La Apujarrrrrrrrrrrrrras

Oye, oye, oye!  So, this last week hasn't been super exciting, but I did do a lot of things.  Firstly, I went to see the great Catedral, or Cathedral, of Granada.  It has been on my bucket list, one that I created last week, so I thought I should knock it off since it should be something I see while I'm in Granada.  I actually got in for free, it usually costs 4€ for the museum and 4€ for the actual cathedral.  I have three friends in an Art History class and I tagged along kinda not expecting to get in for free, but I did.

Anyways, we started with a small tour of the outside and the Gothic features that this cathedral possesses, all in Spanish, so I'm glad I could keep up with all of the technical terms.  Then we went inside the museum, which is actually known for the tombs that it possess.  When Granada was conquered by the Reyes Católicos, Isabel and Fernando, in 1492, los reyes decided that they wanted to be buried there.  Thus they commenced the building of the cathedral.  To this day, they are buried there with their daughter, Juana la Loca, and her husband Felipe, of Germany.  Also, Juana's brother is there, but he isn't as well known and he died alone. ¡Que Triste!

After the museum we went into the main building.  What I really liked about this cathedral is that it isn't overdone like Notre Dame or too plain like others that I've seen.  It has elegant white walls with gold trim.  It is very open and is actually used to house the processions during Semana Santa, or Easter Week.  Another cool fact about this building is that it was actually designed by a Granadian...in Spanish it's granadino.  But yeah, it was really neat.

That blue in the back is the Mediterranean...the far back

On Saturday, we went to La Apujarras, a mountain where several small towns are housed.  We drove up to the top and actually hiked down.  We from this height we could see the Mediterranean Sea, which was cool.  We also got a glimpse to a town few people go to because they are so hard to get to.  When we drove, we swerved left and right up a narrow road.  They actually have their own culture because, as stated before, Granada was conquered in 1492 and the Muslims fled up to these hills and were safe.  So a lot of these towns resemble Morocco.  It was fun, but still not the greatest excursion, I mean, we went to Rome and are going to Cádiz.

This is a long weekend here in Granada and I don't know entirely what I'm doing, but I'm hoping to see las cuevas, the caves, of Nerja.  So look forward to next week's post.

Irlanda: Donde el Guinness Prueba Mejor

My last blog post (for now) will be about my 36 Hour Power Trip to Cork, Ireland.  Not "power trip" in the sense of me becoming president of Ireland, but more along the lines of fitting as much of Cork and the surrounding areas as possible into 36 hours.  Yes, this means sleep became less of a priority, but let's get started.

We landed on Friday night and the first thing we did was get a genuine Guinness beer from the bar across the street from our bed and breakfast.  Otherwise, we were all wiped out from playing with kids on the plane that we could barely keep our heads up from the table.  We called it a night and went to bed.

The next day we awoke early to catch our included breakfast, which came along with the bed.  This turned out to be great because it was a huge meal.  We started with cereal, or really dried fruits/nuts and milk.  Then we moved on to the main course.  Yes, breakfast had a main course.  This included eggs, two slices of thick bacon, a sausage, a sweet bread, a half of tomato, and beans.  The beans felt like the odd men out, but I included them in my stomach nevertheless.  We were so full by the end that we knew we weren't going to need another meal until dinner, if then.

Next, we walked into town to see the sights, which was just a center of a small city.  Cork is really comparable to Granada, minus the cheap drinks and the food that comes with the cheap drinks, free of charge.  It had a nice small center where the majority of stores were, but instead of shopping, we went to the Tourist Office to find out what to do.  In here they told us about the Paddy Wagon, a bus tour that would take us to three different places around Cork.  She highly recommend that we go because the guide is really funny and it is a great way to experience Ireland in such little time.  We, of course, agreed and headed back to the center because the bus didn't arrive for another hour.


