Chapter 2 Back to the Beginning

‘It is a dry and parched, summer land, populated by a highly volatile, sensuous race whose African heritage is indisputable.’ John A. Crow

It had been the longest seven months of my life recovering from my leg operation when I finally limped out of Barajas airport and into the dusty July heat of Madrid. I had stumbled into Spain through the same airport doors just two years before when I had started my life in the country by coming to the capital. I had come back to my beginnings and the city would serve as a starting point for my journey to the deep South. I had come for job interviews in Sevilla and could have flown there direct but instead had chosen to return to Madrid and see my recently made amigos first. All my things were here, my friends, contacts and some work to tie me over once I had finished the summer in England and would be waiting for the Spanish academic year to commence.

Beyond the sliding airport doors, I could see Susan my Aussie ex-boss and mum-from-home waiting to welcome me back. There had been times when I had thought I would never be able to return. But here I was, and yet strangely enough I was depressed about it. I hadn’t been too sure how I would feel but now I was actually in the car rolling past the familiar sights on our way to the north of the capital, I knew I didn’t want to stay around for another year.

I had gone back to Blighty to have my leg rearranged in an orthopaedic operation after my ankle, which I had broken while still young, had not been properly set in place. With the leg now solved I now knew that my solution for my Madrid syndrome was simple: time to move on. I had no idea how long that was going to take and found it odd that for the first time ever I felt trapped in a city. Everything would depend upon my tour of language academies down south in Sevilla.

The AVE (Alta Velocidad Española) train built for the 1992 Expo putting Spain and Sevilla back on the European and World map, glided sleekly out of the Eiffel designed Atocha station in the south of Madrid. A six-hour car journey would be slashed to just two and a half by a train travelling at 250 km/h. With just one stop in Córdoba the service made the grand promise that if it arrived more than ten minutes late then there would be a full refund. What British rail company offered any of the above? Maybe the Spanish should come and sort out our train service while we reciprocate the favour and sort out their road design.

I had thought that the heavy heat of Madrid had pushed my body thermometer to its limit, but stepping out at the avant-garde station of Santa Justa in Sevilla was like being greeted by a battery of hair dryers. You could feel your lungs burning when breathing in. Through my short breaths and the high buildings it was just about possible to appreciate, even from that monstrous modern corner of the city, that the place wasn’t as built up as the nation’s capital. There, straight ahead, was the monument I had always wanted to see in Spain: La Giralda.

I know the Alhambra in Granada is the masterpiece of Arabic architectural intricacy in Europe, and its most visited monument, but there was something about the Giralda standing out above the Sevilla skyline that had stayed with me from the first time I had seen an image of it. Maybe it was the fact that it was unusual to find a tower of such giant dimensions at a nearly thousand years of age and boasting a clean bill of health.

I found cheap lodgings through the pages of the Rough Guide, in the capable and patient hands of Rocío in her hostal on calle Zaragoza. The building was the epitome of the old South, very andaluz in its exterior character adorned with soft yellowing paint and dotted by ornate balconies and the obligatory interior patio. It was stuffy, creaky and noisy beyond belief as Sevilla’s youth paced past outside on their motos. The street life leapt at you through the shutters, which were my only defence as the windows had to be left open or I would have had the life baked out of me. It was good to be back in Spain though. Good to be back among an outgoing, gregarious and above all fun loving people. But this time I was in Andalucía and I was keen to go out and meet them but first: forty siestas.

I had only one chore for the day and that was to get my CV printed off a diskette before I could go to my interviews I had lined up for the following day. It didn’t sound like much of a tall order but this was 1995 and the city, with more than half a million inhabitants, didn’t have any Internet cafés when I arrived and seemingly just as many places to print from diskette. So, the only option for me was the university. That was how the worst day I have ever had in the city began.

I phoned the uni and they put me through to the faculty of “Itoria”. The woman who spoke had said the word laced with a thick andaluz accent and that was all I could catch: “El Departamento de Itoria”. After I had asked her to repeat it several times I could sense she was starting to lose patience. And thus, I learnt my first lesson in Sevilla. Those that learn their Spanish here will understand the rest of the Hispanic world, for there is no thinner accent than that found round these parts. She finished by telling me that the department was in la Fábrica de Tabaco building, which rang a bell because it was the biggest building on the map and only ten minutes walk away. I hung up the phone confident that I would find my way there without too much trouble leaving me with the rest of the afternoon free to enjoy this glorious looking city. As far as finding this mysterious department of ‘Itoria’ was concerned, I had decided to just repeat the word as I had heard it to someone when I arrived and that would take care of that. This technique was about to confirm what I already knew, that I had no ear for music.

