Saturday Excursion in Spain

When we were at the Africa/Europe Area Retreat in Spain, Saturday was our only free day. We could do what we wanted instead of go to meetings (the meetings were very good, but it's nice to do what you want to do instead on occasion, too). Mel and I chose to go on the trip to Seville, along with I think it was 5 bus-loads of others who also wanted to go.

It was great. Seville is a beautiful city, at least the parts that we saw. Here are a few photos:

I have no idea who these guys are, other than men who were also riding on the tour bus with us, one of those double decker buses you see with tourists snapping photos as they drive around historic cities, at least in Europe. It was a very nice tour, we enjoyed it a lot and saw most of the center of the beautiful old city. And the palm tree here is pretty cool, too. heh heh They told us that this is where Columbus unloaded all the gold he brought back from the New World, and maybe other ships unloaded here, too (I don't remember that part). I thought - wow! Part of the Americas used to be in there, and wow! I bet that place was heavily guarded, and many more wow! kind of thoughts. This may be really hard to see, but these are statues of the Spanish explorers who explored the New World.Several months ago on National Geographic we saw (with Russian voice-over) a program on this bridge. Mega-structures or something. Anyway, this bridge is not connected to the ground on the far side of the river, it is simply balanced somehow. You'd have to look it up to find out - it's very interesting, at least to me. I'd forgotten it was in Seville, but recognized it immediately when we saw it. It was built as part of an exhibition for the 1992 World Expo.Here are Mel and I later during our walk around the city, in a huge square in the old city center. This building was beautiful.As we walked around I looked down a side street and saw this church. Seville is knows for her ceramics and tiles. Beautiful. I'm going to upload a bunch of photos into my flicker account either later tonight or tomorrow evening with more of these kind of photos. I was very impressed with the beauty of the tiles everywhere.You can see the Arab influence in this historic building. I think it is incredibly beautiful. I want to live in there, only transported to the country side...We saw this sight while walking around. I'm not sure which was more impressive - the tiny door by Mel's legs or the spikes sticking 'into' his head.We walked all around the church on the left side of this photo. It is immense, and beautiful.

Sometime after leaving the area of the church, I fell. Mel, a friend and I were walking past a park, on a cobblestone street, when I didn't see the small curb and tripped right over it. It happened so fast - I was walking and then I was on my face on the also cobblestone sidewalk. The only clear memory I have is of while I was falling the panicked thought flashed through my mind - DON'T FALL ON YOUR KNEES! YOU'LL BREAK THE KNEE CAPS! And I didn't. I landed flat on my belly and arms, especially on my left elbow. I have been so afraid of falling - I've fallen 3 times here in Ukraine, always when we've been walking and I'm very tired and I don't see the dip in the sidewalk or like when I dislocated my shoulder, tripped over the 'threshold' to our building entrance. The doctor warned me not to put any weight on my knees - no kneeling, no resting on them, no falling on them - the kneecaps can break.

Other than the total humiliation of lying there, looking up close and personal at the cobblestones and feeling like a total idiot, I was very happy. I cannot express how happy I was. I didn't fall on my knees! I fell and didn't break my knees! Yippee! The fear that had been hanging over me was suddenly gone. I felt FREE.

Spanish people came running. I turned over, with help from Mel. I was kind of in shock, but people wanted to help me up and I am not a light little thing that can easily be helped up, especially when I can't bend my knees at a sharp angle or put any weight on them. Mel knows how to get me up and he is strong enough to do it easily (he is VERY strong). I kind of shushed people away and told our friend to let Mel do it. When I'm down on the floor, or in this case on the cobblestones, he stands in front of me, I brace my feet against his feet, put my hands in his hands and he pulls me up. Actually, while he's pulling me up, I'm also pulling me up. He's tall and strong and he can actually do it by himself without my help, if needed. Short people cannot do this very well.... :) :)

One young woman rattled away in Spanish and then switched to English. "You can wash your hands and arms off over there at the fountain in the park." It was a drinking fountain, so we walked over there and I did just that.

I looked at my belly and my nice white shirt had a big black mark on it where I'd kind of slid along the cobblestones. Both arms also had big black marks and one was bleeding. We washed off the dirt and blood. People stopped staring and walked away.

