Seville Day 1 - Alice in wonderland

Metropol Parasol is the world’s largest wooden structure and stands tall in the ‘La Encarnacion Square’. It consists of six huge parasols and standing below them, I felt like I was enacting a scene from the Alice in Wonderland simply because the shape of the parasols resembles huge gigantic mushrooms. That is the reason, the Metropol Parasol is also referred to as ‘Las Setas’ which is the spanish word for mushrooms.

So the history goes that this square was a market place in the 19^th century and as the building got dilapidated, it was finally torn down in 1976. The first attempt in 1990 to redevelop the area was put to a halt as ancient ruins from Andalusian era were discovered during the construction. The second attempt began in 2005 with a view to create this unique wooden structure but soon it was discovered that the design was technically infeasible (does this remind us of India?). So the work again halted in 2007. Finally, a new technique using glue as reinforcement was used and finally the Metropol Parasol opened up in 2011 for the visitors after spending more than 100 million euros.

Ok, good, so I no longer find it bizarre that India needed a ridiculous 10 years to construct something like the Bandra-Worli sea link, there are others as well!

Although the people of Seville like to call it mushrooms, the husband and I liked to refer it as waffle due to Metropol’s interweaving waffle-like wooden panels that rise from concrete base to the crown. The ticket queue was surprisingly short and shockingly cheap – 3 euros per person to go to the top of the Metropol and it also includes a free drink!! I mean in London, they wouldn’t even let you step on the tube if your oyster card has that low balance, forget visiting a touristy site.

The lift in the Metropol Parasol will leave you at Level 2 which hosts the restaurant. The panoramic terrace starts from there and is simply amazing offering one of the best views of the city Centre. You can also see the top of the Seville Cathedral, from which this architecture was inspired. In the words of the architect, this is a ‘cathedral without walls’!

The husband and I were already elated due to the cheap entry ticket and the prospect of a free drink but we decided to behave like good tourists and walked around the entire walkway stopping and taking pictures, enjoying the views, soaking the shining sun and meanwhile thinking about the free sangria that was waiting for us.

After a full round, we were back at the restaurant. Finding a nice table outside on the terrace is crucial and only a person who has travelled during the peak time in a Mumbai local can do so. Some tips to finding a good table – be quick, be shameless, stand near the table where you can see the glasses almost empty and hedge your bets and get the husband to stand near another table. If you aren’t able to grab a good table, in either case, do sit down for a while and enjoy the city from above.

All in all, I felt that Metropol Parasol has a fantastic, daring, creative and inventive sculpture-like repetitive geometric plan, making it a must visit if you are in Seville! The parasols provide for shade, the game of light and shadows is definitely attention grabbing and unique and it’s a contemporary landmark merging the historical medieval city and the contemporary city beat! 

The view of Las Setas from the square

 

Level 1 - Market

Level 2 & 3 - The panoramic terrace

And on the sixth day, God created MANchester...

An unusual start to the weekend, I get up early, pack my bags, get ready and am off. The husband and I do the usual sprint to the train station. No matter what time we need to reach, we are always running and this is always how we start the holiday, so nothing quite unusual about this part.

The Virgin train is waiting for us at the Euston station. As soon as we step in, the doors close and the train bids goodbye to the station. After crawling through several connected compartments we finally reach the reserved seat. The coach seems to be unusually empty, quite a contrast to what the booking website showed when we made the booking a week ago.

There is a group of middle aged woman who seemed to have settled down long time back. They were already half way through their wine bottle and were giggling over jokes that I didn't seem to comprehend. I like to think that it was more to do with age than my IQ. I look around and everyone is already glued to their smartphones so I take the window seat and decide to do the same.

The train is classy and clean with plush red seats. The train zooms out at breakneck speed. The scenery outside changes soon as we slowly move out of the London city centre to the countryside. Large glass building are first replaced by brick houses and then to vast green grasslands. Sometimes I see  the sheep are grazing sleepishly and sometimes there are huge mustard farms. The weather seems to be kind and the sun is shining in bright blue sky.

I walk to the pantry and ask for a tea. The girl acknowledges and asks me something in a heavy Manchester accent. I don't quite understand what she asked but in the end I am handed a hot tea, some sugar and a milk sachet. I am pleased.

I go back to my seat and settle down. I borrow the husband's iPhone and play my favourite songs one after the other. The train moves forward adding a rhythm to the songs and I enjoy my favourite croissant and gaze outside to infinity.