In the center we found the English Market, a place that the Queen of England had just gone.  It was a market with super fresh everything: fruits, vegetables, meats, and the like.  Everything looked tempting, but we were so full that smelling the food deterred our stomachs from thinking about eating more.  It was still cool to see a local place to get the freshest of goods.  After the English Market, we went into a store called Penney's.  This place had the most ridiculous deals that I have ever seen.  Sunglasses for only 3€50, bathing suits for 4€. And that was just in the guy's section.  Needless to say, I bought a bathing suit for Cádiz, a place you will hear more about in the near future.  But as soon as we were done here, we had to go and catch the Paddy Wagon.

The Paddy Wagon is where we spent most of our day.  It was going to take us two three towns: Kinsale, Blarney, and Cobh all in around 6 hours.  Our first stop was Kinsale, a small port town 20 minutes from Cork.  It didn't have anything special, but it had the feel of an Irish or British town.  I can't really explain what that is, so you can see the pictures on the side to understand what I'm trying to convey.  We walked around this town for a while and took some pictures and then headed off to Blarney.

Blarney is the major site to go to if you are anywhere near Cork because you get to kiss the infamous Blarney Stone.  This stone, said to be given to Blarney by a witch, grants the kisser the gift of gab where everyone will believe everything they say.  How's it working so far because none of this actually happened! I'm just playing with you, but let's get back to the story because Blarney Castle, which houses the stone, is my favorite part.

So, we enter the grounds and the first place that we see is the Dungeon.  Naturally, we have to check it out.  It was cool because we actually went underground, under the castle to where they likely kept the people they never wanted to see again.  There was no escape from this cave except for the way you came.  We had several people bump their heads on the low hanging rocks, and I got a small scrape from shimmying my way to the back side of the cave.  Once we got there, we looked all over the wall for there were people's names carved or written on it.  Not from the times of the Celts, but it was still pretty cool (and kind of similar to a scene on Lost).  Now that we had gone underneath the castle, it was time to go on top of it.

The climb up was a pretty treacherous one, or it would have been if they didn't give us a railing to hold on to.  It took a while, but we finally made it to the top of the tower where you could see the rolling hills of Ireland on all four sides.  There was a small line to kiss the Blarney Stone, the magical stone atop the castle.  Once you get up to the front of the line, you see an old man, with pure white hair, who holds you as you lean back over the edge of the castle to kiss this particular rock.  As you lean back you can see just how high up you are.  Soon it was my turn and I leaned back kissed the rock and came back up.  There was a guy taking my picture so I could pay 10 € later if I wanted it developed.  And that was it.  Though short-lived, I'm glad I got to do it.

We descended the castle and saw all of the rooms that it held.  There was a kitchen, dining room, murder room, etc.  The murder room was where they poured boiling liquids down on top of invading enemies.  Then we went outside and found the Poison Garden.  Now, I thought that it was just a name, but the sign told me otherwise.  It told us to not touch or smell the plants and that a child should be holding their adult's hand at all times.  This is because there were some magically toxic plants including: wormwood, wolfsbane, nightshade, and mandrake.  These are all plants that can be seen in the Harry Potter books and the signs even referenced them at times.  Marijuana actually used to be in the garden but had been removed by the government.  There were plants in cages, plants with spiky balls growing off of them, and plants that looked evil.  There were these rose-looking plants that had a dark color to bleeding into the bright color.  Me and my friend spent a good deal of time reading the signs and finding out which ones were really bad and which ones they just thought were really bad.


That was Blarney Castle in all of its glory.  I bought a couple of souvenirs and then the bus was ready to pick us up to take us to Cobh, another port town about 20 minutes away.  Cobh, pronounced Cove, is famous because it is the last port that the Titanic sailed from in 1912 before it sank.  Luckily for us, the 100th anniversary of day that it sank.  There was a giant crowd that our group leader had not expected, so he dropped us off a little further than usual and we walked into town.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go to the Titanic museum, so we did the next best thing.  We went to a museum about Cobh, celebrating the 100th anniversary by showing us images of what the town was like 100 years ago.  We even got to see a mini-model of the "unsinkable ship".  A cruise liner actually drove by and everyone waved because I think it was reenacting the Titanic, or something.  So we lucked out with Cobh, but after we were finished here we went back to Cork to plan out our night.

