So our mild winter has given way to an early spring which as consequently birthed premature orange blossoms (azahar) on the orange trees which demarcate virtually every road, path, and avenue of Sevilla. I only wish all those people who spend so much time trying to fix the ozone could have already contrived a way to capture smells to put on the internet (because clearly sights and sounds are insufficient) because then y'all would be able to understand, appreciate, and fall captive to the felicity provided by these tiny flowers.
The best way I can think to describe it is this:
You know how, deep down, you've always wanted the ability to have magical soundtrack to your life follow you around, playing the appropriate music at the congruous time??
Well... this is it... only in the olfactory sense... an enchanted, hypnotizing aroma that has inundated this entire city....
Well... not entirely.
I came home this past weekend to trash cans full up to my ear lobes.
The reason they don't get taken out is that we don't have super-convenient large trash bins aesthetically hidden in agreeable locations. We have large trash bins conspicuously place smack in the middle of bustling life itself on the street.
And my Spanish roommates don't like bringing the trash to the street "because its embarrassing."
So we let it pile up so the neutral-feeling American has to take out obscene amounts of fetid trash.
So, instead of leaving it to fester in the hallway (which I have done once in my not-so-ignorant stupidity... yes, I knew better... and the stench was so bad that the smell hit you just walking up the stairs to our floor and I had to light candles to eradicate it)... I opted to suck it up and bring it down to the street.
Now, my street is not just any street. We are a street with a university.
Where there is a university, there are many students.
Where there are many students, there are many bars.
One of these such bars is located directly next to the door of my building.
It is called "Cancun."
It usually (rather appropriately) reeks of marijuana .
We share trash bins.
It was late. I was already in my pijamas. I was up to my ear lobes in trash.
I sucked it up.
And took it out... in my pijamas. (I did change out of my slippers, though.)
I'm not exaggerating when I say there were at LEAST 75, maybe 100 people below my building. Most Rastafarians... so many that I was pardoning myself, in my pijamas, with these massive bags of trash to get through to dispose of it all.
Awesome.
So there are my smells... azahar... trash... marijuana... but mostly azahar.