Slowly the scenery starts changing again and we are closing in. I can see some distant traces of old mills and their chimneys rising above the otherwise commercial buildings. Old warehouses now seemed to be converted to shopping  complexes and the train makes a screeching halt.

We are here finally ..the city of Manchester. Time to put on the walking shoes and get ready to soak in some history....

Seville Day 1 - Food for thought

We were tired, we were shabby and we were starving. We needed to rest, take a shower and eat and there was no plan in place for either. The girl at the hotel reception very kindly told us in her broken English that we could step into the room only at 300 pm so clearly the first two necessities of the hour were thrown out of the door. Note to self - the check in time for a hotel is an important consideration in booking the hotel - Note complete.  We left our luggage at the concierge and reluctantly stepped out.

The hotels location was fabulous and we were right in the middle of the old town. Seville's old town has a charm of its own and you have to visit it to feel it. We were in the city in probably one of its most action packed week - the Semana Santa or the Holy Week. Many apartment balconies had the red and gold cloths or palm leaves draped over them making it look even more beautiful. Even if you are not religious, it is impossible to ignore the sheer excitement and the enthusiasm floating around the city. The city was virtually shutting down for the evening procession and we promptly added the evening procession to our itinerary.

We made our way from a small lane into Calle Campana that opened up into a Plaza and lo behold! we found the two most common American chains - Starbucks and McDonald's. We too, like most people, succumbed to this American consumerism but mostly because we were starving and had no energy left to walk any further.

The McDonald's menu was obviously in Spanish and though we could understand some of it, the husband thought it was important to display our 'techieness' to the person on the counter rather than asking for the egg & cheese McMuffin minus the bacon and decided to pull out his phone and use the Google translate app. Now this app requires you to point your camera at the text that you want to translate and then the translated text will appear on the screen instantly.

Point to note that Google has put in a small footnote when you download this app that sometimes the translations aren’t perfect and might not work if the text is too small, written by hand etc. , meaning more often than not, it doesn't quite work. Now having tried and failed multiple times in using this app in Peru & Bolivia last year, I was obviously not keen in testing it another time but sometimes hunger stops the person from thinking straight so I agreed to play along.

The person on the counter was looking at us suspiciously and the moment the husband pointed the camera on the McDonalds menu she started screaming that no photos were allowed inside. Now first of all, who on earth would really take a photo of the McDonald's menu when there is a beautiful city outside to explore but I was in no mood to argue. So after several attempts, we finally ordered the McDonalds breakfast menu minus the bacon and hoped that she understood what vegetarian means.

Now that the stomach was full and the coffee was kicking in the blood, we were all set to explore the city.

City preparing for the evening procession for Semana Santa :-

1. Chairs ready to be laid out on the roads



2. Making way for the procession path

 

3. This part of the road is all set

 

4. The balconies of buildings also decorated with Red and Gold cloth

Seville Day 1 - From Touchdown to Downtown

Seville's San Pablo Airport has a IATA code as SVQ - don't ask me why because there is no V and no Q in the name and I have never understood how they come up with these codes; they probably use a dart board with alphabets. Anyway, its a charming little airport and is about 10 km to the north east of the city. 

The immigration queue at the Seville airport was extremely short. When we reached, there were two windows open - one for EU residents and one for the non-EU ones and Ripley's Believe It Or Not, husband and I were the only ones in the non-EU line! The immigration officer scanned our passports with a fair amount of doubt and some amount of disbelief about the fact that the Schengen Visa on our passport was indeed not a fake one. Being an ardent SRK fan, I wanted to say the much rehearsed dialogue of "..and I am not a terrorist" from My Name is Khan but the husband nudged me and asked me to shut up.

We didn't waste much time wandering around the airport after that as we were too excited to get out and wander out into the Andalusian sunshine. I suggest you do the same. 

Taxis are probably the quickest way to get the city centre from the airport and the trip should take around 15 to 20 minutes and cost between 20-25 euros. We however chose to hop on to the bus and that is when the fun and struggle with Spanish language begins. The driver blurted out something in Spanish, he was probably asking us for tickets but soon noticed the blank expression on our face with eyes wide open not knowing what to say. He then very kindly held up both his hands to show eight. 

The husband who has a proven higher IQ immediately understood (or so he thought) and promptly pulled out two 10 euro notes and handed them over to the driver. The driver obviously realised our ignorance and that we had not done any homework before landing in this city and gave us back 12 euros and explained to us that two tickets together cost 8 euros. Now for anyone who has lived in London and has paid a minimum of 16 pounds entry fee for  something as ridiculous as a 2 mins round trip in the London eye, this felt like an impossible deal. 