I have a friend currently Au Pair-ing around Cork and she promised to show us the real Cork at night.  We met up with her and she took us to all of the popular local bars ending at a dance club.  My goal for the night was to have one of the 3 popular stouts: Guinness, Beamish, and Murphy's.  Obviously, I completed my mission giving the title of best Irish stout to Guinness (which is indeed the best in Ireland).  The first few places that we went to were a little crowded, but they played nice, American, alternative music.  I was surprised that each place checked for ID, not that I was worried, but in Spain, I have never been carded anywhere.  Anyways, after the first few bars we ended at this place that was half dance club, half bar.  In the front were all of the older people enjoying their drink, and then in the back was the younger group dancing to music.  They played mostly American music, but there was one Spanish song that surprised me on the playlist, No Sigues Modas, which I hadn't heard until I got to Spain.

All in all, we had a great trip, I got to see beautiful Ireland in the daytime and then the night scene after dark.  Though I wish I had spent a little more time there, I think I made the most of it and saw as much as I could.  Cork is a small city, so I probably wouldn't need much more time than the 36 hours.  For the future, you should look forward to La Alpujarras, a hike that API is bringing us to on Saturday.  ¡Hasta Luego!

Fútbol

Granada FC (or in Spanish, Granada CF [Club de Fútbol]) is a pretty big deal in Granada.  Not Spain, but Granada.  People flock to the stadium every home game and inhabit the bars and then move to the game.  As anyone studying abroad in Spain, I am required to go see a fútbol match.  That's exactly where I went on Wednesday with my cousin and a couple of our friends.

We bought the tickets the day before, but it didn't matter because they were still selling tickets up until it the gates opened.  We climbed the stairs to the top tier and got a seat right on the edge overlooking the field.  Even though we were so far away, we could see everything crystal clear.  The field, almost glowing green, didn't look so far away.  And the stadium was packed, which I imagine is true for most games.  The interesting thing is that Granada is ranked 16th in its league.  A team like that in the states wouldn't have sold out games.  And this game wasn't very key to the league and it was still sold out.  We were playing Bilbao, a team from the North of Spain and they were seated 11th, so we were supposed to lose.

In the first ten seconds, we scored a goal.  The crowd roared!  Everyone was hugging and cheering and it reminded me of UMass Hockey games, except far fewer drunk people.  Then, a few minutes later, we received una tarjeta roja, or a red card, which expels one of our players and prevents us from replacing him.  Therefore, we have 10 players on the field against their 11 players.  This didn't matter because before the half, we scored again.  Everyone was cheering and we were trying to find out what they were saying.  Actually, they weren't saying words at all.  They were just yelling, "Laaah!"  That made it easier for us to follow along.

Unfortunately, Bilbao scored two goals in the last ten minutes of the game.  The game ended in a tie, which was good, but not as great as it could've been.  Imagine if we had kept all 11 players, though.  We would have clearly won.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Francia: Ani Va

The journey continues...in a theater near you...or a computer screen.

Where I left you guys, we just left beautiful Versaille.  Luckily, we didn't get lost in the grounds and we returned to the train station.  We took it all the way back because we had to pick up our friend, Phil.  We met his bus and then we were four.  We didn't do anything because it was dinner time, so we ate Crepes.  If you haven't had a crepe before, have one in France because they are exquisite.  I got ham and egg and I could've eaten 10 more.  After dinner, we went back to the dorm and hung out with their school friends for the night.

Friday.  The most notable thing that we did was climb the hill up to the Sacré-Cœur the most modern cathedral that I have seen thus far.  It was built in 1919 and the name means Sacred Heart.  It looked entirely different, obviously, from the other cathedrals built in the Gothic era and I thought it was cool to see something so massive that was also built so recently.  Though we had much more technology in 1919, it still doesn't compare to the cranes and machines we have today.

