Excursión a Córdoba y más (Excursion to Córdoba and More)

Old bell tower next to the Mezquita.

On Friday, el centro took us to Cordoba for the day (same deal as before--pretend there's an accent on the first 'o'). The format of the trip was a lot like Cadiz: we took a private bus, had a guided tour for the first half of the day, and had free time for the second half of the day.

The awesome double arches inside of the Mezquita!

I had been to Cordoba briefly before when I came to Spain for a week in high school and vividly remembered bits and pieces of it. I had seen the Mezquita (same deal, imagine an accent), but that was before I studied it senior year of high school in my constantly recurring, glorious Art History class. So, this time when we visited it, I was much more excited because I understood the importance that the Mezquita had both historically and artistically (ha, yes, that is typically what an Art History class does!).

Random wall from my walk through the old Jewish neighborhood.

The guided tour also took us through la judería (which literally translates to "the Jewry), which is one of the oldest and most original Jewish neighborhoods in Spain. It felt like a more real version of the one in Sevilla. The Sevilla Jewish Quarter is really made-up and fancy, but the Cordoba one was much plainer and therefore felt more real (I thought). We saw a synagogue that was about 700/800 years old (I can't remember exactly). Well, the remains of a synagogue, anyway. The style was mudejar, which was interesting to see because it's normally associated with Christians. It was just one room, but the place reeked of history. It was good to see. The synagogue was on a street called "Calle de los judios," which literally translates to "Street of the Jews" or "Jew Street." I could use this to talk about how what we consider racist in the US isn't really considered racist here, but I won't. It was just interesting to see, let's just say that.

Another street in the Jewish neighborhood, as you probably guessed. I like the different shades of yellow.

After doing some other things on the guided tour, I decided to head off by myself. I sat outside of the Mezquita and ate my delicious bocadillo that Mayte packed me (Katie and I always get juice boxes, too... everyone else is jealous). Then I just walked for awhile. I walked all over the old neighborhood, just enjoying the day and taking lots of pictures. I got the most phenomenal ice cream I've had here so far--mango with chunks of pineapple--and then I ran into a pretty big group of kids in the program. They were rounding up people to go to a Tea-ry (is there any word close to that that's a legitimate word in English?), and I hopped on board. The tea place was cozy and awesome, and I shared some "Egyptian Tea" with a few other girls. We all wanted to go to the Real Alcazar in Cordoba, but it was closed, so we passed the extra time relaxing in the Tea place.

My out-of-this-world ice cream. There were people looking at me like I was crazy while I took this picture. Oh, love of my life...

Katie in the tea place we went to. I like this photo a lot.

I think it is definitely possible to do the most important stuff in Cordoba in one day, but there's more there I'd like to see, like museums, the Real Alcazar, the old fortresses (go into them, that is), and some of the more modern parts of the city. I think when my parents come, we'll probably go back.

More flowers!

Even more flowers... with Katie! This is a famous street in Cordoba that's called "Calle de las flores" (Flower Street) because of all the flowers that line it. This was where our guided tour ended.

A picture of the Michigan, Cornell, Penn students for Fall 2008 (with the exception of Pepe, one of the directors, who is the person standing in the very back on the right)!

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And now, here's the "más" for this entry.
I have two good stories to add to the character development of Fernando (Mayte's husband, our "dad").
Several days ago, Katie was eating breakfast with Hernando (I had already left, I think). He burnt his toast, and apparently it turned completely black and stunk up the whole house. Hernando really didn't want his parents to find out, but they did. When Mayte and Fernando found Hernando's blackened bread in the trash, Fernando kept calling it "pan de africa" (African Bread). He now says that Hernando is a specialist at making pan de africa and we should be careful when we use the toaster so we don't make pan de africa, either.
Ok, so that's one story. The other story happened a few days ago. Fernando likes to do some cooking, and he made a bunch of little pizzas to be frozen and heated up for dinner in the future. He makes me and Katie our own little pizzas without meat, that have a handwritten label on them that say "Pizza para las niñas." It's really cute. Anyway, two nights ago we had one of his pizzas and it was incredibly delicious. The next day when I saw him in the morning in the kitchen, I told him that I loved his pizza. He smiled, took a little bow, and said "lo hice especialmente para vosotros" (I made it especially for you all (Katie and me)). It was very cute.
He's a funny guy, always laughing and joking. I thought these two stories were worth sharing, even if they are a bit random.