so the most recent exciting adventure has been a trip to cordoba and sevilla. we went with the school group this past weekend.
cordoba was pretty cool. we got there after at 5ish hour bus ride and immediately went to this jewish museum/music demonstration. our hostel was in the "antiguo" part of cordoba, so it has a lot of jewish vs. muslim history. when the muslims came and kicked out all the jews, this museum was built from one of the old houses that used to be inhabited by 7 families of like 6 people plus, in tiny tiny rooms. they're designed with a courtyard in the center of all the rooms, but the front door can't open up to show the patio. it's like a privacy thing. however in the rest of the cordoba houses now, it's more of a modern thing to leave your front door open for everyone to see your patio. if it's decorated well it's a symbol of social standing... or something. so that was cool. then it started raining so we booked it home and proceeded to go out shopping and to tapear (eat tapas haha). ps tapas are fantastic. that nights sleep was like the worst of my life. with my roomie ali, the room itself was like 80 degrees. at 4 am we were both still up (although not like up and having fun talking to each other, but rather up, wrestling with sheets, and calling the front desk to ask how to turn on the ac - only to find out there is none). in the morning we went to see the mesquita, or a mosque. it's this huge like fortress thing that you enter in a big patio that's supposed to have fountains so you can cleanse yourself before prayer (well in the old days) and a tower to tell the time and so that someone could stand up there and scream the prayers for those who couldn't get into the mosque. then you go into the building and you're in a giant room that's like filled with arches and pillars, like that's how the ceiling is. the whole thing used to be kinda small but they've expanded it like 4 times and it's cool to see all the little differences from each construction. so this place fills up with people to pray, all towards the main arch thing (can't remember the proper name for it) that's supposed to be like the altar in a church. it's interesting the way they do it - there's an arch that has a little round room behind it with a gorgeous ceiling representing where god would be if here were there. in muslim culture you're not supposed to try to draw or actualize god, so they have a room for where he would be that NO ONE's allowed to enter. so that's cool, but then the other neat thing about the place was that when the christians invaded, they kept the mosque but also turned into like a half cathedral, so there are a lot of christian things and crusifixes and etc. it's really gorgeous. and like the closer you get to god's room the more elaborate the decorations and details get.
after the mosque we went to sevilla, like a 2-3 hour bus ride. got to the hotel but the rude lady at the counter informed us that our rooms wouldn't be ready til 5 (we got there at like 3 but were supposed to check in at 12 anyway and have time to shower and whatnot before a 3 hour walking tour of sevilla). so we piled all our stuff into one room and commenced the walking tour... in the rain. it was miserable. the city itself is gorgeous and the buildings are phenomenal, but we weren't having any of it with Juan, our tour guide, as we were getting poured on. and we were told it never rained in spain; it's rained like 5 times, including the day we got here (and the day i lost my luggage... boo). so we finally bailed cos everyone was so grumpy and went to the hotel to dry off (rooms finally ready). my little group of friends and i went down to the hotel restaurant/bar for dinner which turned out to be awesome. it was really good food but the best part was that the waiter we had like loved me and kept giving me things for free. so for 3.60 i got a tortilla espanola with corizo sandwich, water, and hot chocolate, while everyone else paid like 9 for a full meal. i mean i ordered less than everyone anyway but it was cool. later, isabel (our director) offered a free movie to anyone who wanted to go (since the tour sucked and was cut short) so me and two girls (cleo and jenna) went to see Jumper (with my future husband hayden christenson, sorry andrew. okay just kidding. and my lady-crush rachel bilson - summer from the oc). it was actually kind of a predictable movie but it was in spanish and i seriously liked the fact that i could understand all of it so it was an experience worth... experiencing. at the same time as our movie was going on, the sevilla soccer stadium is right next door so we could hear all the screams and cheers from the game, which was awesome. we're still trying to plan a real madrid game, probably for spring break.
so then the next morning we got up, sun shining, 24 degrees celsius (which is like 70 farenheit, i think). it was gorgeous. we had churros and chocolate for breakfast (um... my absolute fave. part of madrid) and went to alcazar. it's like a fortress/palace/castle/somethin else. dunno. but it was cool. very elaborate, just like the mosque. everything is sooo detailed, like the walls and floors and tiles. and there's a huge garden with statues, monuments, fish ponds, fountains, etc. it was a beautiful day and it was nice to enjoy the city instead of hating it when it's cold and wet. but really it was one of the nicest places i've seen so far, lol possibly just because the temperature was so nice. so after that we walked to plaza espana, which is like a semicircle shaped area surrounded by buildings and they have these benches on the walls that are mosaics of each different major city/division of spain. and a big fountain (of course). that's one thing i've noticed about spain that's different from the states. they take great measures to build monuments and fountains and have such a great atmosphere. i've never seen this many monuments and fountains... and i'm from dc. lol.
on the way home i got to talk to maja (mommy). i'm still trying to get a feel for how much i can afford to use my phone, i get my first phone bill in a few days, and then i wanna see if i can call home more. i love talking to my mom. lol and i miss hanging out with her. she always makes it seem like it's obligatory to me but i genuinely do have a lot of fun. hopefully she and roxy (the seeester) can visit at the end of the semester. i'm excited to show them around and be able to share everything i've been doing while i've been here. so we'll see if that works out :)
speaking of visiting, my friend chad might come during spring break. yay!! love friends!! haha i'm excited. the soccer game that we wanted to see then is real madrid and valencia, and chad happens to be studying in valencia so that would be sweeeet.
so for now, just been going to classes. i switched periodismo to instituciones, which is like government. it's really interesting, but i've never been good at government so we'll see how that goes. and i had a little shop trip last night = love H&M. two shirts for 4.90 each... yesss! not much else is new though. working on a trip to the mountains for ali cos she's never seen snow, but that's like real close - day trip worthy. ohhh haha last bit of info. so we decided to go to one of the local restaurants/bars the other night for some innocent soccer game watching. and we're sitting in the back of the bar and it starts getting real smokey. ali smokes so i was like ali seriously, put it out. until it started burning. at which point we all assumed we were inhaling hazardous smoke from a fire or something of the sort and started running for the door yelling "FIRE!!" haha never been able to do that before. the bar was fullllll of drunk english men cos chelsea was playing so it was crowded. turned out the smoke came from the back room where a fog machine had busted and all the chemicals were what was burning. but so they cleared it up and my group of friends just started singing "we didn't start the fire" until the whole bar broke out in chorus. sounds rather cheesy but it was quite a sight. haha.
but seriously, we didn't start the fire.