I walked out into the furnace of heat lifting off the street in stiff swathes and headed through the central Plaza Nueva – New Square. The plaza pronounced /pla-tha/ or /pla-sa/, was a central point for buses, and home to the beautiful Town Hall. I hobbled past and along to La Avenida de la Constitución passing by the massive Cathedral, imposing Archivo de Indias (Indies Archive), timeless Arab walls of the Alcázar and of course the towering Giralda. The road was a golden half-mile of architectural delight but there was no time to stop. Unlike a nomad desperate for water I had to let the oasis pass me by.

I took a left at the end of the avenue up the street calle San Fernando passing by the chapel which was the only remnant of one of Sevilla’s two medieval universities. Standing opposite the grand squat Baroque edifice of what I thought was the Tobacco Factory, now used as the university, I made the regretful mistake of asking someone just to make sure. The two barmen weren’t certain if the windows opposite belonged to the Tobacco Factory or not, saying that the place I was looking for was actually on the other side of the river. I was already dripping sweat and now had to face another walk under the sun. I was confused. On my map it had this placed clearly marked out as the building in question but on closer inspection there was indeed another tobacco factory where the two waiters had said I should go. I thought not to wave their local knowledge, to do so would be arrogant of me, and prepared for the hike. Once across the river I reached the gates of the modern looking brick building and related my story. At the security gates of the tobacco factory they told me there was a faculty of sorts but they had no idea what faculty to be precise. They certainly had never heard of any ‘Itoria’.

The helpful female security guard took pity and let me through, although she didn’t seem too convinced that I was in the right place at all. I could sense that things weren’t going my way. All the walking was now beginning to show its strain, not because of the distances but because of the heat. That, coupled with the fact that my stiff leg only a few weeks out of plaster, felt as though I was giving the sun a piggy-back around town. Once inside, I found my way to some bleak offices and was met by a smartly turned out middle-aged gent who welcomed me warmly. All around his Spartan office was nothing but files. He seated me down and listened to my dilemma intently and then started to laugh gently to himself. He answered me in English for two reasons, one it was good practice for him having once lived in England and two it was quicker than labouring through my torturous Spanish.

“I’m afraid that they have sent you to the wrong place. The ‘Old’ Tabacco Factory is where the main university is and that was the building you have just been to. This is the new one. These offices are the factory’s library. Don’t worry you’re not the first person to have shown up at the gates and possibly not the last. Unfortunately, we don’t have any computers here to run off your CV but I do have two sons, so if you ever do get down here to teach then let me know. I’ll be looking for a private teacher for next year, here’s my card. I used to be a Professor at the university but now I’m here.” I didn’t have the foggiest as to the need for a professor and such a documents department in a tobacco factory but I didn’t have time to go into it. His willingness to help out and charity of spirit was the first of many encounters I was to have with the people of Sevilla: los sevillanos. But what I also learnt later was what they give you with one hand they also take with another. “And as for that department of ‘Itoria,’ good luck. You may or may not find it.”

Back on the street with the sun on my back I eventually stumbled through the grand doors of la Antigua Fábrica de Tabacos – the Old Tobacco Factory, and into its immense dark warren of colossal vaulted corridors. The place was studded with patios where playful water splashed from fountains. All the while the air reverberated with the buzz of Spanish students moving to and fro. The building was big, really big so big in fact it was the second biggest in the whole peninsula after El Escorial near Madrid. But I hadn’t bargained on what was about to befall me. Somewhere in this square hulk was a department apparently going by the name of ‘Itoria’, all I had to do was find it. I knew that there was nowhere to get my CV printed outside here so I wasn’t leaving without a copy in my hand. It was a promise I nearly had to break.

