Lisbon and Seville were amazing! In Lisbon I saw this old castle constructed by the moores and a couple of really cool towers by the river: the torre de descubrimiento and the torre de belem. The first of those two is just this really big monument that celebrates all of these different Portuguese explorers and the second is a really old watchtower. I also went to the botanical gardens with some kids that I met in my hostel. They were from all over: Germany, Japan, Mexico, Spain etc. The botanical garden was really amazing because that's where the Portuguese preserve all of these different plants that the Portuguese explorers brought back from India, China, and the Americas during the 16th century. On the last day I visited the Basilica de San Jeronimo, this museum of Portuguese folk art, and the estatua del cristo rey, which is a giant statue of Jesus on the other side of the river facing the city. It's actually a copy of the more famous statue in Rio de Janiero. I really enjoyed traveling by myself because I met a lot of really interesting people. The Germans that I met in Lisbon were actually studying in Seville and they were in Lisbon on vacation with this kid from Spain who one of them was doing a language exchange with. Stephan was the German who was doing the language exchange with the Spanish kid named Andrew (yes the english spelling).
So when I got to seville, I met up with Andrew and stayed with him in his flat for one night. Then after that, I stayed with Julius, one of the German kids that I met in Lisbon, and on my last night I stayed with Stephan. It was a really great experience getting to know those guys, and they all lived really close to the center, so when we finished watching processions at like 4:00 am we could just walk back to their flats. The processions were incredible. There were some that lasted for 12 hours and the largest one had 2,800 penetants marching in it. Really they were like the equivalent of the Macy's day parade in New York city completed with marching bands and everything. There were usually two 'floats,' a Jesus float and a Mary float. About forty people were needed to cary these things. They would start at a church, parade around the city for a few hours (sometimes with a band and sometimes without) and then they would end the "paso" by returning the 'floats' to a church. I'm not sure if they always ended at the same church where they started or not. Anyway, that's about all I've got for now. Here are some pictures of my trip to the botanical garden in Lisbon and the processions in Seville and some other miscellaneous stuff.
