desi goes loco: Córdoba y Granada

This weekend I was in Cordoba and Granada for the last trip with my ISA group. We met at 9 am Friday morning and headed first to Cordoba. There we saw the Mezquita. It’s not just any mosque though, it’s the 3^rd largest in the world. The building originally began it’s construction around the year 600. The mosque is insanely beautiful, like most other Islamic structures that I’ve seen so far in Spain. But one of the most special things about this mosque is that it is also a cathedral. After the Spanish Reconquista, under the rule of Alfonzo X they built a cathedral right in the middle of the mosque. So this building is a unique example of intersecting cultures.

The Mosque, where the services used to held.

The Mosque.

The Cathedral which is located in the middle of the Mosque.

Next stop was Granada. Unfortunately, I was in kind of a rush when I was packing the night before was not able to charge my camera the whole way, so it died almost immediately when we arrived to Granada. But at 7pm as a group we headed over to a very small, kind of hole in the wall place for a Flamenco show. This was my first time seeing real Flamenco and it was so amazing! There is a strong love of flamenco in Sevilla and Andalucia as this is where it originated. Originally, the Gypsies in the rural areas of Southern Spain performed flamenco and over time developed into the art it is today using song, guitar and dance. Anyways, the flamenco show was well worth it and I hope I get the opportunity to see another show like that while I am in Spain. After the show, we had free time for the night. Chelsea, Renata, Adrienne and I eventually met up with a friend we met in Cadiz and he brought us to this humongous botellon party. It was fun and there were many people there, but we were all tired and needed to get up early in the morning so we ended up not staying out too late.

Chelsea, right after we walked into our hotel room.

The Flamenco show.

On Saturday, we started out our day by going to the Alhambra. The Alhambra is one of the coolest things I have seen so far since I have been in Spain. The Alhambra is the royal palace in Granada, but it’s much more than that. It’s actually also a city, farm and gardens. The Alhambra and the city of Granada were once the capital for the area during the time of Muslim rule. It remained a Muslim palace until January 2, 1492 when Mustafar XII peacefully surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella after a yearlong siege. After that, there were modifications and more constructions in the Rennaissance style made to the palace that are very different from the intricate, ornate Islamic style. One of the most famous guests that lived in the Alhambra was Washington Irving, who later wrote the Tales of the Alhambra about his experience there and some of the legends surrounding the palace. Like I said, unfortunately my camera battery died the night before but I did manage to snap a few picture on my phone, until it also started to die, ha.

After the two and a halfish hour tour of the Alhambra, we had free time to eat and shop. We ate kebabs at this awesome little place where Renata, Adrienne, Chelsea and I had the entire upstairs of couches and cushions to ourselves. Then Chelsea and I bought coordinating “Aladdin” pants. (Pictures to come soon.) Although Chelsea ended up deciding to stay on more night in Granada, I had a recent attack of allergies and was completely miserable, so I thought it was best for me to go back home to Sevilla to try and recuperate a little. Hopefully it goes away soon because it kindaaa really sucks!