The inside was not humble at all with giant murals on the back wall and figures of Jesus and others carved in stone and molded in shiny metals.  The most disappointing aspect was the stain glass because they didn't use a lot of colors.  Some of the glass was just clear, normal glass with some yellow.  I feel like they may have done this to draw attention away from the glass so people look at the massive stonework.  Speaking of the stonework, the rock that they use actually gets brighter every time that it rains.  Why? I'm not a geologist, I don't know.  The cathedral honestly looks like it was built yesterday.

Also from the top, you get a decent view of the city.  It would've been better if it hadn't been so foggy, but on the right you could see a silhouette of the Eiffel Tower and other notable Parisian buildings.  After we did our walk through the church, where pictures were not allowed, we went down the millions of stairs to the bottom.  At the bottom, gypsies (they're everywhere), were looking for wrists to tie their ropes to so they could charge you money for taking their merchandise.  We avoided them and kept walking back to the metro.  On the way, we saw a man in a Subway suit.  For those of you know that know me, Subway is my favorite for fast food and food fast.  Obviously, we took a picture with him and continued onto the metro.

Once underground, we took the train to pick up our last friend, Kristen, who was arriving on bus.  Once we picked her up, we ate crepes and then attempted to go to Pere Lachaise, a large graveyard on the outskirts of the city where many famous, and more unfamous people are buried.  Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison are all buried here.  However, we got there too late and had to turn around.  We decided to take part in Happy Hour, when drinks are at their cheapest...5 €.  (In Granada, the more expensive drinks are 5 €, but whatever.   That's why we like Granada better).  I got this beer/grenadine hybrid called Monaco.  It was ok, but I don't mind the taste of beer without any sweeteners.

Oscar Wilde

Saturday.  Saturday was my last day, but it was also the busiest.  We had still yet to go to the Eiffel Tower and we wanted to go back to Pere Lachaise.  So we awoke bright and early, went to Pere Lachaise, but on the way we found this amazing market with fresh coffee, strawberries, honeydew, and distractions.  We probably lost twenty minutes, but it was so cheap, how could you not.  Then we finally made it to the graveyard.

Jim Morrison

It was massive and full of tombs that were like mini rooms that signified where these people were buried.  Essentially, it was a museum of coffins, and, just as in museums, the majority of the works weren't famous but still neat to look at.  We did get to see Oscar Wilde's grave, which you are supposed to kiss.  To counteract that, they put up a plexiglass barrier, but people are smarter than that.  They kissed the glass and wrote Mr. Wilde a message.  We also saw Edith Piaf's grave and then Jim Morrison's, which was the most populated.  It was neat because some of these tombs had been here from the 12th century and some as recent as 2010.

"Is this art? Oh no, it is!"

After exploring the majority of the tombs in nearly two hours, we left for the Eiffel Tower, finally.  First, we stopped at the Musee d L'Orange, or at least that's how it is spelled in my head.  Here houses a nice collection of Monet that involves giant murals of a river and the reflections.  It's interesting because they are blurry when you get up close, but as you move further back, you can tell exactly what he was going for.  Sometimes you have to take a step back to appreciate good art.  The museum was nice, but I was much more excited for the Eiffel Tower.
 
We took the metro and it felt like the longest ride of my life.  Every stop made the tower look closer, but we still had yet to arrive.  We finally made it and it was beautiful.  Just everything about it, really.  The shape, the form, the height.  I don't know any history about it, but this is when it hits you.  You are really in France.  You are really in Europe having a once in a life time opportunity.  You are with your friends experiencing the same thing.  It just hits you like a pie in the face from a stranger in the street.  So ,we took many photos and then we had to turn around because it was getting late.

For my last night, we went to the Red Light District, but for the bars.  We had a lot of fun there, but I still think that Granada knows how to party better.

At 4 am, I had to say goodbye to my friends who I hadn't seen in 3 months and who I won't see in at least a month and a half.  Then I caught a taxi to the airport to jump on my 7 am flight.

