Souther Spain Part 2: Cordoba

As we pulled into Cordoba the sun was shining, which we were happy about after the rain in Granada. The bus dropped us off several blocs away from our hotel so we grabbed our luggage and started making our way over. Less than five minutes later the sun vanished and the clouds released what seemed to be an entire ocean on us. By the time we got to the hotel five minutes later, we were rather wet as Lauren and Kiley are demonstrating in this picture:

The rain of course did not stop us. We dumped our stuff off at the hotel and headed out to see the cathedral. What's interesting about Cordoba's cathedral is that it used to be a beautiful mosque and then the Catholics came and built a cathedral right in the middle of it. Charles V said when he saw it "you have destroyed something unique to build something commonplace." I must say that I agree with him. The central cathedral part is beautiful, but nothing compared to the parts of the mosque that remain on the sides. These arches (which I called the 'candy cane arches' in order to remember them on the AP art history exam) are part of the old mosque:

Tim, Mark, Lara, and I in the mosque:


After the cathedral we went to check out an old Roman bridge. It was beautiful, even in the rain.

Tim and I on the bridge:

Our director told us that we needed to find this statue and rub his foot because because it would bring good luck.

Then we went to find a bull fighting museum; however, when we found it we discovered that it must have been closed for several years. Here it is:

After the disappointing museum Mark, Tim, Lara, Kim, and I went in search of chocolate croissants and Doner Kebabs. We found the kebabs, but not the croissants. For some reason, Cordoba seems to be the only city that does not have a pastry shop on every corner. Regardless, it was fun just walking through the city.

After dinner, we were all at the hotel and some of us decided to go out and find a pub. On our way we heard music coming from a bar, so we went in to check it out. We stayed there for about an hour, drinking our cokes and fantas while we listened to a group of Spaniards singing and playing the guitar. When we left, it had started raining, but none of us had umbrellas because it wasn't raining earlier. We ran home in the rain and got rather wet.

Then we decided why not embrace the rain and go for a walk. Kiley, Lauren, Kimball, Ben, and I headed back out and walked to the Roman bridge. We were soaked, but had a good time because we were walking through the streets of Spain in the rain after midnight.