Cordoba and more!

Well! The last few days have been very busy and full of exciting new things! Every day I see, hear, taste, smell, or do something I’ve never done before. I am learning so much about the culture here and in turn I am learning about my own culture as well. It’s hard to explain my thoughts exactly… but you can just know that I’m growing in many ways and that this is definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

Anyways, we finished our first full week of school on Thursday. It felt great! Me, Kayla, and a few other girls from school went out to eat to celebrate. The restaurant we ended up going to was not exactly what we had hoped for, but it was still very fun. It was a rather upscale place with a menu full of who knows what? We ordered to the best of our ability, and then ended up with some strange Spanish dishes. The waiter kept bringing us free things and we didn’t exactly know what was going on… One thing he brought was fried shrimp in some sort of sauce, stuck in a glass of something that was creating a cloud of white smoke all around it. You can’t see the smoke in the picture, but it was so cool!

On Friday, we had an excursion with our program over to the city of Cordoba. We stopped to see ruins from an ancient Muslim city on the way, and then in the actual city we toured a mosque that had been turned into a Catholic cathedral. The architecture of the buildings was so intricate and beautiful! It is so amazing to think of how they managed to build those sorts of things before modern tools were available. In the pictures, you can see the Arabic architecture mixed in with the Catholic architecture. The Arabic part includes the horseshoe shaped arches that are red and white striped. The Catholic parts are mostly white and are on the right side in the picture. The weather in Cordoba was the best that it has been so far, so we enjoyed just sitting and soaking in the sun. 

On Saturday, it was great weather again so me and Kayla went for a run through a beautiful park. It felt like spring at home and made me miss running track. However, I got over it pretty quick because at home I can’t go running through orange trees and palm trees like I can here. In the afternoon, we went for our first “real” shopping trip. This meant that we went to the big department store called “El Corte Ingles” instead of just going to the little shops in our neighborhood. It was crazy busy! There were people everywhere and I felt like I was in the bustle of a big city… It was really fun, but definitely something I don’t want to do everyday.

Saturday night was fun because we went to our first salsa bar! Since I don’t exactly know how to salsa and since we didn’t have any chicos to dance with, we mostly just watched. It was a really cool atmosphere and some of the dancers were really good!

I am feeling more comfortable here all the time. My Spanish is improving very slowly, but the fact that I am starting to really know my way around the city makes it feel more “normal”. It feels good! I am starting to miss some things from home… some of which include coffee (they have it here but I have to buy it because my senora never makes it), the hot tub, Bernie, fleece blankets, unlimited peanut butter, and of course all of you people. J Please email me or comment to let me know how everything is going back in America!

One more thing… we are going to LONDON on Thursday! You can look forward to hearing about that trip and seeing pictures in a few days. For now, hasta luego!