Final Thoughts

I landed in Paris, delighted and shocked to see rain. See, Seville hadn’t had rain since June 8, and here I was, on August 11, seeing rain for the first time since. After taking the RER B into town, I connected onto the metro system at Châtelet, my favorite metro station in the city, before heading over to AEPP, my dorm from last year. It was cool, getting off the metro somewhere where I knew where I was. Somewhere where it was okay for my phone to be dead, since I knew the way anyways. Somewhere where I knew what it would be like, and somewhere where I felt okay to be totally alone, without maps on a Friday night. Of course, I can say the same about Seville, but after exploring somewhere new almost every weekend, it felt good to land and be in immediate comfort. My first stop was downtown, where I grabbed myself a falafel from the Jewish quarter, before heading over to the riverbank to enjoy it. I was at Pont D’Arcole, the first bridge from which you can see the Eiffel Tower, right at 11:00, watching the tower sparkle far in the distance. I walked, then, over to Les Halles, which I view to be the center of the city for locals, to go and grab myself an Aperol Spritz to celebrate a summer well spent. The bar I settled down at had few open tables, and I was actually put with two people at a random table. They are both 20 as well, and come from Le Havre (the “Port” of Paris), and Marseille. They’re doing an internship in Paris for the summer, and study economics. We talked about our summers, France, and the United States. The girl had never been, but they guy went to Florida a few years back for a high school basketball trip. He talked fondly about the American high school experience, which was super cool to hear, and it was also relieving to just hear someone speak fondly about US, after hearing much hate about it for much of the summer (concentrated in Morocco).

In the morning, I had my flight from CDG to DTW, which wasn’t too bad. I didn’t sleep, but I didn’t really try to either.

So in the end, after 19 cities, 4 countries, 92 days, 15 flights, and 6 high-speed trains, what do I have to say?

Well, this summer has done nothing but continue to fuel my travel addiction. I got to see so many outlooks on the world, I got to talk to so many people, coming from backgrounds as diverse as Catalunya, Le Havre, rural Morocco, and of course, plenty of places in Southern Spain. I began to understand why people in Morocco need to scam for a living, why Catalonians don’t see themselves aligned with the rest of Spain, and I saw the remnants of Islamic and Jewish culture in areas where Muslims and Jewish were slaughtered and expelled with little to no notice. And I saw the places where these Muslims and Jews went, and I how it happened to the Jews again, leaving a congregation of only a few dozen in Tetuan to this day, the city once dubbed Morocco’s Little Jerusalem. Despite the last Muslims leaving Seville in the 1200s, their influence is still imprinted in the language. Everything from the word for carrot to street names have clear Arabic influence, and the architecture of Muslim Seville is starkly distinct from that of Spanish Seville. Locals and tourists alike find these areas to be the most authentic, the prettiest that the city has to offer.

I saw a history of Jews. But not my history, not the history that we saw last year touring Frankfurt and Munich. But a history so closely aligned with the Middle East and North Africa. A history just as troubled of that of Central European Jews, but one that we don’t hear about as often. This one includes the progress of Maimonides, the toleration of Jews under Muslim rule, and the downfall coming from the Alhambra decree and execution of Jews everywhere from Seville to Barcelona due to the Reyes Catolicos. I saw synagogues that look more like mosques, made of carved stone and with mosaic floors and Moorish arches. And I saw how that population never had a resurgence, how today, almost all of Spain is Catholic. That frankly, the institutions used to remove the Jews and Muslims from the peninsula worked. And they worked so well that even now, six to eight centuries later, they still haven’t come back.

I am beyond thankful to have had the chance to steep myself in this history, to experience, to hunt it down, to trace it. To really understand what it meant to be a Sefardic jew (which by the say, Sefarad is the Hebrew word for Spain) living in Southern Spain hundreds of years ago, and to see what impacts where left, and which have been lost to time.

Out of Andalucia, I learned, of course, practical skills of planning trips and traveling safe, of appearing confident in a brand new atmosphere, how to get my bearings in a new place, how to be respectful and observe local customs. But I also learned that a life on the go is exciting, and it’s not as expensive as many may think it would be. That I see myself now as a travel. As someone who isn’t afraid to live their life “on the go,” someone who will take a whimsical trip to somewhere they’ve never heard of just hours ago just because of cheap flights (as was the case with Tetuan, which may have actually been my favorite weekend destination). And, being with only Matt, Alex, and Mercedes nearly the entire summer, and completely alone before that, I learned quickly how to spend time by myself, how to keep myself occupied, having fun, and excited while completely alone. It gave me space to reflect on how I see my life right now, what I want to continue about the way I’m going about life, and what I’d like to change. It gave me time to understand what’s valuable to me, and to try my best to live it.

And of course, having an engineering job for the first time gave me all sorts of ideas for what I do and don’t want to have going forward, should I be able to avoid it. It gave me context for what I’m learning in class, and what real-world engineering is.

People may ask which I liked better, Paris or Seville. And for that, I’m not sure I can provide an answer. In terms of the cities themselves, nothing can compare to Paris. Paris is exciting and huge. I speak French, it’s a capital city, and millions of migrants making up half the city give the city a diverse food and culture scene. Seville is a Spanish city, filled with Spaniards, doing and cooking Spaniard things. There’s not as much to do there, but Ubers to the airport cost 15€ and the airport is 15 minutes away. The airport flies to so many unusual destinations, half of which I didn’t even take advantage of. It lent itself to a summer full of exploration that I didn’t get with Paris.

In the end, I am beyond grateful for this summer and all the experiences it gave me. Seville will forever be in my heart as a city that not only I love, but one that served as the home base for a summer of adventure, travel, and growth. Thank you to you all for coming along, and stay tuned for what the next months have to offer!

Ian out.