Thursday, February 11, 2010

Ham On Dude

Where: SAI
Listening to: "Rude Boy" Rihanna (this song will be big)
Word of the day: "maravillas"


Side note: if you click on any of the posted pictures, they expand into another window for easier viewing.

This past weekend we decided to stay in Sevilla. Mainly because we still hadn't figured out any trips. On Friday, February 5th, our school offered a trip to Aracena, a small town on the northwest side of Spain. It was only about an hour away, so Tricia, Melanie, and I decided to venture out into this Spanish world of ours.


Yes!!!!!! THE HAM MUSEUM!!! WE HAVE WAITED ALL OF LIVES TO SEE HAM!!!!
The number is listed on this picture so you too can learn the secrets of jamon.
It's more than you could have ever hoped for.




First when we got there we went to the jam museum. Yes, there is a museum about ham here.
We were very excited to go (right). Not. It was a good thing Laura didn't go because she would have freaked out. The museum wasn't too interesting, but it did talk some about how the ham legs were made (I think). It also provided some great photo opportunities. Almost every restaurant you step into here has giant ham legs hanging from the ceilings or the walls--sometimes both! Try eating dinner thinking about the dried legs hanging over your head. It's a vegetarian's worst nightmare.
Even a carnivore's worst nightmare. When we first arrived to our house in Spain, there was a leg, a paleta de jamon, sitting on the kitchen counter, hoof and all. It has since disappeared. We try not to think about what Senora Vicki has put on our sandwiches.



We left the museum (sadly enough the time actually did come) and realized that there were no free sample of ham given out afterwards, much to Savio's disappointment. We had some free time to eat lunch and drink our juice boxes. I feel like every day we regress a little bit more into either camp or kindergarten. We went on a train ride (above) to the top of this mountain where there is a church. The ride up to the mountain felt like a rollercoaster in the sense that you did not feel very strapped in and might have possibly fallen off the ride at any point as we rode in the ricky train. Tricia grabbed on to my arm multiple times, though it definitely did not help. Luckily she was sitting on the outside, so she would have died first if we fell. Maybe broken my fall. Doubtful. I made sure to pretend push her multiple times. Needless to say, Sensitive Susan (Tricia) was not amused. To the right is an example of how high up the hill the church was.





We were able to hang out here for a bit and take some fabulous pictures of the view, the church, and of course, ourselves. Definitely got some great shots.








We rode the train back down to town and took a tour of La Gruta de Maravillas, the Cave of Wonders. It was so cool. There were tons of rooms in the cave with crystal clear pools of water. Every room was dripping in stalagmites and other geological formations that my dad would love to explain. You weren't allowed to take pictures in the cave, so naturally The Trav took several.
















After our visit to the cave, it was time to go home where we slept for most of the ride. After we groggily got off the bus in Sevilla, we went back to our house to freshen up to go out. That night we went to Calle Betis, a popular street across the river in Triana. Calle Betis has a lot of bars and discos. We ended up doing our own bar crawl! We went to Big Ben, Demo Club, Rio Latino, and another bar. We spent most of the night at Demo, which ended up being so fun. The rest of our group came and joined in! We knew we would definitely be going back there. Which we did to watch the Superbowl on Sunday night.

No comments:

Post a Comment