Sunday morning we took the bus to Cordoba and got there with about an hour to roam before we had our visit to the mezquita. We walked around the streets a little and when the rest of the group sat down in the shade (it was hot, but we had also been sitting on a bus for 4 hours and it was the only time we were gonna be in Cordoba) me, Daniel, and Shivani went exploring. We saw a really pretty garden with people walking around it, and there was a little fence that you had to hop to get in. People gave us some pretty weird looks. We had no idea where we were (I was afraid we had walked into a wedding or something) but after we had taken a couple pictures and made our way to the front of the garden we saw the 2 euro entry fee... whoops. I guess that explains the weird looks. We climbed a tower (I think that's what you were supposed to pay for) and had a BEAUTIFUL view, and then we waved to all our friends that were sitting in the shade of the palace. Oh haii friends.
We met back up with the group and went to the cathedral – it was built as a cathedral, then destroyed by the Arabes when they took over Spain and turned into a mosque, and then turned back into a cathedral when the Reyes Cristianos took over again. Aka really cool architecture (and cool new words: azulejo = tile and mudejar = art that has Arabe influence but was made during the reina Cristiana). It was pretty much just this HUGE room with red and white brick architecture and lots of arcs. The azulejo was mostly red, green and blue, which were very common for the musulmanes to use (like the Spanglish?). Labarca tried to give us a tour, but none of us wanted to hear her ramble so I just went off by myself to look at the cathedral. There’s an orange garden outside that you’re supposed to be able to pick oranges from, but 1. It’s not orange season and 2. I couldn’t find any oranges.
So Cordoba was cool, but it was hot and felt like a ghost town (probably because the natives are smart enough not to go outside) and we were all pretty exhausted. Funny story of the day: Labarca had a scarf that she threw over her head and she shuffled across the bridge pretending like she was batman and singing the batman song. She's goofy... I like her. Emily and I talked to her for almost the entire bus ride to Cordoba, and she’s actually a really interesting woman. Everyone just gest frustrated because there's no schedule with Labarca and she just does what she wants when she wants to (especially when we come to Spain to learn medical Spanish and instead learn that if we were desperate we could eat our leather shoes).
All in all, we had an INCREDIBLE weekend. It was great getting to see another different part of Spain and experience a couple different cultures. It was weird, because by the end of the weekend I was ready to go home - but not to Atlanta, to Cadiz. And then we got back and Pepa tried to talk to us in her 100 mph Spanish and I remembered how much I liked English.
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