Saturday
I went to Ronda, a city about two hours away from Sevilla, on an excursion with CLIC Saturday. The city is situated at a fairly high altitude which made for some great views, especially with the mountains in the background. It ended up being a beautiful and warm day, which was a pleasant surprise after being warned by our guide that Ronda would be colder than Sevilla. The first stop after the usual restroom/coffee break was to a great viewing place called Alameda del Tajo that was on the newer side of the city. Then we continued on to the New Bridge, which isn’t really that new-looking, however it was built after the other large bridge in the city which is called the Old Bridge/St. Cecilia. Both bridges are really huge and impressive. After taking a bunch of pictures we crossed over to the older side of the city.
I didn’t realize it, but apparently St. John Bosco lived in Ronda, because on our way to our next stop we passed his house. I was hoping I’d get a chance to go back and possibly go inside, but we didn’t make it back to that general area disappointingly. We next went to the Palacio de Mondragón which was a museum of Ronda but used to be the palace of a royal Arab. The museum was neat and had a cave area built into one room; however I wasn’t a big fan of all the skeletons and creepy cave-man statues frequenting the building.
After the museum we walked to the Arab baths from bygone days and inside watched a video of what it was like when the baths were functioning. Then we headed up to the Old Bridge and crossed to the other side to go to the Plaza de España which was where we split up for lunch. We had from two to four for lunch/shopping so Paige and I set off until we came across a cafeteria place that had relatively cheap food. It also had some tempting pastries as well as ice cream, but after getting lunch we decided to see if we would come across another yummy looking place after we’d walked a bit. I’m glad we resisted the urge to get the dessert right away because a little later we came across a shop that had ice-cream cones for only 1.50€ which is about as cheap as I’ve seen it in Spain so far. So of course we had to get some and then we just continued wandering around for a while until we ended up back at the Alameda del Tajo where we had gone with the group at the beginning of the day. There was a fenced-in area off to the side that had ducks and geese as well as another area that had peacocks and it was a perfect opportunity for me to get rid of my sandwich from Concepción by sharing with the birds. Normally I like the sandwiches she gives me; however this one consisted of the tortilla de patatas (potatoes, eggs, and cheese) which is good except for the addition of long and stringy spinach that was very gag-inducing. So the birds got a treat and everyone was happy.
Then we met back up with the group to go see Ronda’s famous Plaza de Toros (bullfight ring). According to our guide, Javier, this ring was different from the rest of Spain’s due to its fancier/prettier look, even-spaced columns and the stone part of the wall that encircles the center ring. I still need to go see the bullfighting ring in Sevilla, which hopefully I’ll get around to one of these weeks. After looking at the ring itself, we went into the passage that the bull comes out from and also saw some stables with the horses used by the bullfighters. Lastly there was a museum of everything to do with bullfighting and then some besides, which included traditional bullfighting costumes, artwork, stuffed bull heads, a room full of pistols and an explanation of dueling, and also saddles and riding habits from back in the day. Then it was back to the bus and the two hour ride to Sevilla. It was an enjoyable trip and it was especially nice to go see something that didn’t require more than a day.
Sunday
Paige and I spent a good portion of the afternoon finding the places where we will be working in the upcoming weeks. However, on the way to find my hotel, we saw signs for a Mother Teresa exposition so we spent about an hour looking at all the posters about her life. It was very similar to the exposition at Benedictine last year; except for this one also had a separate room that was made to look like Mother Teresa’s room back in Calcutta with some of her actual things in it. After that we continued on our journey to find my hotel which was a little confusing thanks to having the wrong name, but it turns out we had passed it and just didn't realize it was called Hotel Murillo. After that we went to Mass at St. Magdalena and then it was back to the apartment for the night.
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