Well, you get the idea.
I'd now like for you to gather 'round while I regale you with another of my European adventures, this one taking place in Córdoba and Granada, two cities in Andalucía, the southernmost province of Spain. Probably the best part of this trip (which was run through our school) was that the week we arrived in Toledo we found out that because the Notre Dame Study Abroad program still made us pay full University tuition (which was apparently far greater than the tuition we would pay for the Fundación), ND students would be allowed to take this 200-Euro trip for free. Makes ya wonder where all that money goes...
Anyway, we were scheduled to leave for Córdoba via bus at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning. Having nothing to do Thursday afternoon and evening I locked myself in my room until I'd finished one of the two essays I had due the following Monday (from the same professor, no less). Once I finally finished that sucker up around 11, it had long since been decided in my mind that I wouldn't be going out for the evening. Naturally, I decided that rather than go to sleep at a reasonable hour so that I would be fairly well rested for the bus ride ahead, I booted up Ocean's 13 on my computer and watched that until, oh, 3 a.m. or so. Yeah, sometimes I think I'm stupid too.
So after my two hour...ahem..."sleep" I rolled out of bed and trudged through the empty streets to the Fund and then to the bus where I immediately fell asleep. This would become a pattern over the course of this weekend. We rode for about four hours until we reached Córdoba, which I imagine would have been quite the hopping little city had it not been for the unseasonable rain that continues to plague this semester of ours. After a while you really get tired of hearing, "Really, it's usually beautiful...this is the most rain we've had in years." But I digress.
As we got off the bus, we were broken up into two groups and met our respective guides. I don't remember our guide's name, I do know that, by the look of him, he'd speak with a British accent if he ever spoke English. I know that means nothing to most of you, but anyone who was there would probably agree. He first took us through the Judería, Córdoba's Jewish quarter. It was a pretty cool walk-through as we were surrounded on all sides by brightly white-washed buildings. We stopped into the old synagogue which, despite the build-up we'd gotten from our guide, ended up just being a huge room with a menorah and some cool designs on the walls. Guess ya can't win 'em all.
It continued to rain throughout our walk through the Judería until we reached Córdoba's cathedral which, it turns out, was converted from a mosque at some point in history that I forget at the moment. Either way, the convergence of the two cultures, Muslim and Christian, was apparent from the second we entered the courtyard. The place was full of an odd mixture of Moorish arches and ridiculous crosses...crazy stuff, really. But that was nothing compared to the inside. It's hard to describe, really, but I'll do my best.
The whole thing is essentially divided into two distinct halves. The first is clearly the remainder of the old mosque, with plenty of space for all the highest ranking Muslims in Córdoba to kneel and pray five times a day. This portion of the building has a lot of Christian artwork and a few small chapels around the outside, but for the most part the Muslim basis shines through, from the incredible double arches to the large doors through which the caliph and his family would enter for prayer.
The other half, of course, is a typical Christian cathedral, complete with ridiculously high ceilings and even more ridiculously detailed artwork in just about every corner of the place. My favorite portion, of course, was the choral section, but then I'm sure you could've all guessed that. Michael and I got our obligatory picture, yadda yadda yadda.
I'll pause here to note that, while I really did enjoy this tour, one thing I did NOT enjoy was the fact that it was guided. I didn't really know it until this semester, but I much prefer exploring tourist sites for myself – going at my own pace and stopping to read or ask questions when I feel like it – rather than being dragged along like a two-year-old, stopping every twenty feet to talk for fifteen minutes. Turns out this would not be my weekend in that respect, but like I said, I still enjoyed myself.
Right, enough of my bitching. After we got through the Catedral, we slowly made our way back through the courtyard and toward the bus. Despite feeling tired, hungry, and a little sick, this walk included what ended up being one of my favorite moments of the weekend. It started when we took a quick side-trip to a small plaza where our guide rambled for five minutes about God-knows-what. The important thing was that, in the course of my typical guerrilla-esque style of photography, I got a few funny pictures of my friend Karinna. She then retaliated and told me her pictures were better. Yeah, big mistake. I thus declared a candid shot war and spent the better part of the next half hour snapping as many shots as I could of her from every angle. Her battery died soon thereafter, so she tried to call a truce, to which I reluctantly agreed, but it would make for a fun little theme throughout the weekend.
We reached this temporary agreement just as we were about to board the bus for lunch. It was good to get some food in me, but even better was the fact that we would soon be at our hotel (no, not hostel...HOTEL) in Granada. After lunch, Michael and I killed about half an hour walking around doing whatever it is that we do, at which point we finally boarded the bus for Granada. I, of course, remember nothing of this ride as I fell asleep almost immediately. Guess sleeping for two hours before this trip wasn't too stupid after all, huh?
What? It still was, you say? Okay, fine, you're right.
