¡Hola gente!, ¿cómo andamos? ¿Bien? Vale.
Sorry I haven't written in weeks. Again, it's been a combination of business (not business, busy-ness) and laziness. Keeping up with a blog is harder than it looks, especially when tapas and Netflix catch your attention. But here I am, sitting down, deciding whether to upload my pictures to Facebook first or write. And I felt like writing, since I hadn't in a long time. So first off, Sevilla y Córdoba.
On the 8th of this fine month we woke up early for our group excursion to Sevilla, one of the biggest cities in Andalucia (the southernmost autonomous community of Spain, for those of you who still don't know where I am :P ). Sadly, because it took forever for me to write about this, I don't remember exactly all the wonders of Sevilla. But one thing that was truly amazing was climbing up the 36 ramps in the tower of the cathedral and getting an amazing view of the city. Wanna see it? Here it is:
Sorry I haven't written in weeks. Again, it's been a combination of business (not business, busy-ness) and laziness. Keeping up with a blog is harder than it looks, especially when tapas and Netflix catch your attention. But here I am, sitting down, deciding whether to upload my pictures to Facebook first or write. And I felt like writing, since I hadn't in a long time. So first off, Sevilla y Córdoba.
On the 8th of this fine month we woke up early for our group excursion to Sevilla, one of the biggest cities in Andalucia (the southernmost autonomous community of Spain, for those of you who still don't know where I am :P ). Sadly, because it took forever for me to write about this, I don't remember exactly all the wonders of Sevilla. But one thing that was truly amazing was climbing up the 36 ramps in the tower of the cathedral and getting an amazing view of the city. Wanna see it? Here it is:
Seriously though, these pictures don't do it justice. Another beautiful view of a beautiful place in beautiful Spain. Also, besides churros & chocoláte y café bombón, I've found a new passion of mine: the organs of cathedrals. I'm obsessed with their dynamics and the structure, and the inner lower intermediate pianist in me just want's to play a bar or two of a classic song on any of these organs. Is that weird? No? Well okay, thanks for that reassurance guys :) Anyways, here's the organ, and I guess since I'm showing the organ I might as well show the cathedral:
La Plaza de españa
After we walked through the palace of the king and queen, we went back to the hotel because we had free time and honestly, all I wanted to do was nap, because my knees were hurting and we did a heck of a lot of walking. Then we met back up to gt dinner at a very awesome bar/restaurant. Then back to the hotel to do whatever we wanted. A few of us just chilled in one room and talked and had a bit of fun.
The next morning we went to Córdoba. Now Córdoba is a gorgeous city. As soon as we got off the bus, we had a beautiful view of the Judería, Mesquita, and the river Guadalquivir.
So we walked across this beautiful bridge to the city. We had about 15 minutes where people could go to the bathroom, get a little snack, or chill and stretch our legs for a bit. We then walked around Barrio Judios, the Jewish neighborhood, went inside an historic synagogue which was really cool and again, decorated intricately like the Alhambra.
Then we walked to where we were going to eat for lunch, but before that, we had free time. I didn't feel like walking around, so I stayed at the restaurant and had a coffee with Germán and chatted about my life and his college life. I like Germán, he is a really chill guy and super funny, he makes these silly jokes and is always interested in learning American jokes. Then it was time for lunch. And oh boy let me tell you guys right now, I almost fainted from the amount of lunch we had. Four people to a table, everyone had their own plate, and we had six different courses. The waiters would put one plate in the middle for all of us to share, but these six courses were enough to feed a small community. Like seriously. It was a LOT of food, and I could barely eat after plate number 4. I didn't even think to take pictures because I was just amazed at how much there was. If you look at my friend Sharina's blog, I'm sure she took pictures. (I'm tagged in many of her photos so you should see her album which has her blog link, she blogs every night, so you'll have to go back a few pages to find our trip.) Thank god we still had walking to do after that, cause I knew I would have gained like five pounds if we just sat afterwards. Our next stop before going home was the Mezquita, the mosque that was converted into a catholic church. I'll caption these next few pictures.
Underneath us were the ruins of the mosque. Christians built the church over the main parts of the mosque. Interesting right?
Fast forward two or some weekends. We had a biking activity where we biked through this area of Granada called La Ruta de Colestrol, which is called that because apparently a lot of doctors tell their patients with cholesterol problems to walk. Biking was absolutely amazing and so much fun, I didn't fall even though I hadn't ridden a bike in like eight or nine years. I would like to try it again, or at least do it when I go back to Texas. Though the seat really made my butt sore -.- Haha. Next excursion: Alpujarras. Now let me give a little background to what the Alpujarras are. The Alpujarras are pueblos located deep within the Sierra Nevadas, they are a big tourist attraction, and in addition, vacation spots for those that live in Granada and wanna get away for a bit. The main attrations are three pueblos that people hike through, they either start at the top pueblo and go down, or start at the bottom pueblo and go up. And not through the main roads, through little trails along the mountainside created by the people who walked or rode mules through. The pueblos we went to, in order, were Capileira, Bubión, and Pampileira. Every little pueblo had narrow and steep winding cobblestone streets and sidewalks.