And we went to get some ice cream.
Because I really wanted some ice cream. :)

It was very hot in the afternoon and we were very tired from all the walking around (see - I was very tired again when I fell. It's from not seeing well and being too tired) and I think I was also a bit dehydrated. As I was sitting at a little outdoor cafe and our friend and Mel were getting our ice cream cones, I moved my left arm and boy did it hurt. It started to tingle all the way from my shoulder to my fingertips. I realized that I couldn't turn it all the way over, palm up. I had no strength in my hand at all, couldn't get a grip on anything, and my purse was suddenly too heavy to lift up on the table. Shoot - I could barely lift my hand up on the table. Mel returned with my ice cream cone and I said, "Mel, I think I've really hurt my arm." It took a bit for that to register with him, so much was going on around us. About that time, some of our Ukraine team members showed up, sat down and got some ice cream, too. I looked at Mel and our other friend and said, "I think I need to see a doctor." One of our Ukraine team members is a nurse and she agreed - I needed to see a doctor.

We walked back to the meeting place, a fountain near where we'd all gotten off the tourist buses and had agreed to meet by a certain time to catch buses home. On the way, I snapped a couple other photos. Here is one, isn't this a cool building? We slowly walked back to the fountain and met our contact person. We told him I needed to see a doctor. He called the Area Retreat doctor (a volunteer who comes from the States to attend to any medical needs during the retreat) and the doctor said I needed to get an x-ray, he couldn't tell how badly I was hurt over the phone, nor in person either without an x-ray.

About that time Sandy Fast and her husband showed up. They had just returned from taking another young man to the hospital. He'd broken his wrist the night before playing beach volleyball or something, and no one realized it was broken until the next morning. Sandy, who works at our home office, knows a lot of Spanish, so she'd gone with him and his parent(s) to have it x-rayed and treated at the hospital. Sandy said she and her husband would take Mel and me as soon as her husband came back from buying a cup of coffee.

Poor Sandy and her husband! They spent our whole "day off" at the hospital.

Mel, Sandy, her husband and I all got into a van they had rented and took off for the hospital. I recognized the building - we had passed it on the way into Seville. Sandy, Mel and I went in to the ER while her husband parked the car and then stayed in it, waiting.

The people at the front desk were very surprised to see Sandy. "What are you doing here again? Aren't you finished? Is there a problem?" and so forth. No - just another patient to see a doctor!

So, I got to experience the Spanish medical system, at least the Seville ER in a fairly new hospital. Actually, I was fairly impressed. You see - I've experienced the Ukrainian medical system!!!! The ER room was crowded, announcements were being made over the PA system all the time in Spain Spanish, which is different sounding than Mexican Spanish, people were in and out, sitting in wheelchairs (as was I), some with IV's, one woman way lying on a bed wheezing, people were chattering away. And there were lights! You could see! We weren't sitting in a dark hallway, with one window providing light waaaaaay down at the end of a very long corridor. It was clean and bright. I felt very confident that I was going to get good medical care.

And you know - I did. This is me, at the hospital before seeing the doctor, with Sandy Fast, who acted as my translator. Fortunately, the doctor (who looked like a high school student) knew a good bit of English due to the fact that she's visited her aunt in Seattle a couple times.This is me after I'd seen the doctor, after she'd "manipulated my arm" and read the x-rays and determined that she didn't think the elbow was broken, but maybe it was because I about passed out when she twisted my arm, but no one could find any break in the bone on the x-ray (1 Spanish, 2 American doctors). I was not feeling too good at this point.

We got back to the hotel about 4 or 5 hours after everyone else did. Just in time for a very late supper.

So, we went to Seville on our day off. We went on a big bus with a bunch of other people in our mission. We came back in a van, with 2 other people from our mission. We got a little lost on the way back to the hotel, somewhere in the vast expanse of Andalusia, but only a little lost and for a short period of time. It was kind of fun, except for being in the sling.

That is one place where the Spanish and the Ukrainians have the same idea - put your arm in a sling for 6 weeks and don't move your arm at all the whole time. No showers. No time outside the sling.

I wore the sling for 3 days. That was it. It was uncomfortable. I didn't like it. I took it off. When I told my doctor in the States that, he gave me one of 'those' looks and just gave a big sigh. :) :)