All of the people I approached sent me to a different part of the building convinced that they knew exactly what I was looking for. As it turned out, nobody had any idea where this mysterious ‘Itoria’ department was but that didn’t stop them from insisting. Round and round I went, thinner and thinner became my patience and higher and higher went my pressure until I was on the edge of despair. I had spent more than two hours of chasing my own tail! I felt like Michael Douglas in Falling Down. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. Nobody had the slightest idea, directions couldn’t have been more misleading and the clock hand was marching on. All the while the stifling air from outside kept on filling the corridors with a fresh supply of heat. It didn’t help matters that the students would say left and then signal right with their hand. They didn’t know the difference between right and left, but this detail was lost on me for at least the first hour until I finally clicked.

Just as I was about to give in I stumbled across a department and went in. All the students looked up not just because I was foreign but principally for the look of utter exhaustion in my desperate eyes. Once more I explained my situation to the secretary behind a counter at the other end of the room, made all the more urgent now by my heavy breathing and empty stare. They hadn’t heard about ‘Itoria’ either but if I wanted, I could print my document out on one of their computers anyway. Then someone behind the desk overhearing asked if I had phoned earlier. At last someone understood me. She was convinced that I had my wires crossed about the odd sounding ‘Itoria’ department but by now I couldn’t have cared less where this mysterious and elusive place was and only agreed with her. Unable to speak anymore, dehydrated and demoralised I knew it would be some time before I regained any good humour. I followed the office worker to her computer and she ran off the document for me. Moments later I left triumphantly with my CV clutched firmly in my hand. As I walked out of the room I looked up and glimpsed a sign above the door: Departamento de Historia. Here in Andalucía they don’t pronounce their S’s, unless a word starts with an ‘S’ and so Historia – with a silent ‘H’, naturally becomes Itoria. I knew then that as far as my language skills were concerned I was truly back at the beginning. They say that the andaluz accent is the hardest to get to grips with - I was beginning to think they were right.

To calm the nerves, release the tension but above all cool the blood I entered a bar right opposite and ordered a pint. Or at least that was what I tried to order. Behind the bar the entire wall was hung with pint glasses, it couldn’t have been easier. I asked the barman, “¿Una pinta, por favor?”

“¿Qué? No tenemos.” He said they didn’t have any. So, instead I just asked him to fill one of the glasses behind him with beer. When he placed it down in front of me I asked him what he called it. “Una pinta.” He replied. I thought to myself, ‘Yeah. I knew you were going to say that.’

That afternoon I slept the southern siesta in grand style. And the traffic, though it tried its hardest, couldn’t budge me from my slumber. That evening I would have nothing else to do but see the city centre built for Emperors, Emirs and Kings before getting an early-ish night before making my assault on the language academies the next day.

Early next morning, and without the need to resort to artistic licence, the heat was already starting to burn through the soles of my shoes as I walked down the broad avenue lined by swaying palm trees. Today was not a day for foot work. I took a taxi.

I had received training in the art of Madrid taxi drivers and there was no way that anyone was going to be ripping me off here in Seville. I had had an overdose of it in the capital. Although I would later learn, that on the whole, the taxistas in Sevilla are a straightforward bunch there were always a few that were not. I had the winning lottery ticket that day, taking one of those chosen few.

I had come for job interviews with little time for anything else, as I had to be back in Britain forthwith. I went straight to work. The school I wanted to see first was opposite the Sevilla football stadium.

Now, to understand the obviousness of the driver’s error you must first appreciate just how much the Spanish love football. The taxistas don’t do the knowledge but even their mother-in-law knows where the local teams are housed.

As fate would have it I had come across the only Spanish taxi driver disinterested in the game - I think not! Interested in football - absolutely. Interested in money - more so. I caught him as he started to give me the scenic route, which resulted in him being first: surprised by the fact I could defend myself in his language, and second: that I had actually bothered to pull him up. My insistence to get out of the taxi and refusal to pay resulted in him stopping the clock and apologising profusely. It was nearly 40º C in the shade so fortunately he managed to persuade me to stay in the taxi.

My first interview turned out to be the one where I would eventually strike it lucky. The academy, though, that morning had others to interview and wouldn’t be able to give me an immediate answer. So, it was left to me to travel the remainder of the academies on my wanted list and then go back to Madrid to wait it out.