We got to our hotel and I, of course, walked right up to our room and collapsed for another two hours. I ended up rolling out of bed just in time to catch the bus to a flamenco show, something I'd been looking to catch since I'd neglected to do so while in Sevilla. This was one of the cooler cultural portions of the weekend, for sure. The bus drove us up to the top of one of the many hills in and around Granada, to the gypsy area of town. We entered a bar and walked through a lobby and into a long, narrow room in which the show would take place. As a waiter came to ask us for our drink orders, I again got excited thinking that maybe someone in Spain would know what a 7 and 7 was. Once again, those hopes were dashed, and I ended up getting a Granadian drink that tasted like green NyQuil. Oh well, I guess that helped my sore throat out some, right?
While the drink left a lot to be desired, the show was nothing short of spectacular. For those of you who haven't seen one of these before (and if you ever get the opportunity, take it), I'll try to explain. The whole thing consisted of two separate "acts" involving two different sets of performers; a guitarist, a singer, and three to four dancers, mostly women. One at a time, the dancers would each get up to perform a solo dance while the guitarist and singer did their thing and the other dancers clapped along in rhythm, occasionally throwing in a cry of "¡Olé!" for effect. Probably the coolest thing about this show – aside from the ridiculous rhythmic control each performer possessed (I've never seen anyone move their feet so gracefully while making that much noise) – was that you never really knew when or where the song or dance would start. Sometimes the guitarist would pluck out a few chords and the dancer would follow his rhythm. Other times the singer would choose a style that would, in turn, dictate the speed and type of dance would make sense. Sometimes the dancer would just tap out a rhythm and go to town. I got the feeling none of us knew where the song would start, but each of the performers were so in sync that they were completely on point the entire time. Truly amazing stuff.
There was a small bit of unintentional comedy, though, when a dancer who had to be at least 65 years old stepped up to perform. As had been the case all night, cameras were flashing from the moment she stood up. But while the other dancers had performed without seeming to notice that there were other people even in the room, this woman was giving an admittedly scary death glare to everyone in the room taking a picture. She literally shook her finger at some people and still a few of these continued snapping away. Needless to say when she sat down she looked very upset. It was a shame too; she really could move and had put on a great show. Oh well, leave it to the American tourists, I guess.
Thoroughly amazed by what we had seen, we moved to the second portion of this little side-trip which was a brief tour of the rest of the Gypsy quarter, including a sweet night-time vista of La Alhambra, which we would visit the following morning. We snapped our fair share of pictures and when we finally got on the bus everyone was still talking about how awesome the flamenco show had been. Meanwhile, my truce with Karinna ended (she'd charged her batteries while I was napping) and the battle began anew. I've spared her the embarrassment of posting most of the pictures I have, but I'm considering a separate album dedicated to her...lemme know what you think.
We arrived back at the hotel and prepared to go out. It turned out that one of Michael's best friends from home, a guy named Nick, was studying in Granada for the semester and had offered to show all of us around. Gotta love having a friend who's a local, I s'pose. Nick met us at the hotel and took us around to a series of bars that were all very distinct (and a few obviously touristy) but nonetheless very fun. We finally arrived at a quiet pub around 2, but I, still being a bit under the weather, offered to be the first escort to anyone who wanted to go home early. Sarah and Karinna, being exhausted themselves, happily obliged and we said our goodbyes to the rest of the group. On our way home, I made what was perhaps the best decision I had in a while; I finally caved and got a Doner Kebab. For those of you who have never been drunk and hungry in Europe, this is the European version of Taco Bell at 3 a.m. on Friday. A kebab is basically just lamb meat in a pita with some sauce and toppings, but that night it was so much more than that. Thoroughly satisfied, the girls and I headed back to the hotel and hit the hay.
The next morning, I awoke happy to find that I felt much better. I guess alcohol really DOES have medicinal qualities...
Anyway, we all gathered in the lobby and waited for the bus to come pick us up for what would be the coup d' gras of the weekend: a tour of La Alhambra. This gigantic combination of fortresses and gardens was built by the Moors in the 14th Century and is allegedly the most visited tourist site in all of Spain. Pretty cool stuff, no? Needless to say I was pretty excited (read: my camera trigger finger was itchin'). That excitement did take a blow, however, when we found out that this, too, would be a guided tour. To quote my dear friend Jacques, le sigh.
Despite the unfavorable weather, the garden portion of the tour was pretty darn cool. We got some great views of Granada (La Alhambra is built on a bit of a hill) and got to walk through a labyrinth-ish courtyard full of hedges, bushes, and really cool little fountains. And yes, for those of you wondering, I did go camera crazy here.