And there it is.  My adventure to France was complete with only one fatality: I left my keys in my friend's room.  They have been shipped and I expect to see them very, very soon.  Otherwise, no hitches were found near us.

Francia: Estilo de Vida de los Ricos y Famosos

Paris.  Yes, I went to Paris.  I actually just got back.  But my story really starts on Tuesday morning.  My aunt Betsy and uncle Bob were visiting my cousin Michelle and me.  In order to meet them before my flight to Paris, we met up at 7:30 at this small breakfast cafe called Hicuri.  We ate, caught up, and at the end, Aunt Betsy presented me with a small, but necessary gift: Craisins.  She had read my blog and saw that I missed my dried cranberries.  This gift made saying goodbye even tougher because I received something from home and I had to say goodbye to my family.  But I needed to move on and leave them so that I could reunite with other people from home.

A bridge in Paris where people in relationships put locks to symbolize their eternal love

Now comes some bad parts of the trip: the actual traveling.  I got to the airport in Málaga an hour before my flight and I asked a man where to go.  He looked at my ticket and saw that it was RyanAir and told me to go to security.  I go and give my ticket to security, and she lets me pass and I cleared and then I waited around to find where my flight was arriving.  Once it is announced, we all scurry to the gate.  RyanAir has it so that you get your seat on a first come, first serve basis.  I wasn't going to be picky, so I didn't mind being at the end of the line.  While we were back there, us passengers started comparing tickets and though they all had the same destination, there was one key thing missing from my ticket: a stamp.  RyanAir also requires that non-European Union citizens must get before they pass security.  I have flown with RyanAir once before, and we did have to get it stamped, but they didn't let us get passed security without it.  That's why I thought that it wasn't necessary or that they would do it after or something different was going on.

I cut the line of people and asked the stewardess about it and she said that she couldn't allow me to fly without it.  I ask her if she thinks I have time to get it.  She responded with, ¡corra!, which means "run!"  I booked it.  I pushed people out of the way and ran all the way back to security who told me that the location, which is where RyanAir baggage check is located, was on the far side of the airport.  I kept running. I cut another line and got the stamp.

Honestly, all they did was check my passport and give me a stamp.  Not a job that they have to hire another person to do...but I still had a plane to catch, so I ran all the way back to security where I hit a stop.  I removed my belt and all of the technologies weighing me down.  They scanned through for a second time and as soon as they were on the other side, I grabbed them and ran.  This means that I was running through the most popular airport in Andalucia, the autonomía of southern Spain, holding my pants up because I didn't get a chance to put my belt back on.  I get back to terminal and I'm sweating more than bullets.  I'm sweating cannonballs.  I get in line practically where I would have been if I had stayed.  There is a Spanish woman in front of me who turns around and laughs at the sight of me putting on my shoes and buckling my belt and wiping the copious amounts of sweat from my face.  I tell her about my dilemma that had just passed and she laughed again and gave me some kleenex to wipe my face.  Turns out, actually, that the French Air Traffic Controllers were on strike, or hacían huelga.  We didn't leave the gate until an hour after I got onto the plane.  I honestly believe that there is someone up there watching me and when there was a chance I would miss my flight, they caused the ATCers to fight for better rights.

I'm sorry for that little blurb about the mayhem before the trip, but I thought that it was a funny story to open up my trip to Paris.  Obviously, it wouldn't be funny if I hadn't made my flight.

But I did get to Paris really late on Tuesday night and we just went to bed so we could start the day early on Wednesday.  The first site we saw was Notre Dame.  Obviously, you have to see Notre Dame when you go to France.  Now, at his point in my life I have seen my fair share of cathedrals, but was most impressive about this one was the stained glass.  They were so vibrant and colorful.  Then there was the lighting that emphasized the arcs of this Gothic cathedral.  It was a quick walk through the entire church.

