A Spanish New Year

Things around Tangier have been pretty quiet lately. Schools are out of session, our languages classes haven’t started yet and the weather is starting to cool down. So we decided to take advantage of the calm and head to Spain for the New Year.

Our first destination was Seville. We took the ferry from Tangier to Algeceiras, a ride that takes around 45 minutes, depending on the weather. It’s a gorgeous trip across the straight. The ferry disembarks in Tarifa, a beautiful little vacation spot that was pretty well shut down for the winter but apparently is popular for windsurfing and beachgoing in the summer months. A bus took us from Tarifa to Algeciras and another bus from Algeciras to Seville.

The FRS ferry from Tangier to Tarifa. Let's just say it's faster than ye olde WSF Klickitat. 

It was a long day of travel but Seville was love at first sight. It’s one of those incredible cities in which every single building has some sort of amazing historical significance. They’ve got it all: amazing food, friendly people, history culture art, beauty.

Fountain-gazing at the Plaza de Espana.

Thanks to travel tips from our friend Pilar, a native Spaniard, we had three great days of sightseeing, tapas, walking and more tapas. We visited the Alcazar and the Archivo de Indias, the Plaza de Espana and a really cool artist's fair. We even managed to see Star Wars: El despertar de la Fuerza so Elliot can RIP.

The Alcazar is like a huge, bountiful palace paradise in the middle of Seville. Doves were cooing and water flowing.  Cecily had no choice; she drifted off as soon as we entered the gates, dreaming that she, instead of Prince Juan had been born within its walls. 

But the highlight of our trip to Seville has got to be unexpectedly coming upon a mysterious parade. We tried to figure out what was going on but nobody could really articulate its significance. The parade came out of nowhere, a group of dancers and musicians and people on horseback wearing blue and white robes and black face paint (yes). And then, just to top it off, one of the horsewomen reached into her saddle bag and, in an act freighted with cultural import, solemnly reached down from her steed and handed Cecily...a stuffed banana, dressed in a prison uniform.

“It’s hard to explain, even in Spanish,” one young couple who we chatted with said. Even Google wasn’t much help. Pilar, if you’re reading this, please translate?! 

Hmmmm...

As we've mentioned in other posts, traveling with Cecily has made our experience richer and more fun. We meet and interact with more people, see a different side of the culture, receive jailbird bananas...People are more interested in us, less suspicious and more welcoming. Much like in Morocco, the people in Spain seem to love and appreciate babies. Young men held Cecily close and old women pulled me aside on the street to say, “Good for you, job well done.” It’s nice. It feels really different than the US where people so often make you feel guilty for bringing babies around, where people are afraid to hold babies or let their babies be held and where nobody seems to acknowledge the work of a birth after it is over. Here, babies are celebrated and so are their parents. It’s something we both hope to take with us when we return home.

But it’s not all old lady wisdom and cooing men. There’s the challenges of traveling with a baby, too. Spain, like Morocco, is a late-night culture. People go out to dinner at the time we’re usually putting Cecily to bed. And when we get up in the morning, a lot of the cafes and museums are still closed.  On New Year’s Eve we walked the streets for over an hour looking for a restaurant that would serve food at 6 PM. No luck—the restaurants were in the process of closing, likely with the intention of reopening later on in the evening. Defeated we bought a baguette and cheese at a grocery store and ate with our hands and the help of a Swiss Army knife on the floor of our hotel room. Not the most glamorous New Year’s Eve, but one we’ll no doubt remember! We rang in the New Year listening to the upstairs neighbors party down while we prayed they wouldn’t wake up our grouchy, snoring baby. Spoiler alert: they did. 

A scary sight in the wee hours.

When we woke up and went outside to find some coffee on New Year’s Day we were surprised to see how many people were out and about on the rainy, still dark streets. Until we realized the groups of noisy young people dressed to the nines in beautiful dresses and suits were still out from the night before. Okay, Seville, we’re impressed.  We also feel really old and totally uncool.

When we finally found a café that was open for (delicious) café con leche and tostados, it was packed with people who had not yet been home. Everyone got in line to take selfies with the baby, making an effort to compliment her in Spanish we could understand.  

Eventually we figured out that if we made lunch our dinner we would be on a similar schedule as the Spaniards. Except for the fact that while they hit the bar we would be either a) slugging wine and hiding in the bathroom of the tiny, noisy “hostal” so the baby would go to sleep or b) asleep ourselves.

On my birthday Elliot surprised me with an overnight trip to Cordoba where we spent the night in a fancy-pants hotel inside the medina. Cordoba is a forty minute train ride from Seville and another amazing spot which highlights the history and Muslim influence on Southern Spain. Again, thanks to Pilar, we had a packed itinerary. We visited the Torre de Calahorra and the synagogue and Jewish museum which gives the grim details of the Spanish Inquisition. It’s truly fascinating to see how closely (and for a time peacefully)  Muslims, Jews and Christians lived and how much they influenced each other. 

The next morning we took the beautiful 3 hour train ride from Cordoba back to Algeciras.  The countryside is stunning: little white towns, old castles, rolling green hills, miles of olive trees. You win, Southern Spain.

We're not in Morocco anymore.

I wondered if after such a wonderful trip we’d feel sad to come home, but, after a wildly rocky ferry ride across the straight it was good to be back in our apartment and neighborhood where we (Cecily) were greeted by the every-friendly enthusiasm of our lovely Moroccan neighbors.

He's been a bad banana: the warden with her charge.