Hey all :)
So last weekend we made the trip to several of the cities of Adalucia. To be honest, when I packed my clothes and set out Friday morning, I had NO idea where I would be going, what we would be d
oing, or how much walking would be involved.... Fortunately I brought my running shoes because I must have walked at least 30 miles that weekend and the shoes saved my life. Thanks mom!! :)
We took a small tour bus that perfectly fit all the students in my group with maybe 2 extra seats; there are 20 of us in all. We left Granda and I fell asleep pretty quick for about an hour. When I woke up, we were driving through the country side of Southern Spain, and it was absolutely beautiful... in the distance anyways. There were giant mountains everywhere and fields galore. They were mountain ranges, just sort of random extremely high hills all over the place. Perfect for day hiking. I really want to make a trip out and climb some of them, they'd make for some awesome photos. Unfortunately, up close the scenery isn't always so nice. There is a lot of garbage at times, and often times there is graffiti covering everything. Thats one of the biggest problems with granada. I think later I'll post a blog just on that.
I while later we arrived at Córdoba. We didn't actually visit the city first, but instead visited some of the ancient ruins located on the outskirts.
Apparently, the ruins, which were appx. 1500 by 700 meters, used to be a city. Pretty small city if you ask me, but it was probably just the centro. As I recall, it was built by the muslims, and then was taken over by the romans, who added to it, and then it was retaken by the muslims, until it was later abandoned... Or something like that. I have the handout, i'll have to check it later. >.<
So after the ruins, we drove into the city, where we would spend appx. 6 hours walking around eating and touring the ancient sites. I have pictures, because there is just so much to describe. It was all beautiful in the city however. A man named victor (who was very funny) gave us a tour and brought us to the palace where the mosque was located. We walked in, through gigantic doors into a plaza filled with orange trees! haha As it turns out, the palace was originally very small, then was added to several times. First by the christians, then again by the muslims, then again by the christians, then AGAIN by the muslims, and then finally the size (width) doubled with a final addition by the christians. Its a palace with a cathedral (now) inside. And its SO HUGE. Honestly, when I walked through, it looked just like the main city room in the Mines of Mauria from the lord of the rings, where they first see the flames of the balrog. We also walked across a huge bring where there was a old guard tower. We didn't go in though because we didn't have time. We did however go into a torture museum. But I don't really want to talk about that because it was somewhat traumatic...
Later that night, we arrived at the hotel in Sevilla. We were all pretty tired from walking so much but Paul C, Vincent, John, and I still went out to say Hi to a friend of Paul's living in Sevilla. We hung around at the cafe for a bit, then went home and fell asleep. Then next day, Saturday, we woke up and toured many of the hotspots of Sevilla. We walked all up and down aNOTHer Enormous cathedral, walked through many of the streets, and then took a carriage ride. Despite having been stuck with all three of the other guys in my carriage, which is normally a romantic couples activity, which subsequently got all of us plenty of strange looks and laughs...... It was a pretty fun ride. We got to see a lot of the city AND we didn't have to walk. OKAY by me. Afterwards, the group split up: All the girls went shopping... and the guys went with Lourdes (the director) for tea and chocolate. I had tea of course. After tea, we ended up walked the route we took in the horse carriage again...to get a better look. At the halfway point of the carriage ride, we drove through a plaza the size of 4 football fields. (Thats not a cigarette... It's a pen.)
It was a half circle building that has a mural of every city in Spain ( the important ones) which was at least a hundred. If you stopped and looked at each one, you would be there for hours. Later we returned and took a shower, a nap, and then went out to check out the night life. We all dressed in button downs, jeans, and blazers ;) Of course, as hard as we tried to avoid it, we ended up going to gay bar. Accidently. Haha, I went to the bar to order a drink, and I looked over and two guys were making out. I looked down for a second in spite of myself, and went back to my seat in front of a 50 inch flat screen. I was talking with my friends, and I looked up at the Tv for a moment, then looked back down, then looked back up again realizing that I had just been looking at some pretty intense porn! I was like WTF!? haha Yeah. It was as strange as it sounded. So pretty soon we decided to find another place. After everything, we ended up walking around all night, getting a bit of food, and not doing anything. Total bust. Oh well.
The next day, we woke up and traveled to Cadiz. Cadiz is different from most other cities, because there they don't serve lunch like they do everywhere else. When we arrived, we walked around pretty much the entire city. Its a narrow city, maybe 20 minutes from one side to the other, but its very long. Its on the coast and is called the city of Sun because its so damn bright there. REALLY wish I had my sunglasses! So we walked around and viewed the two enormous cathedrals/mosques in the city and then checked out an ancient greek styled theater. We ate lunch, then checked into the hotel. From there, we went out for dinner, and then walked around a little bit more. The town was preparing for Carnival, so there were strange looking people pretty much everywhere. That night we went to an Irish bar, where the guys hung around and the girls all got super drunk and make fools of themselves. Haha, its okay though. Good times were had. Fortunately alcohol is extremely cheap here, and most places actually give out free chupitos (shots). If you really wanted to, you couldn't probably get drunk by bar hoping.
The next day was the day of rest. We drove down to Gibraltar and crossed the boarder from Spain into English territory. We walked up through the streets of the port town and took a Gondala up a mountain. It was the most impressive view I've seen yet. You could see then entire port area, the city, the mountains, monkeys everywhere! And off in the distance, you could see Africa! Yep. I've seen Africa :) We at lunch afterwards, and headed back to the bus. All in all it was about a 2-3 hour visit. Pretty short without much walking. Then we loaded back onto the bus, and drove 4 hours back to Granada, arriving at around 10:30.
So that was my weekend! Pretty intense right? I was aching when we got back, but I think I must have lost at least 5 pounds already from all the walking.
Classes start on wednesday, in two days, so I'll post a blog about that when they start!
Untill next time!
Paul :)
No comments:
Post a Comment