The Next Page: Cathedral

To start off, I want to apologize for my grammar and spelling in the past posts. Now that I am on a regular sleep schedule hopefully you find my writing to be a little bit better. Yesterday we went to La Catedral de Sevilla. As a catholic, it was really special to see a church like this. I think I would go to church a lot more often if my church looked like this. This is the first time I have seen such a large cathedral of such ornate and monumental scale. I recommend that everyone visit this cathedral if they have the opportunity. This is the largest cathedral in the world! I always thought that the Vatican and St. Peter’s would be considered the biggest, but they do not have true characteristics of a cathedral (they are basilicas). My Spanish Art History professor gave the tour and it was in Spanish, so I tried to grasp as much as I could. It was cool to visit this architectural landmark as it was the topic of many lectures in my Islamic Art and Architecture Class back at UNC. What’s the connection? Well, the cathedral used to be a mosque and the large tower that is now the bell tower was the minaret in which was used for the call to prayer. You can see what part was the mosque by the open courtyard with trees. That is a characteristic of mosques as they attempt to replicate the house of Mohammad. Thus the building dates back to 9^th century. But since then the building has undergone cycles of ownership in which parts were destroyed, rebuilt, and added on. In the building there are over 100,000 pieces of art and our tour that lasted one hour only exposed us to about 15% of the building. It is enormous. Every nook and cranny is filled with some type of history and some type of alter. Even Christopher Columbus is buried here. Other countries believe they have the remains of Christopher Columbus, but Spain was the only country to allow DNA tests, and the DNA test showed it was actually him. The rest of his family is also buried there. But because his body was transported among many countries after dying, it is possible that each country has a few of his remains. There are two large organs that border each side of a giant choir chamber on the opposite side of the main alters. The main alter was stunning. The entire wall behind it was made of three dimensional gold sculptors of different bible stories and religious figures. There are about 30,000 different characters in the wall. On top of the wall is a 7 meter high (I think) crucifix made of gold. The rest of the place was as stunning from the beginning to end. At the end of the tour we got to climb the 37 story tower to take pictures of Sevilla.

School is getting underway. I am going to post pictures of the school and family later. We are supposed to go get tapas tomorrow with our Senora but might have to wait since it is supposed to rain all day. Her daughter is staying with us for a week, so that now makes 5 people and 1 bathroom. Everything is going well. Classes are getting underway, and I’m still learning things every day. Hope all is well in the good ole US of A.

The only cathedral in Europe with a crocodile. The emperor once had control of the cathedral, and at his daughter's wedding there were many exotic animals. The crocodile was kept in the cathedral coutyard. There is also an elephant's tusk behind the crocodile.