Three Views and a New Friend Too

On Saturday, Mark, Luke and I visited  one of Sevilla's newest attractions, "Las Setas." "Las setas" is actually a nickname which means "mushroom,"and it is appropriate because the giant wooden sculpture looks just like mushrooms from below. The word on the street is that most of the natives do not like las setas because it does not really fit in with the rest of the area that is filled with such rich history. The best part about las setas is that you can enjoy three very different views. 

View One: Ground Level

The first view of the sculpture was from ground level. Although I have already seen the giant "mushrooms" several times, it is still awesome to look at one of the largest wooden sculptures in the world. I am not usually a fan of modern art, but this is definitely an exception for me.

The next view of las setas has nothing to do with the sculpture itself but what the sculpture is actually meant for: the ancient Roman ruins below it. When the ruins were discovered, several artists offered their models for a sculpture that would protect and attract people to the ruins below. 

The ruins were awesome to see and it was hard to imagine just how old they had to be. Most of what we were looking at was in pretty bad shape, but you could still make out some pillars and a bath house too. Also, on one of the floors there was a mosaic design of Medusa, snakes and all. This design was probably my favorite part of the ruins since I am a fan of Greek mythology and it was great to see it actually come to life by seeing actual art honoring this story. 

View Two: The ruins below

The final view of las setas is from the top. The thee of us rode an elevator up and got to see a spectacular view of Sevilla. There were ramps all around the top which made it easy to see the city in all directions. 

View Three: From Atop

In our school program, we also had the opportunity to sign up for "intercambios," which is a program meant to set student up with local Spaniards who are interested in learning English. The people usually call the school if they are interested and are interviewed for safety purposes. For me, my first meeting with my intercambio was today. 

I met Nehemias at Mc Donald's, where we got to know each other. It was kind of like a blind date at first, which was a little weird, but the two of us had a great time learning about each other. Nehemias is the opposite of me in his language skills; he is able to speak English really well but has a hard time understanding whereas I could understand everything he said but could not always respond without making a lot of grammatical mistakes. 

Overall, I was really happy with my experience talking to Nehemias; I was really surprised how easy it was to communicate one on one with someone in a different language. We spoke in Spanish pretty much the whole time, so I will have to give him the opportunity to practice English more the next time we meet.