..was venison blood sausage (morcilla de venado) and octupus (pulpo). I didn't think a thing about it until several hours later, which means I've been in Spain for a long time now. Oh, and it was delicious.
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Exploreseville
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Dinner..
..was venison blood sausage (morcilla de venado) and octupus (pulpo). I didn't think a thing about it until several hours later, which means I've been in Spain for a long time now. Oh, and it was delicious.
Posted by Jeff
at 10:33 PM MEST
Thursday, 22 October 2009
A little flamenco site
Topic: Flamenco Sometimes I need new sites to distract me from all of the work I have to do on others. So I created a little site as a guide to flamenco in Seville, which is now online at sevillaflamenco.com. Keep in mind it is new and I'm still working a little on it. For now you can find information about flamenco bars, tablaos, schools, stores and more. There is more to come!
Posted by Jeff
at 10:40 PM MEST
Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:33 PM CET
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
The best of intentions...
Topic: Site Updates Working on any web page can be full of frustrations. The behind the scenes management of information and photos is an endless job in my case, and today a very frustrating one. I'm working on a new photo album format, something many people won't even notice! Over the last 4 days, I've spent 20 - 30 hours organizing and customizing a new format. Today they should have been published, except in checking every detail I forgot one, which led to me having 60+ albums with no images to upload. I chose the wrong way to do it. I missed a detail. So now I am back repeating maybe 3 or 4 hours of work. I am using jalbum, a great free application, and it's no fault of the software - just my error, which makes this a long and unhappy day.
Posted by Jeff
at 7:34 PM MEST
Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:34 PM CET
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Sevici
While I've had a card for almost a year, I found I had little use for Sevici initially. Recently I have become a frequent user as the need to travel longer distances has come up. Sevici is the city bike rental system where you can rent a bike quickly at hundreds of points around the city. With a year long pass one pays 10 Euros and can have free use of the bikes for up to thirty minutes. Anything over that is charged at 50 cents per half hour. Sevici also has passes for one day and seven day rentals, which you can do on the spot at any terminal. If you are in Seville long term it is definitely best to get the year pass. No matter which of the above rental options you choose, from my brief experiences I have put together a few tips and details:
Overall, I've been pleased with Sevici. Most of the problems I've encountered come from supply and demand or vandalism! If only the bike weighed about half of what it does..
Posted by Jeff
at 3:44 PM MEST
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
ESPN 360
As an American sports fan abroad, I've suffered through many years of watching sketchy online video of my favorite sports events, most notably ACC basketball. Much of this had to do with my connection speed, although online, streaming video has improved tremendously since 2003 when I first arrived. This year I have subscribed to the ESPN 360 College Pass, which includes hundreds of college football and basketball games. When you purchase early enough you get a good discount, at 100 Euros for the entire season (this compared to 70 Euros last season for subscribing for the basketball season only). Improvements have been made in the interface, although I'd still prefer to surf with a remote. But it's much easier to avoid the scores so you can log in and watch games the following day (something necessary for those of us living with a six hour time difference). And while I am pleased with the service, it may not work as well for everyone depending on connection speeds, etc. I have been lucky enough that my set-up in the living room and internet connection is well suited: I have a computer connected to a 40" flat screen and a 10Mbit connection with Telefonica (note the speeds max out around 6 or 7 Mbit, as is common with any ADSL connection). I am able to watch full screen video without any buffering and with a decent quality. Rarely to I suffer from pixelation, even with a lot of action. While I think a 6Mbit would work fine, I would guess that with 3Mbits it may suffer in quality (both of these speeds are typical tiers in the ADSL service in Spain). While I also have a Slingbox attached in a friends house in N.C., the only problem with this set up is the quality is tied to the upload speed where the Slingbox is located. As many upload speeds are limited, the quality of the video suffers. This is not so bad for TV programs but definitely an issue with sports. The Slingbox serves as a back-up, as well as a way to watch locally broadcast games which are not available on ESPN360. And the Slingbox has the advantage of being a one time cost (mine set me back about 100 Euros 4 years ago).
