Friday, May 16, 2008

One last thing.

Today is my last day, so I went on a stroll through town to ponder and just soak things in. I took some pictures, and you can view them in the slide show on the left side of the page. It was raining pretty hard at first, but after I went to the cathedral, the sun came out. Thanks God.

Up until now, I have yet to share something that is very much a part of the identity of Sevilla. Everywhere around town, on flags, on the uniforms of city employees, on buses, even on the sewer caps, you can find the symbol and/or motto of Sevilla. This is it below.
I saw it everywhere, but never wondered what it meant. My art history teacher explained it to us one class. The figure-8 in the middle is supposed to be yarn, which in Spanish is "madeja." Literally, it reads "no madeja do," but in typical Sevilliano fashion, you have to say it with as little effort to annunciate clearly as is humanly possible to find the meaning. It is meant to be read "no me ha dejado," which translates to "it has not left me." I think that I will say that to myself years from now. I left Sevilla, but Sevilla has not left me.

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