Come the end of the day I wasn’t exactly inundated with offers. Despite the heat I afforded myself a leisurely limp along the river. Through the heavy heat haze it was possible to make out through squinting eyes hiding behind my wilting sunglasses some of the glorious bridges that stood across the banks. I walked over scorching tiles with the palm trees crisp from the dry heat towards the Torre del Oro – a twelve-sided tower, and a monument to behold in all its Moorish purity. The fact that it was being seen in almost desert like conditions only enhanced its place on the historical map. But the one thing that had my constant and undivided attention was the heat. It wouldn’t let you ignore its presence for a second, as it bore down on me every step of the way.

My last night was spent around the cathedral drinking in the company of an Aussie keen not to go over his salary allowance and thereby qualify for repayments to the government for his university degree. Every year for the past five years he had cut his employment temporarily so as to stave off the possibility of repaying his student loan. He worked nine months and then on his earnings travelled three. It sounded pretty good to me but he said this would be his last trip. Next year the government could have its investment back. We wounded up the night finishing our last beers in the town centre sitting by a fountain behind the old town hall musing over the city, unknown to us that the missing population was all out en masse by the river only ten minutes walk from where we were. The only trouble was we didn’t know where we were exactly. We had both been impressed by the city but only one of us hoped to be returning within a month to live inside its walls.

The following morning and I was Madrid bound on the AVE en route back to Devon to teach the summer out. I was filled with great apprehension but also with great resolve that this was exactly what I wanted for my immediate future.

I wasn’t going to die a rich man but I was at least going to make damned sure I lived a happy man and somehow Spain, now in the guise of Sevilla, was the way I was going to make this happen.

INTRODUCTION

Founded by the Phoenicians, graced by the presence of the Greeks, raised up by the Romans, visited by the Visigoths, joined by the Jews, made magnificent by the Moors before conquered and crowned by the Christians. And all that had occurred before 1492 when Seville then became the most important city in the world. That is the historical legacy of Seville to say nothing of their colourful present. But how much does the average European know of this city when compared with other cities like Venice, Florence or Prague, all of comparable size and stature? Very little is the answer and yet this is the city that has stamped itself all over the subconscious of anyone who can conjure up an image of Spain. When one thinks of Spain and its culture they actually focus on Sevilla and her legacy. It is now high time to meet face to face the city that has given Spain her historical soul and the world a flight of fancy.

For anyone picking up a travel book to read, they expect the text to take them away from their routine and off, for them, to an undiscovered part of the globe. And while being introduced to the people and their characteristic way of life be enlightened with the quirks of their local custom and culture and amused by anecdotal misgivings on behalf of the traveller. When the book reaches its final resting place on the bookshelf the reader should have enjoyed their journey, feel they have accomplished something worthwhile and that part of the experience will stay with them like memories of endearing friendship.

If after having read this book they do not feel akin to Sevilla, enchanted by its historic mix of colourful influences or touched by its lust for life then I will have failed in my task. But if the image of this city does take root in your subconscious and its portrait does manage to inspire learning and longing for a taste of inner (not costa) Andalucía then I shall rest assured during siesta time. It is my desire to imbue the reader with a direct and true appraisal of what must surely be a city with a message, not just for its own citizens but with enough to offer of itself to spill over beyond its frontiers. I only wish to add help the flow along.

Possibly the most memorable and exhilarating day of my life was on 7th September 1993 when I stood at Heathrow airport, Spain bound ready to begin a new life in a new country speaking a new language. I knew nobody there, had no accommodation lined up and even lesser idea of the city and the country itself. It was what I had always dreamt of doing and even though it wasn’t exactly the sort of adventure that would stand the test of time in English literature as a classic, for me at least it was the world awaiting. As G.K. Chesteron had once observed it wasn’t necessary to travel the world to find adventure, one simply had to jump over the garden fence and present themselves to their neighbour.

I thought I would never relive those moments of intrepid and delicious insecurity again until that was I found myself standing at La Plaza de Armas bus station two years later with 40º degrees beating down on me with cumbersome baggage in tow. Little then did I realise I would be staying for good.

They are great moments to savour and I hope that everyone gets the chance to have their senses completely rearranged in this unsettling and preconception erasing way. I took my first tentative steps into Sevilla and new the adventure would begin the moment I engaged a native in conversation for these are truly garrulous people. It was time to meet the neighbours...

“Buenos días, soy Mark. ¿Y Ústed?”