Posted by Jeff
at 1:21 PM MEST
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Renewing my residency card
In early May I submitted my paperwork to renew my tarjeta de residencia, which you need much like a driver's license in the U.S. for all sorts of basic identification - giving a credit card at stores, presenting a police report when your office has been robbed (another story), in banks, etc. While a passport will do, it's not a good idea to take it with you every day, especially because it doesn't fit in your wallet! While it takes three months for the renewal process you can only submit the paperwork to renew it 1 month in advance! Of course this makes little sense, and while they gave me a paper certifying I was in the process of renewal, that expired on 1 September. And of course it is now in month 4 and the status is still "pending". As with any of these types of tramites it is good to be prepared. A few points of advice:
The good news is the person who attended us couldn't have been nicer. Maybe that we just our luck.
Posted by Jeff
at 2:03 PM MEST
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Time for self-promotion: Exploregranada.com and a radio show
Topic: Site Updates While it's been online sometime there has been no publicity, and while still is rough around the edges please take a visit to http://www.exploregranada.com . I will be working on new content for the page as I travel a few more times to the city. For now you can get some good basic travel information, lots of photos and some recommendations on where to eat and where to stay. I welcome any feedback! For another "plug", I am in my third year doing a five minute report on NFL Football on the radio show "El Pelotazo" on Canal Sur. You can hear me and my "expertise" live around 12:20am (Wednesday night/Thursday morning) for a brief update on some games plus the curiosities of the league. The radio show is also repeated in the mornings and archived on the Canal Sur web site somewhere. As I have fun doing it, but little interest in hearing myself on the radio I don't have the link to the show. But it should be easy to find.
Posted by Jeff
at 4:32 PM MEST
Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:35 PM CET
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Driving school; Cleaning up the posts
After an hour and a half of driving school, it's clear that with almost 7 straight years of Spanish I have yet to learn the specifics of driving vocabulary. While half of the questions on the practice tests are amazingly easy, another 25% present problems due to 1 or 2 words which I am less familiar with. The remaining 25% of the questions may be difficult because of specifics of certain laws or types of transport (motorcycle with sidecar!) which I will never use. The lesson learned in this case is I have to work on maybe 20-25 words and of course study the book. The people at the school are welcoming and helpful, but the students perhaps a little too anxious to please. I am studying to get my license, while others want nothing more than to please the teacher. I don't think those ten extra questions will get you a gold star, but I could be wrong. Maybe I'm less curious about the exact measurements of my cargo..I just want to memorize and get this over with. Today I republish the blog on the site but there will be several errors if you go back through the posts. In copying and pasting the old entries into the new format there are a lot of strange characters. I know my mistake, but it took several hours to do this. So slowly but surely I'll be going back to clean this up. For now, my apologies if an older post is difficult to read.
Posted by Jeff
at 10:13 AM MEST
Updated: Thursday, 1 October 2009 6:10 PM MEST
Monday, 28 September 2009
Preparing for the first day at the Autoescuela
After years of driving semi-illegally, I thought it may be time to get officially licensed to drive in Spain. I sure hope the guardia civil is not reading this! More mental preparation is in order than actual preparation. Preparing to spend several hours in front of a computer answering multiple choice questions about rules and regulations I will probably never need to know about does not thrill me. Learning to drive for the examiner will also likely be the most difficult point - I've happily built up 24 years of bad driving habits which I'm not ready to give up. Seeing as I'm late, it's time to go.
Posted by Jeff
at 11:08 AM MEST
Updated: Monday, 28 September 2009 1:16 PM MEST
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Hello again...