Next, because my friend had a class, I was left up to my own devices.  I decided to walk from about where the Luvre was to the Eiffel Tower.  That isn't possible, but I didn't realize that.  I followed the Seine down on one side and when I found myself no closer to el torre, the tower, after an hour, I turned around, but I walked on the other side.  This was nice because I got to see a lot of the city.  Most of my friends had been to Paris before and we didn't want to wait in line for all of the tourist traps, so by taking this walk, I saw the Luvre, Muse D'Orsay, and other cool buildings that we did not get a chance to enter.

After my walk, I had my first crepe, which was ham and egg and was really cheap compared to every other place.  Yet again, something the US lacks.  This food would be great for a college town like Amherst.  Then we went back and met my friend's friends and we hung out the whole night in the dorms.

Thursday, we wanted to go to Versaille, the castle in which the last French monarchs lived.  Now, I don't know if you heard about this little quarrel called the French Revolution, but they essentially destroyed the monarchy because of the extravagant lifestyle.  Actually, it's more complicated than that, but if I saw the people living in Versaille, I'd be mad too.  The outside, gold colored gate can be seen from a mile away.  I asked a stupid question when we saw it because I asked, "Is that it?"  Yes, that massive building with gleaming gold gates was in fact the castle we were going to see.  We were lucky, too, because we were both European Union students, we got free access.  And then we started the tour.  As I have said before, Spain loves showing how Christian it is.  Here in Paris, however, they showed a lot of pagan art.  For example, there is a room in Versaille for each of the Olympian Gods from Greek Mythology.  I really like Greek Mythology, so it was cool for me to look at the picture at the top of each room and guess who was represented.

Versailles

The next big room to see was the Room of Mirrors, which is essentially a room with mirrors lining one wall and windows lining the other.  As you can imagine, the room was bright because the natural light was reflected throughout.  And the artwork on the ceiling was amazing and all of the walls were decorated with gold.  Honestly, this showed the true wealth that France possessed during it's golden age.

Finally, we went to the gardens which were just massive.  If we wanted to, we could have gotten lost in there, but we decided to follow a simple path and walk through the giant bushes that blocked our sight of everything except for the sky.

Due to the length of this first post, I'm going to stop here, after my first day an a half.  There are still two and half more days to go!

Bailar y Viajar y Hablar

Three days ago I wrote that I would have a lot to talk about.  Instead of waiting until all of it has passed, I am going to tell you about my dancing, traveling, and speaking skills.

Wednesday night, API invited us to a Flamenco Show.  Flamenco is a type of dance typical in Spain and especially done by the gitanos, a group of people that live in the old part of Granada.  They are also the same people that go around begging for money and putting rosemary in your hand and then expecting you to pay for it.  But these gypsies, which is the translation to English and are the same ones from Romania, were very nice.  After the whole of API gathered into the small cueva, yes, a CAVE, they proceeded to dance a story of this man who loved this woman and then married her and it was just spectacular.  All of these dancers were wicked skinny and could move their feet very quickly.  Then in came the second group.  These people were more heavy set, but man, could they move.  The heaviest woman was by far the best.  Most of the time her feet were blurs, but she was always smiling.  All of the other dancers were really serious when they were dancing, but this woman was having an awesome time.  After the second show, the dancers went around grabbing students to dance with them.  Unfortunately, I got picked by the bigger woman and I tried to mimic what she was doing.  I got a standing applause from her, but that's because she was already standing.  You can see in the background my friends in hysterics at how good I am.

Now to Thursday.  This is the day of huelga general, or the general strike that took place in all of Spain.  The majority of businesses were closed, so what better thing to do than go to the park and play cards.  And what game did we play? Not hearts, but rather Phase 10 (Nana, it's a game very similar to May I?).  So we spent almost four hours there and I got to phase 9, so I was the undisputed winner.  The strike was supposed to be nonviolent, however I did here about people breaking the glass of stores that were had decided to be open.  I also got a picture of the remnants of a trash can that had been set on fire.  But very few people were injured.  None killed. And I'm safe and sound.  And that's the only thing that matters.

