Sunday January 20

At 3:30 this afternoon a bunch of us in the program walked to the cathedral and climbed la Giralda (the huge tower). It’s over 96 meters tall. The bottom 1/3 of it was built by the Romans, the middle 1/3 by Muslims and the top 1/3 by Christians. Really weird: it doesn’t have stairs - there are only ramps all the way up to the top. We learned that it was built that way so that anyone who went up to ring the bells or to stand watch could ride up on a horse rather than get exhausted (like we did) doing it on foot. The view from the top is amazing! Turned out to be really good exercise and it’s free for students. I took the first two photos on the way up, looking out of little window-like lookout points. The third one is of the view from the very top – so cool to look out onto the top of the cathedral. The last one is of Jillian and me – she’s doing great despite her fear of heights.