMS A HIDING PLACE
A SEARCH FOR PROMISED LANDS
A VICTORY THAT LACKS A NAME
A THREAT OF SIN
A CATALOG OF KNOTS
OR, LIKE A LAND BRIDGE, A CIRCULAR RECREATION.
HOUR FIFTEEN: At the end of the river when the sun has finally set we start to see a mass of children. Ages twelve to twenty. They are collectively cooler and edgier then I could ever hope to be. It’s an amalgam of punk and Hip-hop styles worn by children far younger than me, wearing piercings and tattoos that still frighten me to think of doing to myself.
A group of twelve-year-olds is sharing a joint and passing around a plastic fifth of vodka. There is a group of girls on the grass in American Cheerleader costumes with a sign that says “Twerk Team” as they practice a dance. The large staircase to get to the base of the river forms an amphitheater that the kids slowly fill into. The large walls are completely covered in graffiti art. It’s clear that this is their place. Culturally, they own it.
A young girl, maybe fifteen stands at the center of the stage. Her hair is bleached. She’s got a long blond pony-tail, and the side of her head is shaved. She yells out “¡Un Poco de Silencio, Porfavor!” and the crowd quiets to a murmur. Two contestants take center stage and some kids leave their seats to surround them and get a better view. The rap battle begins.
Adriel and I sit in amazement at this gem we have found. I think we both want to talk to some of the kids, make a friend or two who can translate the raps if one of them gives a particularly sick burn. But these children frighten the inner tourist in me. I think back to when I was their age, and I never would have imagined something like this was possible for me. Well, I might have imagined it in a movie, but that would have made it seem even less probable that a place like this would ever exist. I feel very sheltered among them, and I begin to resent myself for that.
I don’t know how Adriel feels about it because we don’t say anything. We just sit on that stairway, not talking to anyone. We simply take in the strangeness of the whole thing for a few minutes. Then we leave.
HOUR EIGHTEEN: In two weeks, the biggest religious festival in all of Spain will begin: Semana Santa. Although it has modernized, the south of Spain still remains a deeply traditional and unshakably Catholic place. Despite my lack of faith, I was raised Catholic enough to understand how important the week of Easter is. Even though I am not Catholic, it’s unthinkable that I wouldn’t be with my family on Easter Sunday. But deciding to leave before Semana Santa does make me a little sad because I won’t get to see any of the parades.
We make our way up the river stairs and into the maze of the city again. Here the essence seamlessly flowed back and forth between religious solemnity and capitalist debauchery. One moment, we’re around busy shoppers searching for baratas in Zara and H&M, the next we were wandering into one of the many churches opened for adoration. I know many of the people in these packed chapels are fasting along with their lord who starved himself for 40 days in the desert to come to terms with his crucifixion.
No expense is spared in even the smallest of the churches we walk into. Each one is filled with priceless treasures from the zenith of the Spanish empire: Marble statues, masterpiece paintings, and gold leaf decorated roofs. When we return outside the streets are packed, and I wonder why. Then, the drums start to sound.
One of the most important traditions of Semana Santa is the display of the thrones. Where statues of Jesus and his Mother are transported through the city in a parade. When I first arrived in Córdoba, large groups of men were already practicing for it months in advance. A speaker was playing the music the band would play as groups of forty men worked together to carry the heavy cage that the statue would rest upon. And while it was not Semana Santa yet, the band still needs to practice. And this is Sevilla, so they do it big.
To say that it felt like being in a movie would not be enough. The high walls cause those deep drums to echo all around us as the band marches by. Their heavy steps sound in time. The procession stops at the church we are standing outside of as a huge crucifix is transported inside. The sad trumpets blare out in a cry that takes me as we watch them march by. I am happy, that in my own way I do get to watch the parade.
HOUR TWENTY: I take a shower and a quick nap in Adriel’s hostel bed, then I walk out and find a taxi. We hug goodbye, knowing that if we see each other again, it will not be in this country. I thank him for being such a good friend to me, and then I leave for Paris.
HOUR TWENTY-FOUR: I arrive a few hours early to my flight, completely exhausted. But the airport isn’t even open yet so I can’t sleep on a bench inside. I have to sit on my backpack outside in the cold, apparently, I have the first flight of the day. At this point I am beyond tired, I remember I had a really nice conversation about the city of Sevilla with the taxi driver, but I can’t for the life of me retain what he is saying because I’m so fatigued. Something about the internationality of the city, and how it always gives you gifts.
Finally, I’m let in and I find my gate, hoping to get at least one hour of sleep before take-off. But the only other group on the flight with me are about sixty Spanish high-school students taking a field trip to Paris as well. Unlike the cool kids down at the river, these kids are private school kids. They’re preppy, too happy for how early in the morning it is, but worst of all, they are loud.
I’m too tired to fully translate what he’s saying but there is a gay boy spilling the tea next to me to his all girlfriends. He needs to tone it down. I try to nestle into my coat to give him the hint that I’m exhausted and its five in the fucking morning, could he be quiet, please? But he doesn’t get the hint.
The whole flight these fucking children are playing word games and singing songs. When the plane lands they all clap and cheer. Resolved to the fact that I’m going to need to find Julia’s apartment on two days of no sleep, I go to the Paris airport Cafe to buy another Coffee. But I see that my money has been wrapped around my camera lens and the camera is on. While I was rustling for sleep in the airport I accidentally took pictures through the translucent part of the colored money.
It seems that Sevilla did leave me with a little bit of art to call my own. Like the taxi driver said, I did get a gift from that beautiful city.
