Sunday, March 9, 2008

Granada, Cordoba, and Calpe. simply amazing

Hey everyone,

Here is the post that you all have anxiously waiting for the last couple weeks. So as I mentioned in the last post, we went to Granada and Cordoba for our second excursion. Both were simply amazing in their own ways, though I would be hard pressed to say I enjoyed them more than Barcelona. Anyways here we go. I will try to keep it short.

After a lengthy bus ride, we arrived in Granada. Our accomodations were much better, because we were actually in the center of town. This added benefit will come into play later on in my story. We saw the catedral of Granada, which you can see here.
At this point of the trip, all the catedrales are starting to blend together. It is really cool when you walk in there and see the grandeur, but I suppose that I won't really remember those experiences in 3 three years. We did get to see a flamenco dance the same day. It felt a bit risque, almost what I imagine being at a strip club would feel like. However, it was fun to see the gypsies dance, sing, and play the guitar. Which reminds me, there are alot of gypsies in Granada, always trying to sell you something you clearly don't want. They will hound you....seriously.

We met some argentinian girls at our hotel, and they took us out for a night on the town. Beyond spending time with attractive foreigners, it was a good way to practice spanish with native speakers. They have a very beautiful accent, but also hard for us to understand. I am sure there were multitudes of misunderstandings that were fairly humorous to them. Here we are at the Hotel in Granada.

We then went to Cordoba on Friday for some fun in the ancient Moorish capital. We saw alot of history, obviously. My favorite was undoubtedly the Mezquita/Catedral de Cordoba. There is a christian catedral built inside of an Islamic Mosque. Very rare and fairly interesting. Normally, the Christians in Spain liked to make war and destroy all opposing culture. Our tour guide, a christian, always tells us that the Christians in Spain during the middle ages only knew how to make war, not culture, art etc... But for some reason, the Christians decided to leave this alone and convert it into a Catedral. It was simpy amazing. Look.
We also saw a moped run into the back of a car. Sweet justice. No I am not that cruel and callous, he wasn't injured. However, they are the craziest drivers and nearly swipe me when I am walking to school. I do have some inner angst about them.

The rest of Granada was cool, but not necessary to talk about here for the sake of brevity. This past weekend a couple friends and I went to climb this rock in a city called Calpe. Remember Montgo, the mountain were I injured my hand? Yeah, this was way better. Much easier climb, better view, and didn't take all day. If Allison, Brock and my dad are lucky, I will take them here so they can see this amazing view. If not I suppose I could just show them this blog too. Here you go.
This first one is from top of the mountain. I swear I wasn't posing for this.
And this what we actually climbed. One word of caution if you ever attempt to climb this. Its like seagull heaven, which I can understand. If I was a seagull I would love to hang out here too. I think it will sufice to say that my hands, feet, and pants saw alot of bird caka.

Thats all for now. Espero que hayais disfrutado unos momentos de mi vida aqui en Espana ( I hope that you all have enjoyed several moments of my life here in Spain ). Hasta luego.

Tommy