Cordoba! Saturday, October 11th through Sunday, October 12th

Finally, I have some free time to blog about my trip to Cordoba (I was vigorously working on a presentation for class the last few days). So Hannah and I got on a bus at the bus station at 9am to head to Cordoba. At first, the ride was pretty smooth and it was easy to sleep for a bit. However, the road turns really windy and goes through some beautiful landscape and mountains after a couple hours, which makes it harder to stay asleep (and not be a little carsick).

After a break during the 5 hour bus ride, we finally got to Cordoba! The weather was a bit bad, but luckily, as soon as we got there, the rain stopped so that was pretty lucky. We asked the bus driver how long it would walk to get to our hostel instead of taking the bus, and he said about half an hour, so we just decided to walk and save that 1 euro and combine getting to our hostel and discovering the town. So although we had maps in our "guidebooks" and knew the general direction, it was a bit of an adventure figuring out where exactly we were especially because many narrow little streets aren't on the map, but walking through the gorgeous antique streets was really fun and we made it there safely and in a short amount of time.

Our hostel was very nice, connected to a little cafe (where we would get a free breakfast) and with the most helpful staff. In fact, they were really surprised that we were able to get a room in such a short amount of time because the phones were going off the hook for people looking for a place to stay in Cordoba. They gave us a map and helped us figure where the best sights are. After settling in our room, we headed off towards the "Mezquita", the largest Mosque in all of Spain (built when the moors made it their capital hundreds of years ago). Since it costs 8e to get in, people say that it's not worth that cost, and postcards seem to have a ton of pictures of the inside anyways, we just absorbed the essence from the gardens outside of it.

After Mezquita, we walked around a bit but since it was "siesta time" (in Spain, from about 2:30-5:30, other than restaurants, everything is closed for a giant lunch/nap break). So we headed back to the hostel and joined nap time. Right around this time, I started seeing tons of people in the streets with suitcases and backpacks, and the person at hostel front desk constantly telling every other person that walks in that they are full. It was evident that tons of people were thinking they could come to Cordoba without hotel/hostel reservations and easily find one, but they were just as wrong as we were. At that point, I felt soo lucky to have found a place to sleep in Cordoba that night that it didn't even matter how tiny the bathroom was. Finally, we went to the famous bridge, Puente Romano (built originally by Romans but very remodeled now) at night to take some night pictures. I think they turned out well. Afterwards, we went out to a jazz cafe and had some delicious drinks, but called a pretty early night around midnight.

The next day, we had a few more sites to see, such as the Alcazar de los Reyes, which is a castle and some gardens,both gorgeous and fullll of tourists. We also walked across Puente Romano some more and explored the other side. We relaxed a bit in a park and some friendly people with adorable dogs chatted with us (I have come to terms with my addiction to petting cute dogs and craving "zumo" or juice--although natural orange is always the best kind). After a mediocre lunch, Hannah and I trekked back through town (very efficiently this time) to the bus station, all the while having a VERY interesting debate about "feminism" vs. "feminists", a recent topic in class. The bus ride back was fairly smooth; I tried to sleep a bit but after a rest stop, we picked up our conversation and were back in Madrid before we knew it. It was all in all a great experience, and you should check out all the pictures of Cordoba, and more of Spain by looking at
My Picasa Albums
Please keep the comments coming!!! Will update about Madrid very soon!
Love,
Jojo