The Sevilla Story: Las Setas

Yesterday was a busy day. I had school for most of the day. For lunch we had lentil soup, salad, and meat lasagna. After I was done with school, I had a meeting for my Morocco trip. It was fun to hear a little more about it, and what we'll be doing there. We get to go to the Medina in Fes, a camp in the desert, go on a camel ride, and much more. I can't believe it's only a month away! For dinner we had my favorite, artichokes! And we had fried ham and cheese and salad too. Oh and I bought a Universidad de Sevilla sweatshirt! Now I can fit in. Actually all so many of the spaniards have the university backpacks, not apparel, but that's ok.

My University sweatshirt

Today was a pretty full day too. I had class till 11 and met with my intercambio at 12 for café con leche. Today we talked in english about school and the differences between the US and here. It's fun to just sit down and chat with here! After I went for a run in my favorite park, next to plaza de España and came home for lunch. We had pork chops cooked in a tomato sauce, which was very yummy.

This afternoon we had a visit to Las Setas (the mushroom sculpture) with ISA. Plaza encarnación where the structure is located was going to be torn up for a parking lot, but when they started construction, they found roman ruins. It seems to be a prevalent problem here. They want to build something and they they come across ancient ruins. Definitely not a problem in the US. So after they found the ruins, they stopped building the parking lot, and made a contest for what to put there. The winning one was the most expensive and designed by a German Architect. They kept the ruins and made a little museum underground. They had a salt factory and many tile floors. They have the structure all above it, and is so fascinating to look at. All the criss-cross structure is made from wood, with just a few concrete bases. It was very cool to see and an amazing piece of architecture and engineering. Plus the view from the top was beautiful as well. The structure itself is a subject of debate among the Sevillanos. Some of them don't like having such as modern structure in their old historical city. When it was new I think there was more distaste of it, but with time more people have come to enjoy it.