Friday=Córdoba.  This is actually the autonomia, or province, where my host mom grew up.  The city is awesome.  There are far fewer sights to see than in Granada or Sevilla, but it still had a lot of history.  The biggest site is the mezquita, or the Arab mosque converted to a church.  Córdoba was actually the Muslim capital when they dominated Spain from the 8th to the 11th century.  Los Reyes Cristianos, or the Christian Kings, really liked sticking it to the Muslims and changed their mosque into a church.  Luckily, they kept the design and architecture the same so we can see all of these marvelous arcs that scream Arabian style architecture.  But the also had many saints and scenes from the bible painted all around the interior walls.  I was amazed that everywhere you looked, the arcs would make a different design.  That's why I had to take so many pictures, because they looked different every time.  We probably spent an hour and a half in there just admiring the structure and ignoring (not on purpose) the Christian art.

After La Mezquita, we started walking around the city.  Though not as much to see, all of the big ticket items are all in one area, we just didn't know what they were.  So, we walked around for a while and found this cool building that was spray painted different colors and had a sign in chalk that said that the owner was looking for a camera.  He also had birds caged into his windows.  It was an interesting house, but we didn't investigate further.

We made a pit stop to by postcards and I saw this enormous garden on one of the cards.  I asked the guy where it was and he directed us to this place called El Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, or the Muslim Palace (Alcazar) of the Chrstian Kings.  This is because the Christian Kings overtook the alcazar and made it their own.  Actually, the Alhambra is an alcazar that was also taken over by the Spanish kings.  This place was awesome.  It is actually my second favorite place that I've visited behind the Plaza de España in Sevilla.  The alcazar had this huge garden full of different colored flowers and different statues and pools.  It's so awesome that the Muslims brought their concept of moving water over to Spain because it made this place look awesome.  Each pool, which was thinner than our pool at home, but much longer, had fountains that pushed water from one side to the other.  They had bushes with letters carved in them to spell "alcazar" and other bushes carved into pots.

And this was only outside.  Once you went inside, there was a museum of Roman mosaic architecture dug up only 60 years ago and put on display here with the story about what they represented.  There was also a Roman coffin engraved with images depicting the doors of Hades (or H-E-Double hockey sticks) with a flying horse on the side.  It was made of pure white, smooth marble.  Incredible, especially since it was from the third to fifth century.  Next, we climbed to the top of a small tower and I took some great panoramic views of the city.  I honestly can't imagine living there because it was so beautiful.  But I can imagine a spoiled prince living there and not enjoying this awesome sight.

Fuentes in Córdoba to help cool you down

So that was Córdoba.  Definitely a must-see in Andalucia.  Actually, it was the last city I wanted to see here in the south.  That makes: Granada, Cádiz, Sevilla, and Córdoba.  I'm planning on going to Barcelona in May and I will be returning to Madrid as well before I leave.  But right now I feel really accomplished.

Saturday, yesterday.  I met this kid, Oscar, last weekend by complete chance.  He was leaving a club the same time I was and he just kind of joined out group.  We hit it off pretty well, so we planned to meet for an intercambio last night.  It was by far the best intercambio that I've had.  He's a kid my age studying geology and we talked for three hours, which is the longest intercambio I've ever had.  He doesn't know a lot of English, but he desperately wants to learn, so we talked about all different kinds of things.  He is actually obsessed with American basketball.  Spain has one too, but I've watched highlights, and it has nothing on the NBA.  So when I told him I was from around Boston, he got excited because that's where the Celtics are from.  But he is a Lakers fan, so I had to rag on him for that.  But all in all, we had a great time talking and we'll probably meet up again after Semana Santa.

Panoramic view of Córdoba.  You can see the tower of the mosque

Tonight is the first night of Semana Santa and the processions of old floats begins at 6 PM tonight.  The majority of people from API are already traveling, so only me and one other friend are going tonight.  It may be the only one I get to see because I have to choose classes tomorrow night and then I leave Tuesday for France.  Tantas cosas para hacer, pero muy poco tiempo.  You will be hearing all about my adventures this week in my following blog post.  Until then, ¡Hasta luego!