Córdoba, España

Ted and Mary

I am very excited to tell you about my trip to the Ciudad de Cordoba! Camille and I walked this morning to Avenida de Portugal where we met all of our classmates and began our journey to Cordoba! Some of us where a bit tired because we had gone out the night before and we were supposed to be at the bus stop at 9am which meant Camille and I got up around 7am, I got up a bit earlier than that because I wanted to shower before we left, ugh BAD idea. Anyways, we did NOT leave on time because people didn’t make it to the bus stop on time… that was a bit annoying. Anyways, while we were waiting for the rest of the students to show up I was standing around and saw that Mary was leaning on Ted’s leg and it was funny because Mary is about 5 ft and Ted is almost 6ft. She looked like a 5 yr old leaning against a GIANT…Funny.

In the background you can see the bridge
that we walked to get to the city. 

When we arrived at Cordoba, I was amazed at the beauty of the city and we weren’t even IN the city. The buses pulled up on one side of the street and while the instructors were making groups and handing out our tickets and stuff I was admiring the bridge that we would cross to enter the city. Yes, we had to walk over a bridge to enter the city and that was just unique, it was something that made the city memorable to me. I mean, seriously, how many times in your life do you get to “park” to cross a bridge to enter a city? When we walked across the bridge we encountered an arch that was the gate to enter the city. We were surprised at the sight of all the black cars with tinted windows that were driven by because we didn’t know what was going on. A lot of people walk around in Spain so it was surprising to see so many cars in one spot. Later in the day we found out there was some type of political event going on in the city while we were visiting.

This is the Arch we walked by as we entered the City of Cordoba

Piece of floor displayed
@ the Alcazar. 

Myself, Kasey and Colleen
@ the Alcazar. 

Once we were in our groups our instructor took my group to the Alcazar. An Alcazar is a Spanish palace or fortress, originally built by the Moors with a lot of Arab detail in it, the colors are unique and bright and the patterns all over the Alzacar are very unique. In the Alcazar we saw remaining from the Romans such as tombs stones, intact carpets, intact floors that have been preserved, we got a tour of the Arabic hot baths and we got to walk around the beautiful garden inside the walls of the Alcazar. Everything I saw in the Alcazar took my breath away and then I thought about how lucky I am that I will be going to the Alcazar in Sevilla next week!! :)

This was very interesting to watch...

Designs on one of
the walls of the Sinagoga. 

After our time was up at the Alcazar we gather by one of the main roads of the city of Cordoba and got together with the main group and walked up the streets and headed to the Sinagoga. The trip there was intense because the streets are so narrow that if a car is driving by the pedestrians need to go inside a business of wait at the corner of the next street because both cannot occupy a street at the same time. I thought this was interesting especially because most of the cars that I have seen around are smaller than what I am used to back home. Once we got to the gate of the Sinagoga we were pushed and shoved all the way to the main door, it was a complete mess in there. There were way too many of us and not enough room not to mention it was extremely hot in there. This Sinagoga is very special to Spaniards for the sole reason that it is one of three that remain in Spain. The other two are located in Toledo which used to be the main city in Spain way back in the day, way, way, way back! I am hoping to learn more about the city of Toledo in my History class that will start next week :) On our way out of the Sinagoga we were also pushed and shoved…

Julia, Maria, Brooke, Susana, Dianna,
Myself, Kasey, Maria and Collen
Inside the Mezquita. 

At 1pm we found our way to the Mezquita and the Cathedral, this is Cordoba’s main historic building. Building is not the word I should be using but I am going to anyways, this Mezquita has a lot of history behind its walls and it is so unique to any other piece of architecture that I will ever see. To begin, the Mezquita is composed of three main parts, there is a Patio called El Patio de los Naranjos which is still in the original designed from XVII, it is full of orange trees and water fountains and it is so green and beautiful and so relaxing. This patio led us to the main door to the actual Mezquita and I can’t begin to describe what I saw and how it felt. By this time Ted had taken my big camera because he likes and is a good photographer but he didn’t bring a camera so I gave him my camera. When I first walked into the Mezquita I was a bit surprised at how dark it was in there but at the same time I enjoyed the cool breeze that was coming out as I walked in. The first thing I saw was a big room with marble floors and lots of arches, there were many rows with these arches. It was beautiful. 

The Arches inside the Mezquita. 

Beautiful Flamenco Doll.

It was interesting that as we kept on walking to the center of the Mezquita we kept on seeing Catholic items and symbols which I thought was odd because the Mezquita is not related to Catholicism at all. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that our instructor told us that there was a Church built inside the Mezquita! When we reached to the center of the Mezquita we saw the altar of a Catholic Church and this was mind blowing, two religions under one roof?! Yup, it happened and it is still standing and this unique Mezquita is in Cordoba! After photographing this we headed out and were told that we could take our lunch break. We were having lunch at 230pm, I was starving by that time and I ate my entire lunch and had room for some ice cream. We were told that we could go eat and explore on our own for a few hours and then I we had to get back to the buses around 4pm.So we walked around the city for a few hours and explored the shops and apparently we were told not to talk to the gypsies in the city.I sort of missed out on that little chat because I might have been photographing the bridge that we had to cross to get to the city. But it turns out that Cordoba has a lot of gypsies and they are not kind people, they come up to you and tell you to hold something for them and then they ask you for money and demand that you pay them and if you don’t they supposedly put some type of curse on you. Well thank goodness Ted and Kasey pay attention to our instructors because I was approached multiple times and Ted scared the gypsies away from me. Thank you Ted! We walked around the city enjoying our ice cream and then headed to the buses and took some more pictures and then we slept the entire thought out the entire bus ride. We are getting so used to taking our siestas that everyone slept on the bus, everyone!

Susana, Dianna, Ted ("The Man") Myself, Kasey, and Collen. 

I had so much fun on this trip with everyone from the Cross Cultural Center, it was nice to hang out with the entire group of 60 students because I don’t get to see about 40 of them and with our core classes coming up I doubt I will be seeing them any time soon. Tomorrow should be fun because we are going on a field trip with our Intercambios. My intercambio is pretty nice, I think it’s hilarious that he is my boyfriend’s age and he has the same job title as Bruce. I find this to be hilarious and we get a long and stuff but hanging out with him makes me miss Bruce :/ Which reminds me, I have a blackberry cellphone that has BBM and I can BBM Bruce whenever I want without getting charged a ridiculous amount of money. And Bruce looked into this app called Whatsapp and we can send videos, voicenotes and text messages and it’s awesome. I really like this app because I took so many pictures with my cell today and sent them to Bruce and my sister and parents and it is super neat to share with them what is going on with me. Although, sometimes I feel bad because of the 7 hours difference but so far they haven’t complained and I am lucky that Bruce and I are keeping constants communication. :)


Here are some more pictures from the trip!

Pretty fish at the Alcazar fountain

Sarah, Myself and Susana at the rendezvous.