Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Tuesday: We started off the day going to the Torre de Oro Naval Museum. It was pretty cool, I especially liked the replica's of Columbus's three ships. At the top of the tower was a lookout, and even higher was a small staircase that Tiffany and I bravely climbed, and bravely battled the wind, hoping we didn't fall to our injuries (I doubt we could have fallen to our deaths). This is where the picture from the previous post came from. After that we went to the Muslim Fort, which is really more of a palace. In fact, the King and Queen stay there when they come to visit Seville. This place is MASSIVE. It doesn't look like it from the outside, i'm slowly finding out that this is a trend in Seville. There were gardens and a left wing and a right wing and a center wing and two floors, among many other things. We left after about two hours because our brains couldn't handle any more, but we were satisfied by what we got to see. After that, since it was in close proximity, we went to the Archive of the Indies, which is basically a library of documents. It was a little humbling to be aware that surrounding us were ships logs and important documents that were worth more than we could think of. There was an exhibit in which we found the writings of famous Spanish Conquistadors. It was pretty cool. We didn't expect to get done with all of those so early, so we decided to go and do the two museums in the Parque de Maria Luisa, The Seville Archaeological Museum and the Seville Museum of Popular Arts and Customs. Both of these were really exciting. My favorite exhibits out of each, the lower floor of the Archaeological museum where there were tools and pottery and jewlery, to name  few, from before Roman times. They dated back from the Bronze Age. I think that was the oldest stuff that I have seen in my entire life up close, and it fascinated me. On a side note, they have had tweezers forever. Yes, even before Roman times. The design hasn't even changed. I saw them, and I said to Tiffany, "THOSE ARE TWEEZERS!!". I was pretty excited. I was pretty amazed at how talented and artistic and smart these people were, and how little we give them credit. In the other museum, my favorite exhibit was definitely the lace. There was an entire room dedicated to lace. It was absolutely gorgeous and intricate. We ooh'd and aah'd at just about every single work. After awhile we realized this, and laughed at ourselves. But they were just so pretty. Once we finished both of these museums, we realized we still had daylight left, and we might as well go do something else. Therefore, we found the Seville Museum of Fine Arts. It was a good way to end the day, we'd seen everything else, so some paintings were in store. Of course everything was beautiful. I particularly liked one painting from the naturalism period of a woman who very much reminded me of Jane Eyre (my favorite!). The painting was so realistic, it looked as if it was a picture. Speaking of realistic, there was another painting that up close was pretty, but nothing special to look at, however when Tiffany and I were in the room opposite it, we managed to turn around and see it. Tiffany though it was a group of people touring, I thought it was a display case that I missed of 3-D statues. When we realized what it actually was, we gained a whole new appreciation for the painting. Some things are better viewed far away. So after a day of 6 museums and one palace, we were spent. Later in the week though, we were very thankful that we got all of that done in one day. It really made the rest of the week less stressful, and it opened up a lot of doors to get some other things done.

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