We woke up that morning in Cordoba and had a nice little breakfast of a HUGE roll and jam, with juice and hot ch
ocolate, then a bunch of people decided to go to the Alcazar that was there, because of Fridays it’s free, so we headed over to check that out! This is one of the many places that Columbus when to present his ideas to Ferdinand and Isabella so that he could go to America. You walk into the building first, past some kind of intimidating security guards, and walk into a hall, that was alright, just kinda white with displays of random things. But upon more wandering through the halls, we found stairs that took us to the top of the wall that surrounded the Alcazar. That was really cool, you could see a lot of Cordoba, not quite as grand as the tower in Seville, but it was still nice! There was another set of stairs at one end of the wall that lead to a watch tower with an even better view. That is if you want to put your life of the line and walk up those stairs! They were the spiral kinds of stairs and each step was really skinny with barely enough room to put one foot. I am glad to report that I am the brave, risk taking kind of girl and scaled the stairs, even tho it was pretty intense, but it wasn’t as grand of a view as I had hopped. But hey, it was a view all the same! What I really liked about this place was the gardens. When we got down the stairs of death and back through the bland halls, you walk out into the gardens and its like a whole new world! And these gardens were even better than the ones in Seville! You walk out onto a big patio with a little built in pond, with a trickle of water flowing down the wall to the side and into the pond, that is surrounded by moss (the kind that looks good) and flowers. Then when you reach the end of that patio, just below it is another one, that is even more beautiful, and then after that, just slightly lower is a longer pool, surrounded by trees and flowers with little streams of water shooting out of the sides of the pond and crossing in the middle, if that even makes sense. Then on the one side of that, there is a small patch of trees with a path running through them, and on the other side of the long pond is yet another amazing garden! So some people took fake engagement pictures, and the rest of us just took regular pictures and enjoyed the scenery. 
When we were done with that, we went to a street in Cordoba that is famous. It’s called Calle de los Flores, and on the walls there are flower pots and its gorgeous, and when you walk down the street and get to the little patio area at the end, you are able to take a picture of this gorgeous street, with the tower of the Mezquita in the background, its gorgeous! So we took pictures there, sat by the fountain and ate a pastry, then went back to the hotel to check out and get back on the bus to go to Granada.
It was another pretty long drive to get there, so we all read our books and talked to people till we arrived. The thing in Granada that is big is the Alhambra. And luckily enough, our hotel was right across the street from this place! So the bus pulled into the bus parking and we unloaded and walked right into our hotel and after checking in, we had about 45 minutes until we had our appointment for the Alhambra. So a few of us thought that we had time to go and grab some lunch at a little restaurant down the street, which turned out to be a stupid idea. Spanish service is not quite as prompt and caring as they are in the states (probably because they just add the tip into the check everywhere you go), so after waiting for a while they finally sat us, and then left. We all already knew what we wanted, so when they brought us the menus and we tried to tell them that we were ready, they just kinda looked at us and then walked away. It then took us a good 15 or so minutes to get someone to come over and talk to us, and after telling them that we were in a slight hurry (because we now only had 20 minutes) we ordered sandwiches (bocadillo de patata España, I’ll explain what it is another time, but its amazing!) and a couple soups, and then didn’t see the waiter again. So we waited, and waited, and kept trying to flag people down to check and see what’s going on, and with about 5 minutes until we were supposed to be meeting to leave, they brought the soup out to two of the girls, then a couple minutes later they brought out the rest of our sandwiches, and luckily the check. So we threw some money on the table, some of the girls were able to finish their sandwiches, but I decided that I wanted to save half of mine, so while everyone else was running out the door, me and Cassi were sitting there, me wrapping my sandwich in napkins to save for later and Cassi trying to finish her soup, when Prof. Shumway shows up in the restaurant, tells us that we are late, gives us our tickets and runs out of the restaurant. The logical thing was obviously to run after him, so I put my sandwich remains in the water bottle p
ocket of my new bag, and we ran out the door behind our professor and power walked down this long hill because inconveniently the main entrance was closed. Well we got there in time, with time to spare actually, and while we were sitting there doing nothing, I was really wondering what the reasoning behind the power walk was.
