Seville and Sevilla

Which do you say Seville or Sevilla? For me it depends whether I'm speaking in English or Spanish. The mystery remains to me as to why some names are changed and others aren't. For example in Spanish London becomes Londres but Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc. stay the same, but with a vastly different pronunciation, Manchester for example becomes Ma-chet-errr in my very Andalusian village.

Anyway I digress, Seville has been on my mind a lot this last few weeks. I wrote a post for a competition with GoWithOh, an apartment rental site, at the same time reminiscing about my one and only (so far) visit there and read the (really enjoyable) book 'City of Sorrows' based in Seville by Susan Nadathur. A great tale of love and sorrow, pomp and misery. Set in the city of Seville 'The City of Sorrows' kept me turning the pages and left me with tears in my eyes and a warm satisfied feeling at its conclusion. It's one of those books that I love and hate equally, hate because it kept me turning the pages and all too soon it was over.

A great fast moving tale of humanity and the choices made through loss, obsession, racialism, fear and love. Three socially different characters lives become intertwined in battles of love and hate, causing huge choices to be made as the characters struggle with guilt.



So it would be absolutely fabulous to return to Seville (as a winner or not of the GoWithOh competition,) walk the streets Susan mentions and of course sample plenty of tapas but also catch up again with Seville's Tapas Queen Shawn Hennessey who I had the pleasure of meeting and touring a bar or four with on a rainy spring day two years ago.


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