Bus line ‘EA’ (Especial Aeropuerto) links the airport terminal with the city. The journey takes about 35 minutes and Plaza de Armas, in the city centre is the last stop. During this journey I calculated how monetarily beneficial it would be to live in this city and started thinking about possible job opportunities. Four days later, while travelling back to London, I would have realised that the only career option I would have in Seville was to open a Indian tapas restaurant but having evaluated my culinary skills, I would dismiss this career option and make my peace with the expensive London city.

Having got down at the last stop (Plaza de Armas - which is the bus station), we were sort of lost not knowing where to go. The map that we had wasn't really helping much and there were no clear signs on where to head to. Now the husband, like most men, doesn't believe in asking directions. So after having wasted a fair amount of time and going back and forth and around the bus stations, we were still at the exact same place where the bus had dropped us. Few hours later, that night, the husband will look at his Fitbit and be proud of having walked around 20 kms in a day of which atleast 5 will be due to our adamant nature about not asking for directions.

I walked inside the bus station to see if I could find some Tourist Information Centre but instead I found free WiFi. I immediately put our hotel address in Google Maps ans suddenly I was in charge of the situation. Our hotel was around 15 mins walk from the bus station and right in the middle of the old town and with the aid of Google, we finally found our our way to the old town.

Seville Day 1 - Idling in the plane...

By the time the flight took off, I was wide awake.  The husband decided that it was important to catch up on the sleep so he dozed off as soon as the flight was in the air. That means I was stranded sitting between the sleeping husband and a teenage girl who was so engrossed in playing Candy Crush over her Ipad that I dared not interrupt her to start any sort of conversation. I scanned three rows ahead and behind me but I could not find anyone who was awake and without a electronic device glued to their hand.

So I thought that the best way to pass time would be to read the in-flight magazine, except I forgot that I was flying Ryan Air. Ryan Air is a low cost airline, I mean I am cheap too but Ryan Air beats me hands down. They charge you ridiculous amount of money if you forget to print your boarding pass, they sell scratch cards on flight and at one point they were even considering charging people for using toilets, so you know what I mean, they are cheap. Safety cards are printed on a tacky yellow plastic on the back of the headrest in front of you which is simply just offensive to your eyes. Not only that, they have taken away the seat pockets ! So there’s nowhere to put your belongings during the flight. It’s a pointless form of discomfort, probably just devised so they can psychologically screw with their passenger and did I mention that they are cheap?

OK, so the point I am trying to make is that no seat pockets equals to no magazines to pass time and I had to find some other way to beat the boredom.

Just then I realised that no seat pockets also means no sick bags. Now I don't get motion sickness but imagine how it would be just in case there was a turbulence and if I was to get really sick and about to vomit. I started imagining how the events would roll up - I would call for help but probably no one will come because its Ryan Air or the attendant might come with a sick bag but by that time the vomit would be already flying through air.  I imagined how the vomit would come out in slow motion, I tried to imagine it in the way they show in movies where they pause the hero kicking in the air and go around 360 degrees. So I went around the vomit and in between zooming on the expressions of fellow passengers. In all this slow motion imaginations, the husband was still seen sleeping.

I think this weird imagination went on for sometime but I am not going to detail it here lest I make you all sick if I have already not. Eventually I fell asleep because I don't exactly remember on what happened next but I was woken up by a sudden thud when the aircraft landed in Sevilla.

Upon landing, there was this really annoying music that Ryan Air played to celebrate the fact that the flight had landed on time. It was cheesy and probably the last thing I wanted to hear after a really uncomfortable flight but I think was too excited to have set foot in the city where the sun shone brightly in the sky ...

Seville Day 1 - Fasten your seatbelts

The alarm goes off and we hit the snooze button, few minutes later it goes off again and we hit snooze yet again, this goes on for some time. The husband refuses to come out of the warm and cozy blanket and step out of the perfectly heated room. Such is the London cold and such is a normal day.

But not today. Today the husband wakes up well before the alarm clock and mind you the alarm was to go off at 300 am. So much we do to maximise our vacation time but mostly because it was the cheapest flight out. For me on the other hand, sleep comes first, specially in the winter. Having lived in Mumbai most of my life, I was a firm believer of 'I refuse to go outside until the temperature is above my age' , until I moved to London.

This however does mean that I have my morning chores calculated to the exact minute which sometimes creates a problem. Like today morning, the cab was waiting down while I was trying to gulp down and glass if milk while trying to put on socks. This was accompanied with the husband restlessly waiting at the door with alternate glances to the fitbit and me, me getting a longer screentime.