I'm back and writing to nobody...nobody because this isn't yet published on exploreseville.com. When it is, you can find all of my old posts from 2003 to almost 2006. Making the switch to a true "blog" will hopefully make it easier to update, but I took a lot of time off from these daily entries for many reasons which I will explain over the next few weeks as I post. For now, enjoy the old information in a new format and be nice by posting real comments and not spam or other less constructive things ;)
Posted by Jeff
at 12:30 PM MEST
Updated: Thursday, 24 September 2009 9:26 PM MEST
Monday, 10 October 2005
Fall, Aracena and Jabugo
As the warm weather comes to an end and the rain begins the Sierras de Aracena seemed to be calling me. So we happily tagged along with family for a short trip to Aracena and Jabugo on a rainy Sunday afternoon. All of the towns around this area have their charm, but Jabugo's one charm is Bodega Restaurante Jabugo (tel: 959 121 596. Here you will find some of the finest meats, all from the pig. Take your pick of cured meats, or chacina - jamón Serrano, chorizo, morcilla, caña de lomo, salchichón, cabeza de lomo - or grilled meats - presa, pluma, secreto, solomillo - and you will be certain to enjoy. The restaurant is located on the main street of "downtown" Jabugo. Afterwards if you liked what you ate you can purchase something to take home just down the street at their store. More info can be found (in Spanish) here: www.dejabugolacanadasl.com. Don't forget to stop and see the statue in honor of the men behind the production of jamón. And no, I am not getting paid for this advertisement! After lunch and a shot of orujo to aid digestion we headed back to Aracena for a view from Knight's Templar Church and castle overlooking the town. Orujo is a wonderful liqueur for consuming after a large meal. Not only does it help with digestions but it puts some legs under you so you can walk around. Just make sure you are not too far from coffee in the next two hours - you'll need it. On a rainy day don't expect to see much in the church, which has limited lighting. But the view over the town was nice and the rain not too heavy. We made our way down the hill and walked around, occasionally looking inside a ceramics shop in search of a gazpacho set (large bowl with several smaller serving bowls). While there is plenty to see and pick up (making the store owners nervous) we didn't find anything we wanted to bring home. The style we were looking for was declared to be "not from Aracena", although we know it was. We must return to find more shops. We made our way out of the shops and parked along the main plaza for coffee. While coffee was being ordered we waited in line at Confiteria Rufino, famous for its pastries as well as the long lines on Sunday. After 20 minutes we left with two boxes - one for now and another to take home to family. Along the ride back we took in the scenery: cork trees painted red where the bark (or cork) had been stripped, plenty of sheep and the occasional pack of black pigs eating acorns. We arrived to Seville with more rain around 9pm, happy to have spent the day outside the city.
Posted by Jeff
at 2:29 PM MEST
Updated: Saturday, 26 September 2009 10:08 PM MEST
Sunday, 2 October 2005
Conil - Despedida de solteros
Everyone learned that a despedida de soltero with 30+ year olds isn't as easy as it was 5 years ago. After a nap and a meal overlooking the ocean we headed to a few of the terraza type bars in Conil. Actually, we made it to just one, El Cochero. Before entering the bride and groom to be were presented with orange and green wigs for the occasion, as we dragged them through the center for everyone to see. With plenty of Spanish pop blaring on the sound system we made our way through a couple of copas as we people watched. I like Conil, but there are some strange people when you are out on a Saturday night. My favorite of all was the 50ish looking fellow who was dancing by himself, stopping every minute or so to circle his head with a glass of beer (think, "my head is the earth and this beer is the moon: now letâs see this beer orbit around my head"). Afterwards he looked up to the sky to speak