Contents

INTRODUCTION


CHAPTER ONE EENEY, MEENEY

CHAPTER TWO BACK TO THE BEGINNING

CHAPTER THREE MI CASA

CHAPTER FOUR 1492 AND ALL THAT

CHAPTER FIVE ¡AY, TRIANA!

CHAPTER SIX LANDMARKS & LEGENDS

CHAPTER SEVEN 'TUNA' NIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT THREE ‘MAGIC’ KINGS

CHAPTER NINE FLEMISH FLAMINGO

CHAPTER TEN A LOAD OF OLD BULL
- Everything you wanted to know about bullfighting but weren’t sure you should ask -

CHAPTER ELEVEN EXCURSIONS : ¡VÁMONOS!

CHAPTER TWELVE LIDS & OTHER APPETISERS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN A WHOLE WEEK FOR HOLY WEEK

CHAPTER FOURTEEN VANITY FAIR

CHAPTER FIFTEEN PRIMAVERA

CHAPTER SIXTEEN A SEVILLIAN SUMMER

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN SLOW PROGRESS

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVE

CHAPTER NINETEEN ‘WINE, WOMEN AND SONG’

CHAPTER TWENTY FIRST IMPRESSIONS

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE HASTA LA VISTA

Chapter 1 Eeney, Meney...

‘How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?’
Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) U.S. philosopher

I went to Seville to play rugby and instead ended up dancing Flamenco. Before any of that came to pass I had no inkling as to what fate had in store for me as I laid in bed with a plaster running all the way up to my hip.

My teachers had always said it was what I did best. My mother had always said that it was a shame that I couldn’t get paid for it and I was certain that it gave me some of my happiest moments. However, sitting there looking out of the window, day-dreaming once again, it now took on a whole new perspective because just for once, come the end of this particular mind meandering, it would result in a decision that would actually change my life radically.

I looked out of the bedroom window. Looking over the tree tops of the gardens below and out to Plymouth Sound, my gaze followed the water past Drake’s Island floating in the near distance and across to the Mount Edgecumbe Estate on the Cornish Coast. Beyond the breakwater the sea sparkled like falling confetti. My imagination ran around inside my head like an interminable and pleasurable game of pinball. I didn’t want the moment to die nor reach its conclusion too quickly. I realised the rarity of the occasion and knew that it would be a long time before I could do such a thing again, if ever. I had the luxury of time granted by youth and the inclination to go off and seek out my own corner of the world. And I was going to decide on a destination, right now from this bed. All I had to do was let my thoughts and dreams wander in the right direction and when the grey matter stopped, that was where I would be heading come the end of the summer. Only problem was, I had to get my leg out this boulder-like plaster first. The rock hard mould ran from ankle to my hip itching every inch of its way.

Plymouth Sound Breakwater

But just then my leg didn’t hold my thoughts as I imagined myself flying between Buenos Aires and Rio; trying my luck in Africa; seriously weighing up the possibilities of South East Asia before finally returning inevitably to what I knew best, and that was Spain. And in Spain there was one place that had attracted me like a magnet ever since the age of sixteen: Seville. The name alone was enough to make me set my notes aside in class and dream the lesson away. Over the years I had gradually built up an impression of the city without any first hand experience of it. I had never read nor spoken to anyone - visitor or native - about Seville, so how it came about I don’t really know. Perhaps too many monotonous European history lessons where the only place that seemed to shine through all the confusion and dark Medieval times was the city of Carmen, Don Juan and a certain barber. If fables of ‘wine, women and song’ were to be believed during these unpleasant times it couldn’t have been a half bad place.

But what clinched it for me was the unique character that was Byron. Lord Byron, had stayed in the city in 1815 and eulogised “her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days” and penned his most lasting praise: “a pleasant city, famous for oranges and women.” If he was the very epitome of the European Romantic era and he had given a little of his patronage and prose in the name of the city’s pleasures, then that was all I needed to convince me of the city’s mystique. And what would the Romantic Movement have been without Andalucía and especially her lyrically named capital of Sevilla? But just how much of it was still true to this day would remain to be seen… would remain for me to discover. The modern era of industrialization and consumer mass produced culture had been harsh on the image of ‘Merry’ Old England, but had the same happened to Seville, the city of my school-day dreams? As soon as I was out of plaster I would hobble off and find out.