In all this chaos, the glass decided to quietly slip out of my hand and pour the milk over the scarf. Clearly the perfectly derived task time had gone out of the window. I don't need to say that we were absolutely late. The cab driver expressed his absolute disbelief that he had to take us to London Bridge station in next 10 minutes. Thankfully the ticket machine worked just fine and we made a mad dash to the train for Gatwick.

Anyways, all is well that ends well or rather starts well. So , here I am sitting in the flight eating a croissant and drinking a nice hot coffee. Time to fasten the seatbelts and wait till we land in Sevilla. Time to soak some sun and drink lots of sangria. Who thought that being an Indian, one day I would travel to places in search of sun. Well such is life...

'Thanda Bajao' .. aur thode thande ho jao

In case the title was not clear, I was referring to the latest uproar against the new video released by the British band ‘Coldplay’ who is accused of cultural appropriation. When I first heard that phrase, I was not even sure what that meant. Wiki told me that 'Cultural appropriation' is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture. Cultural appropriation is seen by some as controversial especially when elements of a minority culture are used by members of the cultural majority. 

Now we Indians shouldn't let any chance for any controversy pass away, should we? So I did what anyone in my place would do. I watched the 4.20 second video to see why India was upset. And really people I can’t believe that this depiction of India has upset you?

Shot in India, the video features the British band performing in Mumbai during Holi err… or Diwali (I couldn't really make up my mind),  Chris Martin going around in a colorful taxi (which I absolutely loved) and watching a Bollywood movie starring Beyonce (not so sure on that, Priyanka Chopra would have been a better choice and she can sing too). Ok fine, the video has a lot of stereotypical elements about India.

The video starts with a peacock and then follow the levitating sadhus and the slum boys running around playing holi and doing hip-hop (don’t know when they upgraded from the Ganpati dance to hip-hop). Then there is a small boy with shiva costume (probably going to fancy dress competition waiting for the school bus), temples with saffron flags (ugh ugh.. Congress can now accuse Coldplay as not being secular and promoting only Hinduism), children watching videos through the kaleidoscope, Rajasthani man performing a puppet show, classical dances and beautiful costumes and now 3 and half minutes have passed away and I start wondering where the hell is Sonam Kapoor. Then she comes running (probably straight from the sets of Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo but the clothes looked poorer) and throws some flowers and then disappears never to be seen again. Even the slum kids have more screen time than her but anyways I am not complaining about her non existence in the video. It ends with Beyonce doing a 'namaste'..such a sanskari girl I have to admit.

All in all a very happy happy video. Now I am really confused as to why India is really angry about this. Perhaps because this is not the reality. We would be probably be happy if the video showed an open drainage, potholed roads, farmers committing suicides , roadside beggars , traffic jams, riots etc. Or perhaps we would be happy if the video showed only polished people wearing BlackBerry suits going to office in a BMW into BKC complex (except it would be really boring to see this scene for 4.2 minutes and also all the Blackberry suits would then be stuck in traffic jams which we wouldn't like to see in the video). Anyways the point I am trying to make is I am confused as to what would make everyone in India happy (probably India beating Pakistan in T20 finals). Also, this is the world of internet. No one in my office has ever asked me if I went to school on an elephant and people know that 'land of snake charmers' is a thing of the past. No one and I mean no one (except India offcourse) makes a judgement about India based on a Coldplay video. So lets take a chill pill.

But Ok fine, I do agree that I too, like everyone, have some complaints against the video. First of all after watching the video several times I have still not been able to understand why this was filmed in India but my brain is pea size so I am going to let that pass. However, I believe Chris Martin was in India from Holi to Diwali. Now there are several festivals in that time no? There is Ganpati which could have blended well with the slum kids throwing gulal and dancing on the roads. Then there is Gopal Kala and boy you could have shown out local athletes climbing on top of each other for a pot of butter. More importantly you missed the opportunity to show nag panchami and how we worship our snakes (ugh ugh). Anyways, the point being there are festivals other than Holi and Diwali that India celebrates just so you know. 

Also I know that you guys are very fond of Anil Kapoor but that doesn't mean you take anyone with the surname 'Kapoor' who is half as talented and twice as arrogant in your video just to have an Indian celebrity dancing and running around with flowers. Again Priyanka Chopra would have been a better choice. 

Lastly, don't be lazy while doing namaste. You have to bend and touch the feet of elders (or atleast pretend to touch before they say 'rehne do beta') and then you have captured the essence of India.

But again this is free advice, take it or leave it no one really cares, just like the video.