After the gardens, we made our way inside to the fortress itself, which consists of a huge network of stone buildings that served any number of purposes when first the Moors and then the Christians inhabited Granada. We got to see some really ridiculous stuff, including a massive reception chamber, the walls of which were covered with the history of the Moorish occupation of Granada etched in Arabic. Unfortunately, our journey around the inside of La Alhambra was also where the guide element of the tour took a turn for the worse. It wouldn't have been so bad if the woman we had didn't feel the need to make us stop for inordinately long breaks (45 minutes in one spot!?) while she told us every minute detail about whatever room we happened to be in. But I'm bitching, and no one wants to hear that, right?
The rest of the tour passed without incident, and it began to drizzle just as we boarded the bus back to the hotel. Yay impeccable timing. On the ride back, a bunch of us hatched a bit of a plan that included *gasp* a Mexican restaurant not far from our hotel and *second gasp* exploring the Arabic neighborhood of Granada. It's a bit sad, I know, but I was most excited for the burrito at the front end of the trip (and yes, it was good). Still, the rest of the plan was pretty fun too. I'll admit it might've been more fun if we hadn't confused the Arabic neighborhood with the Gypsy neighborhood we'd been in the previous night, but that's just me. We DID run into a curious collection of people on this misguided journey, including a group of ten guys celebrating a bachelor party who were all...well...let's just say that if it was 6 p.m. at this point, I wouldn't want any of them driving a car until at least 11. The following morning. Yeah, it was like that.
When we finally did find the Arabic neighborhood, we tried getting into any of the dozen teahouse/hookah bars that lined the narrow streets, finally finding a spot after entering and leaving about four. I was very close to trying hookah for the first time, but some combination of the smoke, the dim lighting, and a day of walking around combined to suddenly make me very tired, so I headed back to the hotel where I (you guessed it) took a nice long nap.
I woke up to Michael changing clothes to go out. His plan was to break away from the group and go to Granada's botellon with his friend Nick. This sounded pretty good to me, so I asked to join them and, after much deliberation, they decided I was worthy. Since it was too early to get to the botellon just yet, we stopped first at a local pub and grabbed a pint to warm ourselves up. After that, we set out to find our 40s, an important ingredient for any successful Spanish botellon. At this point we ran into a rather odd situation in which we entered a convenience store, paid for and received our 40s, and then, before we could walk out, were told to give them back because "Cops hang out here all the time and we're not supposed to sell alcohol past 10." Understandable, but still a bit annoying. Luckily Nick knew of a few other places with a little less respect for the law, so we finally got to the botellon park, 40s in hand, around 11:30.
Nick's friends finally arrived around 1, after we'd all but finished our 40s. Luckily, they brought beer that they offered us, so we were once again happy. Michael and I also had a nice small-world moment in which we met a girl (whose name escapes me at the moment...I wanna say Anna?) who had gone to high school with Matt Callanan, a friend of ours from the Glee Club. That made for a good half hour of small talk, let me tell ya. Nick's friends continued to filter in slowly until about 2:30, at which point Michael and I had one of those moments where you turn to your buddy and you both have that "I kinda wanna go home" look on your faces. Thankfully, Nick offered to walk us back (we'd have been completely lost otherwise). Of course, we made our now obligatory stop-off at a kebab place and then got to our hotel where we said our good-byes to Nick. Let's just say it was a good thing check-out wasn't until 11 the following morning...
When I finally did wake up, I realized that I still had yet to buy my shot glass for Granada (I'd snuck away from our tour of the Judería to get one in Córdoba), not to mention a flag of Andalucía. Since there would definitely be shopping in the general area of the cathedral, I figured I may as well kill the hour and a half before lunch and catch a mid-day mass while doing the American tourist shopping thing. We got to the cathedral just in time for what we thought was the noon mass...turned out it wasn't until 12:30. I took advantage by exploring a pretty cool market (with a sweet system of tarps sheltering the street from the rain) and finding my shot glass and flag, as well as snapping a few cool pictures, including this one. Yes, that's Sarah's eye in the corner, and no, it wasn't intentional. Still turned out pretty cool though, I think.
Mass was...well...mass. Still don't know exactly what they're saying, but whaddya gonna do? After a nice lunch at the hotel, we boarded the bus for our six-hour journey home. Lots of sleep and a Spanish-dubbed version of Top Gun (yeah, that was interesting) later, we arrived back in Toledo just in time for me to start my second paper of the weekend, this one on a fantastic piece of literature called Bodas de Sangre, a play by Federico Garcia Lorca. Alright, I admit I read it in English, but damn it, I was tired. I finished the paper about 3 a.m. and went to sleep in preparation for what would be one of the best weeks I've had here so far.
But that, dear friends, is a story for another time (hopefully tomorrow afternoon). For now, I've got dinner waiting and my stomach has been rumbling since before I started writing this thing. Hope you've enjoyed part one of Operation Catch-Up. I'll be back for round two before the weekend is out.
Ciao,
Griff
I've been there! I've been there!
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy to see pictures from someone else though. I know that doesn't make sense, but it makes me happy that you're seeing some awesome places! Hope the semester is going well :)