a little with God, I suppose. This is hard to explain, but I think it was his way of giving thanks for beer and its effects. After 10 minutes of dancing and "beer orbiting" his next trick was to balance his beer on his forehead. This I was sure would lead to trouble, but he was able to do this on 3 or 4 occasions for several minutes without losing a drop. This man must have been a member of the circus, or he has been drinking beer and performing this stunt for much too long. His behavior makes me think it is the latter. The best part was when his activity mixed with a woman who had been dancing seductively in the middle of the patio while her much older husband/date/client looked on. She had a very "professional" way of dancing, which made everyone wonder. It of course attracted the circus beer balancer and soon she was sandwiched between her two dancing. The owners then decided the circus beer balancer had caused enough trouble and within 1 minute his beer was in a plastic cup and he was being moved out the door. Sad to say this may have been the highlight of the night. By 1:30am we were all tired and thinking of bed and the breakfast buffet in the morning. The next day we made quick work of eating and checking-out and made our way around to several smaller beach towns. Visited were Zahara de los Atunes, los Caños de Meca and Barbate. Zahara seems to have the nicest beaches of them all, and if you like to get a glimpse of how the rich live then the playa de los alemanes is the place to drive around. This section was once a small collection of private villas mostly owned by Germans who "discovered" this part of the beach many years ago. Since that time many others have discovered the beach and there are now several houses owned by the rich and/or famous. The ugliest house - a very blue house - was unfortunately named "El Sevillano". But I think I would be ok living in that house for a while. Los Caños de Meca is known as a hippie beach, and there were several camping in vans overlooking the beaches. This is a laid back little town, although aside from the beaches it's quite dirty and run down in my opinion. Barbate is interesting after having just seen the movie Atún y Chocolate (filmed in Zahara and Barbate). The port section of Barbate leaves much to be desired from a tourist point of view, but all of these towns have something about them that makes you want to stay around for a few days and take it slow.
Posted by Jeff
at 2:28 PM MEST
Updated: Tuesday, 29 September 2009 2:15 PM MEST
Thursday, 22 September 2005
Fun with literal translations; Betis-Barsa
Topic: Betis Living with a new language often means your first time translation of names, places and things is the most fun. You also realize how much you've become accustomed to names back home and forget the actual meanings behind the words. For instance the name of my home town - Chapel Hill - doesn't make me think of a little church on a hill. But for someone first hearing that name, well it must be the first thing to enter their minds. So this phenomenon, if you could call it that, often occurs while I am wandering around the city. Some of the names for streets have their history to which I am often ignorant. Perhaps if I knew of the historic individual I would make the association with them before my mind processes the literal meaning. Others come from common sayings which when literally translated sound a bit funny. Others sound like another word in Spanish. Ok, so time for some fun with translating these names:
Two more favorites (non-street related) are "Hay cuatro gatos" = "There are four cats", which means there is nobody around. This you may use when you walk into a bar and you're the only one there. I guess the thinking is there are so few people that the only things around are some cats. And of course there is "tocino del cielo" = "fat from heaven". This is like flan but made with twice the egg yolks. The end result is a thicker pastry which has an appearance similar to a slice of fat. Tomorrow evening we take on Barcelona in a match that should be quite good. After being robbed with a terribly called penalty against Deportivo we move on and hope for better officiating.
