Visiting Seville, Spain/ Carlos Pueblo

Visiting Seville, Spain/ Carlos Pueblo

Seville is on the southwestern part of Spain, yet it is on the northwest of

Malaga. It takes two hours regular train ride from Malaga to Seville. On

my way to Seville early one morning, I could have a view of the Sierra

Nevada, the new snowy mountains. There is a Sierra Nevada between the

State of Nevada and California and I believe that is from this area through

Spanish-Mexican era before U.S. In the scale of mountains, the former are

smaller than the later. There are farming villages along with railway, sun

flowers in addition to general crops such as the olive, the almond, and some

wheat field. Seville station is quite new and there is a high speed train AVE

stop here. It is the capital of Andalusia with 0.7 million population inside

city limit, 1.5 million in metropolitan area. It is the most hottest city with

35 centigrade during summer. It used to be a trading harbor due to the

Guadlquivir River to connect to the Atlantic Ocean 50 km away. I regret very

much that I miss this river and the most beautiful scenery of the city.

After coming down to the steps, I was attracted by a bunch of red color

flowers on a iron wire fence of a small park. It is the bougainvillaea bloom-

ing in late spring. I walked toward a golden dome building, a catholic church

with a function of a school. Across to the church, there is another small park

with three sides of big wall. Obviously it was an old court yard of a castle.

I carefully inspected the wall as it was my curiosity to see how the wall was made

of at that time. Outside of the wall is residential area and are very busy. I

admitted that might be of fatigue for carrying so much walking for so many days.

I began asking people the route back to the train station.

I recognized the street as the reverse route of the beginning and I felt more

comfortable . Actually, the downtown area with all the palace, parks, and the

river is not far away. Finally, I asked a gentleman sitting on a park bench for the

direction. This senior was very attentively listening to me. He re-organized my

questions in Spanish as asked me if that was what I desired. I nodded and said

si senior all the time. The station is just ahead of me.

I sit outside of a McDonald Restaurant. Lying down on a concrete roll, I noticed

the whole station platform were full of the tree called Chinaberry, Melia Azedarach.

I did ask many people passing by and no one was sure what it was. Chinaberry is the

Name identified by my old neighbor Dorothy, a well learned wife of a physician. One

year when I was in Taiwan and asked my old sister about this tree at our old hometown

Puli at the central part of Taiwan. She immediately identified as Kuo Ling tree and I

checked on google in Chinese and found Melia Azedarach in formal Chinaberry as

common. One year summer, the tree in front of our house was blown down, and Mother

was sadly said that such big trunk should be able to build several cloth cabinet.