Cordoba, A small town, but huge on history

The perfect rainbow on the way home.
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Cordoba was wonderful. A gorgeous city, fill of history. From the second we got there we didn't stop learning, or stop moving really at all. The plan was exactly that. To do as much as we could in our short trip there. We planned on leaving early on Friday, checking into our hostal, going going going, and not leaving until 5ish Saturday night. I skipped my class on friday, got up earlier that anyone thought I could considering how well I've been sleeping here.... And booked it to the bus station with Kelly, Alex, Dorothy, and Dorothy's old roommate Andrea. We were all a little dead that early lets just say, and after a nice nap on the bus (i've gotten so good at sleeping on forms of transportation since I've been here ...) We grabbed a cup of coffee and ran through Cordoba. Let me just start out by saying this trip was fabulous. I mean, for us planning it SO RIDICULOUSLY last minute (umm Wednesday night, for an early departure Friday morning)... We had a wonderful luck. I managed to find us the last 4 person room in a nice hostal in a really good location. 5 minutes from literally everything you want to see in Cordoba. We each paid 16 euros I think to split the cost of the room, so not bad at all! We found out all the right information right on time. For example we asked at the bus stop which city bus to take into town, and we walked outside and there was one waiting for us. Not kidding. We found our hostal first try, didn't have to go roaming around the place... And then, we just hit the ground running. We had about 2 hours until siesta by the time we got there, which means that everything, including old historical monuments were closing soon. And we had a map, but we had absolutely NO idea where to go, or how long it would take to get to anything on that map, so leaving with plenty of time and we arrived at "Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos" (Fortress of the Christian Kings), just in time. OH the other best part of this trip, I found us a 2 page listing of all the historical monuments, musuems etc, their hours everyday, and how much they costed. Wellll I just happened to know with this information that Alcazar was free on Fridays!!! So heck yes, we booked it there, saw 2 weddings/wedding parties inside and climbed to the very top. It was gorgeous, and the gardens, were comparable to la Alhambra. Not sure if they are better... but pretty dang close. The weather too, in Cordoba on friday, was absolutely stunning. Que calor! (What heat!) So really, nothing could have made it more perfect. After we got kicked out of the fortress at siesta time, we headed for something that didn't close, THE ZOO! I was so excited to go to a zoo in spain. And, while I will admit we were expecting a phenomenal zoo experience filled with tons of animals we'd only heard of, or never heard of before.... It was a little disappointing. But it was a great way to spend our siesta. Eating ice cream at the zoo. (: Next, we decided to run to Palacio Viana. A bit disappointing of a tour because it was definitely the last tour of the day, and there was a woman running behind us locking up each room and turning off the lights, but the gardens were the best part. There were maybe 15 different patios of different types of Gardens. Que bonita!

Not a very appetizing picture but it is the salmoreja that I was tell you about.
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On the way back, we walked along the river, and saw tons of old roman history ruins, old windmills, and water mills, and the ancient bridge of the city, which you can no longer drive across. We found their large Plaza Mayor, I forgot the name of it, but it was just like Plaza Mayor in Madrid, just a little smaller... But we scoped our places to eat dinner after a small rest in the hotel room... We saw all these cute little gems of Cordoba, but really found the treasure when we turned the corner and found the all you can eat chinese food buffet.... OH my gosh. Let's just say, you'd have thought that we'd never eaten in our lives... It was SO good. After dinner we walked back along the river towards our hotel but decided to stop at Puente Romano (the old Roman bridge) and see it at night. Wow. what a good decision. I'm so glad we did. It was gorgeous all lit up like that. We even through coins off the fountain for good luck! It was great.

Let me just start out by saying this trip was fabulous. Absolutely Fabulous.

ONE of my ton of pictures from the inside of the mosque
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Saturday morning, phew. We got up at 7:30 to have 3 of us shower, and to make to the mezquite (the mosque) at 8:30 when it opens, because every saturday from 8:30-10am, it is free to get in. Otherwise its about 10 euros. Talk about budget shoppers. I was so proud of us. We made it! It was absolutely incredible. The history behind this is that it was an old mosque, one of the most famous in the old arab world, but when that part of spain was conquered by the christians, as a way "shoving it" in the arab's faces, and proving their power, the christians starting turning it into a cathedral. So walking around inside and outside, you can see the old arab architecture, the amazing columns, and paintings, etc, but then you can see these amazingly elaborate christian additions just thrown on top of the muslim art, and they are gorgeous, but SO out of place. I can't even explain it. It was so powerful. After our trip through the mosque, we took a walk through the jewish quarter, and found the old sinagoga (synagogue) Expecting it to be like the amazing one we saw in Toledo, we paid our 30 euro cents because we're not from the EU, and entered.... It was literally smaller than the dining room of my apartment here, and we couldn't even enter the upstairs... (which is even smaller because its a balcony that overlooks it. I'm not sure how much you know about synagogues, but the old ones the woman's quarter was the top balcony so they could just overlook what was going on, but not participate fully. Quite sad. After that we found this AMAZING museum. It was probably one of my favorite things to do in Cordoba. Called Casa Andalusi... And what they did, was turn an old Anadalucian house (Andalucia is the southern province of Spain that I've been traveling through recently.... and living in...) And restore it, and fill it with all sorts of old Andalucian artifacts and things that would go inside an old Andalucian house... It was so cool. We also went to a old Archealogical Musuem, which sounds really boring, but it was the collection of all the old roman ruins, and roman remains from WAYYYY Back before the arabs were in Cordoba... Talk about ancient history! For our last lunch we got some standard Cordobian foods, the highlight being Salmoreja. Its similar to Gazpacho, but much cremier, and has a much differnet flavor. I would never be able to eat a whole bowl of it because its almost like a paste, but with bread, or crackers, DIVINE. :)

el torre de la mezquita.
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After that we caught our bus right back to Granada and had a whole day to recuperate before Classes on Monday. Literally the best trip that I have planned so far.

Oh, and the best part (well one of...) Was seeing a HUGE double rainbow on the way home on the bus. The rain stopped, and probably the biggest rainbow I have ever seen... So great. :)

Sorry This trip happened last weekend. I'm a little bit behind. But I'm giving you pictures! I finally sat down and uploaded all my pictures to my computer.

el puente romano por la noche.
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Missing you all! xoxo

Shoot me an email and tell me what's going on at home with you all. I miss you terribly!

PPS: click on view more photos because i put up a ton!