Posted by Jeff
at 2:28 PM MEST
Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:36 PM CET
Sunday, 18 September 2005
Champions Results; Housing; Saturday afternoon; College football
Topic: Betis
As we get closer to purchasing a house, or rather apartment, we have been picking everyone's brain on the do's and don't's of the entire process. When I say getting "closer" this doesn't mean we are searching yet. Nor have we talked to any banks or have any idea of where, how, how much or when. I guess mentally we are closer to purchasing and this means we are in the information gathering stage from all of our friends and contacts. We've learned of banks to avoid, accounts not to use for saving for the deposit, agents of questionable trust and the pitfalls of hiring someone unqualified to handle renovations. In all honesty I don't see much difference from the U.S. or perhaps other countries in terms of these risks. There is often a little blind faith involved as well, like paying a deposit without any real contract, where one must simply hope that the money will be returned should something go wrong. Mental preparation seems to be very important to me for things like this. I don't like handing over 10 - 20,000⬠to just anyone. Yesterday we spent twelve hours catching up with friends just outside of the city center. After a few beers and lunch we retired to their newly renovated apartment for a few drinks. As often is the case, we spent ten more hours discussing anything and everything over a few copas. Starting at 2pm and ending at 2:30am, well, I'm getting used to it. And we've been away for too long so there was a lot to talk about. In between there were two meals, with dinner from one of the best places for pescaito frito in all of Sevilla. While my true passion for sports lies with college basketball and of course, Real Betis, I am also one who enjoys a game of football. Or American football, I should clarify. NFL games can be watched every weekend and during the week (tape delayed), but if you want to see a little college football you are out of luck in Spain. So this year I took advantage of the early price break to order ESPN's college football package online. Anywhere from 10 - 15 games each week and the ability to watch full screen at a decent quality thanks to a recent, free upgrade in speed to my ADSL service. If you've been reading these entries before you know of my past experiments with watching the NCAA basketball tournament online as well. And as with the tournament there seem to be some blackout issues which they haven't solved yet. As in they are blacking out games which are supposed to be in my local viewing area even though: 1) they state they determine the blackouts by my zip code of my billing address (which is in Spain) and 2) As much as a I flip through my channels I just can't find this game (hmmm...). And being much worse than Yahoo! or Collegesports.com, ESPN does not answer my emails about the unjust blackouts.
Posted by Jeff
at 2:27 PM MEST
Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:37 PM CET
Tuesday, 13 September 2005
Break; Champions
Topic: Betis My long silence over, I thought it was time to update this portion of my site. First of all I was sick of an April date staring at me every time I logged onto the site. Second of all I needed some time off from updating my life on this page. Seeing as I couldn't even keep up with it all myself for a few months...well, it's hard to update what's going on for me when I barely had time to reflect. And I seriously needed a break in between work and other events. Since I have last updated some of the following things have happened, all of which I plan to write about at some point:
There is certainly more, but life moves on and the past is the past, so on and so forth, blah, blah, blah... My break meant not answering all of the emails to this site I should have. I can only say send them again if you can, and I am working backwards to answer most. Again, tonight is Liverpool and I must run to finish work, eat, take a very short nap, then work, then do a little screaming at the match. Another report is coming tomorrow.
Posted by Jeff
at 2:27 PM MEST
Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:37 PM CET
Sunday, 12 June 2005
Campeones - Betis wins the Copa del Rey
Topic: Betis A historic season for Betis ended in the early morning hours of Sunday, but the day began for us on Saturday morning at 7am. Rising from a restless sleep we made our way to the Santa Justa train station for a breakfast among beticos at the train station cafeteria. We were scheduled for a 9:15 a.m. charter AVE, one of several double AVEs (literally two trains stuck together) to take 30,000 to 40,000 fans to Madrid to see the final game. Tickets were hard to come by, and by the time we purchased them there was only first class available. So we spent 180⬠apiece for our train tickets plus 60⬠for seats in the upper deck of the final. Adding in the meals and other expenses we were looking at 300⬠per person in what we hoped would be a championship. Or as I stated many times, better be a championship if we were spending this kind of money. Some 24 hours after we woke up we arrived in Santa Justa as champions and with a season in Champions League to look forward to. It was well worth the money, the energy and everything else we lost along the way.
Posted by Jeff
at 4:26 PM MEST
Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:37 PM CET
Tuesday, 26 April 2005
The neverending visit
So I keep putting off updating my daily entries section, a sacrifice if I want to visit with everyone as well as keep my job and update this page. A back injury and then a foot injury kept me out of commission for a few weeks. The price you pay when you are on your feet a lot, and when you're not you're at a desk typing away. Soon I will automate this section, making my updates less of a labor and more of an exercise in writing. While I make these changes please sit back and enjoy new content, and take a look over at sevilla5.com, where some of my adventures make it to the "Current" section before they make it here! For now, a photo of us all at the Feria, during my brother's visit to Seville...
