Gracia's Birthday, Córdoba, and Street Performing

3 different events, 3 different explanations:

Gracia's Birthday.

This past Tuesday, I had the day off of school for "Dia de Andalusia", or the day to celebrate the anniversary of when Seville's home state of Andalusia was officially recognized as an autonomous community of Spain. I celebrated this day not only by appreciating the incredible state that I live in (seriously, check out this video by Juan LeBron if you don't believe me), but also through celebrating the 75 year old life of my host mom, Gracia. It was such a fun celebration - we went out to a tapas bar with 30 of her closest friends and family, and eventually ended up back at the apartment with her kids and grandchildren for dessert, shown below. I also made a pretty awesome Venezuelan friend, Marco, shown in the fourth picture. What a stud.

Córdoba.

On Friday morning, I went on an excursion with API to the city of Córdoba, located about 2 hours northeast of Sevilla. We saw ancient ruins from the 10th century, and then got to tour a mosque-turned-Cathedral called the Great Mosque of Córdoba. It was great, and really beautiful, but I think that I'm realizing that I'm getting a little too "used to" Spain. Sometimes I'll tour a cathedral, see that it was built in the 16th century and think "wow, that recently?" I have to remind myself that my entire country wasn't even discovered until the end of the 15th century, and wasn't founded until the end of the 18th century. Crazy stuff. I also think that living in Sevilla and seeing arguably the most beautiful cathedral in the world every day really numbs me to all other cathedrals and historic sites that aren't as big or as grand in other cities. Anyway, here are a few of the pictures I took of Córdoba.

Street Performing.

Ever since arriving in Seville and walking the busy streets every day, I've always dreamed of street performing with my guitar - memorizing a few American songs, mustering up some courage, opening up my guitar case and trying to earn the appreciation of a few quarters or euros from people's pockets. This dream became a whole lot more realistic when my friend, Lauren, let me borrow her guitar.

I decided that I would play on Saturday afternoon. Friday night, I figured out a few different songs, including newer music - Avicii's "Levels", Coldplay's "Viva La Vida", Ben Rector's "Loving You Is Easy", Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A.", and Ben Harper's "Steal My Kisses" - and older music - The Temptations' "My Girl", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl", Tom Petty's "Free Fallin", Wilbert Harrison's "Kansas City", and Bill Wither's "Lean on Me", to name a few. I decided on my location - Avenida de la Constitución, the street in which the Cathedral is located.

It was hard to get started, but once I got a few euros in my case, my energy perked up and I get a little dance in my step. Most of the money that I received was either from girls or younger children (don't ask me why), and one American girl even came up to me and said "I love Ben Rector!" and gave me a euro. Performing on the street has got to statistically be one of the most unsuccessful things you could ever do - I bet at least 10,000 people heard me play on Saturday, and only about 100 gave me money. All in all I played for a little over two hours and made a little over 25 euros - enough for a nice date out with my girlfriend who gets here on Thursday.

Below are some pictures that one of my friends took of me playing.

That's - that's about it.

Brad.