Goodbye Seville, hello Granada

Katie at the entry to Granada center.

Me walking down the hill from our hotel.

I was sorry to leave Seville this morning, but I'm happy with the taste of Granada that I got this afternoon.

I still can't believe what a beautiful city Sevilla is. I knew Katie loved her program, but I didn't understand how much being in the city played such a big role. Yesterday we didn't go to any attractions except an artisans' showcase where we admired the beautiful work and bought a few things.

But most of the day we walked around. "Un paseo," they call it. We walked past the cathedral several times, and each time I just wanted to stop and look at it in all its grandeur. At night, photographers with fancy cameras stood in a group, trying to capture the Giralda, or tower, as it glowed in the night. ("You were up there!" Katie said.)

People shopped, but many stood or sat and enjoyed each other and watched people. Well into the night, the crowds of people having a drink or eating grew. It was unlike in New York or Boston, where everyone always has to be going someplace.

At night, we went to a flamenco performance and then had dinner outside around 10 p.m. If you go too much earlier, they look at you like you are uncivilized.

Our hotel in Granada is on top of a long steep hill, next to the Alhambra, where we will go tomorrow. We walked down the hill (and later, back up...thank you Michael, my physical therapist, for helping me get stronger). Then we went into the cathedral and chapel, a monument to Queen Isabel and her husband, Fernando, and into the adjoining museum.

Katie, an excellent tour guide and interpreter, had already been there and explained the history. We stood at the grand, intricately sculpted monuments to the monarchs lying in rest and went below to the crypts where they are buried. Eeeew.

John the Baptist's head has been another fascinating and somewhat creepy sight. We saw it in the Seville cathedral and later today in the Granada cathedral, and I looked up the story of the demise of this major New Testament figure.

In Seville, a sculpture of his head lay in a glass case, the sinews and tendons of his neck exposed. In the Granada cathedral, we stood in awe of a large altarpiece of scenes in the life of Jesus Christ, including his birth and his baptism by John the Baptist and then John's head on a platter.



I looked it up and learned that Herod, subking of Galilee during the Roman Empire, drunkenly promised Salome, the daughter of his wife, Herodias, anything she wanted. Herodias, jealous of John's influence and angry about his criticism of her unlawful marriage to Herod, told her daughter to ask for John's head on a platter.


I never knew that while having fun I would learn so much history.

Above, Katie stands next to a sculpture of Queen Isabel.

Left, John the Baptist loses his head, which is about to be placed on a platter.

Geography lesson

I made a whopping $60 Tuesday substituting in a sixth grade social studies class and then spent way too much of it on Chinese food for Joe and me.

One of the eternal questions about Chinese food is why we often buy too much and still not end up feeling full. Joe was watching something, so I ate in the kitchen. I nearly fell off my chair and hardly ate my food as I caught up with the last three episodes of Season 4 of "Breaking Bad." What an incredibly interesting and addictive – and gruesome – show.

But back to reality. The sixth-graders were a well-behaved bunch, in contrast to the rowdy fifth-graders I had last week. We worked on longitude and latitude, taking coordinates and finding the corresponding country on the map.

We had a little fun pronouncing difficult country names such as Papua New Guinea. They found the pronunciation hard to believe.

As a bonus, the teacher left me some Hershey kisses. That made my day

I have been reading about the turmoil in Spain, where Katie is and I am going in a month. Yesterday there were strikes in Spain as part of a coordinated effort in Europe protesting austerity measures. There were also cancellations of flights by the troubled airline Iberia, which I am supposed to take.

Well I just Skyped with Katie and she said all was peaceful. She went to see the demonstration in Seville, where there were throngs of people, many handing out leaflets espousing views of various parties, unlike here where the political landscape is dominated by just the two parties.

She is learning so much, not just in the classroom...and she's having fun!

Running around

I was going to break out and try running today, but instead I walked to the Common for the South Hadley Columbus Day Fair. I ate a baked potato with sour cream and cheese, bought a scarf, talked to people and then walked Maddie around the lake with two friends. Then, I ran to buy a chair to take advantage of a Columbus Day sale.

I also spent a lot of time on the Internet making arrangements for when I join Katie in Seville on Dec. 17. We're going to travel for 12 days; I haven't done much except get my plane ticket and reserve a room in a B&B in Seville, and now all of a sudden the trip is drawing near.

We are going to spend a few days in Seville so she can show me around, and then go to Granada, Barcelona and Paris. After I settled on a place to stay in Paris, I looked at a map of the surrounding area and saw the hospital. Oh, the hospital! Not Oh, the Eiffel Tower. I wonder if there will always be that little voice that says, "Just in case."

Anyway, it's very exciting to be realizing I'm actually going.

But first things first.

The election is maybe taking up too much space in my brain. I "have to" watch the MSNBC politics shows and I have to read the New York Times and on-line sites. On one of the news shows, a panel was debating whether the good jobs report on Friday – unemployment dropped to 7.8 percent – would give Obama a bounce that could neutralize the negative effect of his poor debate performance in Denver. Some thought that it could, but one panelist wondered how many people actually felt that the lower number made their day.

Well, I was one of those people. I heard it on the radio driving down to tennis and immediately felt buoyed after actually being depressed by Obama's lackluster performance. I went on to play some decent tennis.

Meanwhile, I hope that tomorrow I will get that run in.

Katie safely in Seville

Katie left last night for her semester in Spain, where she will study at the university in Seville and stay with a family there.

I can't believe that after about a year of talking about it and planning, the time actually came for her to lug her (overweight) suitcase into Joe's car en route to Logan Airport. (The overage cost $60!) It will be a great experience for her, but I will miss my little sidekick.

I'm going to join her in Seville at the end of her semester and travel with her for about 10 days. I'm looking forward to it.

She e-mailed today that she was safe and sound and that she liked her host, who had set her up nicely.

Meanwhile, I played tennis today and was much better than last week. However, Donna, who knows me very well, looked at me in the middle of the second set and said I looked tired and it was really OK to stop. Chip and Donna's friend Kathleen echoed her.

Rational voice: You should stop because when you get tired is when you injure yourself.

Bad-advice voice: You haven't even played two whole sets, of course you have to finish!

Never mind that the first set was good and filled with long points (Chip and I won 6-4) or that the second set was turning into a long one too (Donna and Kathleen won 6-4). And never mind that the sun was beating down on us.

Chip and I drove to Starbucks after, planning to get a coffee, but I suddenly felt queasy. So we went and got me a Coke, Chip got coffee, and we sat down on the patio outside Starbucks to have our drinks. I felt better pretty quickly and was well enough to eat a frozen a frozen yogurt that Chip offered to buy.

This afternoon I was going to walk Maddie but thought better of it and lay down on the couch to watch a little tennis...and promptly fell asleep. I was happy to be invited, avec dog, to Deb's house for pre-dinner dessert and coffee for us and a big biscuit plus play date for Maddie.