Posted by Jeff
at 2:25 PM MEST
Monday, 21 March 2005
Semana Santa day two
Topic: Semana Santa
We made our way home for an hour of rest and a little of the NCAA tournament, a quick sandwich (no more dealing with the bar and restaurant crowds), and then headed back out to catch La Cena, a procession with 3 pasos. A good place to catch this is the Plaza San Leandro (Pila del Pato as it's known to locals, for the duck in the fountain). Here you get a good view as the procession makes it's way around the plaza. Two of the pasos stop at the convent where the nuns sing for each one. Just a few blocks away we saw La Hiniesta on Doña Maria Coronel, a long street lined with orange trees. La Hiniesta has too many nazarenos, I've decided, as we waited over an hour to see both pasos. A quick trip back home to catch the Duke-Mississippi St. game via internet and the night was done. The morning starts again and first comes work. Then another late night.
Posted by Jeff
at 1:25 PM CET
Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:38 PM CET
Saturday, 19 March 2005
Semana Santa takes over a city (and a page)
Topic: Semana Santa Every year I notice something different as Semana Santa nears. This year I had less time, with an early arrival date of March and a much heavier workload. Still, it is easy to see how Semana Santa takes over the city, especially the center. Activity â physical, mental and economic â begins to stir many months before the start. As you near a month before Palm Sunday things begin to kick into high gear. You hear a band or two practicing by the river, and churches open their doors so you can see the floats, or pasos, as they are being prepared for the processions. Smaller processions, the Via Crucis, begin over the weeks leading up to Semana Santa, and people line up in a sort of preview of what is to come. During a slow weekend night you may see a group of costaleros carrying a bare wooden frame, weighted with sand bags, practicing for the twists and turns of their routes. In anticipation of the week people hit the streets the weekend before for tapas and beers. Many do this to get a little practice in for the long hours to come in the following week, while others try to enjoy a last meal out before the crowds take over.
Then t here is the organization and planning that any city must go through. Many months before there is careful consideration of construction work, and some routes are altered where the streets may be temporarily impassible for the processions. Firemen walk the routes to note any possible danger that a street or building may present (lots of candles in these processions!). The bleachers are erected and in what appears to be the very last minute, and still seem to need a lot of work as late as the 18th of March. Metal gates are set-up to guide the masses moving in proper direction around calle Sierpes. Also erected are small, sheet metal walls designed to block the view of passers-by in areas where crowd movement is especially important to keep order. The official schedule is decided, making sure each procession has a thirty minute window to enter the Cathedral. Publishers and print companies work to get the booklets with schedules out to everyone. Seeing how much it takes over the city you can see why so many flock to the center to take part in the events. You can also see why so many flee the center for the comforts of the beach or the country-side, looking for a little peace as the crowds take over their neighborhoods. And as the event consumes Sevilleâs center, it also consumes my page and life for a month.
Posted by Jeff
at 1:24 PM CET
Updated: Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:38 PM CET
Saturday, 12 February 2005
Back in action; Shaking hands with a prince; all those emails
So my last December 8th entry I realized was two months old. I also realized I failed to post my new entries for a while. Well, work picked up, holidays took over and I was sick a little. Traveled a night or two and spent a lot of time working on things for this site. Some day the flood gates will open and the 10 or so new sections I have been working on will all launch. For now I prefer the procrastination method - work on what I feel like from day to day and get nothing done.
As for all of those emails I receive at exploreseville.com: some have fallen through the cracks in recent weeks, but I should be getting to a lot tomorrow and Monday. As I answer and send about 100 to 150 per day at work sometimes it's hard to come home and answer more. It's even harder when you have a bad mail server and host, and sometimes get you email messages days later. For now click on the link below to see what's been happening in the last month or so...
Posted by Jeff
at 1:24 PM CET
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