Anyways… the Alhambra was the home of many kings and such people, and was actually the last strong hold that the Moors had in Spain before the Christians took over. When we entered, we went into an elaborate room where they held meetings and then through some rooms or queens, coming across a little pool every now and then. There was this one patio area where there was supposed to be a statute of 12 lions in a circle, and when the Moors had control, a lion would spit water out of its mouth every hour, so if it was 1 o’clock, the lion in the 1 o’clock position would spit water and the 2 o’clock lion would spit water at 2 and so on, but when the Christians came they took it apart to see how it worked and never were able to make it work again after that. But this too was under construction, so there was a big opening in the middle of the plaza with a nice picture of what should have been there but wasn’t really. We then walked over to where they would keep the prisoners and saw the dungeons (there was just a couple feet of the walls remaining, but you got the idea), walked up on the wall and into watch towers, and this was probably my favorite part of the whole tour! The view was amazing from anywhere that you stood! You could see the Cathedral from one side, gardens from another, the rest of the castle from another, and then a breathtaking view of the city from another! It was so cool to be there and see! There were more gardens to see after that, and while they were not quite as grand to me as the ones in Cordoba, they were still fabulous! Half of them were actually around the Alhambra itself, and then the other half, you had to walk along this nice path for like 10 minutes to get to. One cool thing about these gardens, tho, is they had water running everywhere in them, whether it was from a fountain or a little stream, there was even this place where the rails by some stairs were made out of rock and had crevices carved into the top of them with water running down those too! But when we reached the top of those stairs, I guess it was time for them to close, because the guards started herding people towards the exits not even letting us stop for 2 seconds to take a picture.
So when they closed the gates right behind us, we headed back to the hotel for the nigh
t. Katelyn went to town and actually ended up buying a guitar (no, she doesn’t play… yet. Haha!) which was the entertainment for the rest of the night! Brock, a guy in our group, used to be in some rock band in high school where he played the guitar and was the lead singer, so we sat in someone’s hotel room and sang songs while he played the guitar. It was then that just about everyone in the group found out that I can sing. Haha. Brock started playing a song by Keith Whitley that nobody else know, and so I harmonized with him (very not like me, I know!) and we got quite the applause after it! Haha! It was fun! We ended the night with a song and dance to “Breakfast at Tiffanys” and then went to bed! And yes, it was another amazing day!
ocolate, then a bunch of people decided to go to the Alcazar that was there, because of Fridays it’s free, so we headed over to check that out! This is one of the many places that Columbus when to present his ideas to Ferdinand and Isabella so that he could go to America. You walk into the building first, past some kind of intimidating security guards, and walk into a hall, that was alright, just kinda white with displays of random things. But upon more wandering through the halls, we found stairs that took us to the top of the wall that surrounded the Alcazar. That was really cool, you could see a lot of Cordoba, not quite as grand as the tower in Seville, but it was still nice! There was another set of stairs at one end of the wall that lead to a watch tower with an even better view. That is if you want to put your life of the line and walk up those stairs! They were the spiral kinds of stairs and each step was really skinny with barely enough room to put one foot. I am glad to report that I am the brave, risk taking kind of girl and scaled the stairs, even tho it was pretty intense, but it wasn’t as grand of a view as I had hopped. But hey, it was a view all the same! What I really liked about this place was the gardens. When we got down the stairs of death and back through the bland halls, you walk out into the gardens and its like a whole new world! And these gardens were even better than the ones in Seville! You walk out onto a big patio with a little built in pond, with a trickle of water flowing down the wall to the side and into the pond, that is surrounded by moss (the kind that looks good) and flowers. Then when you reach the end of that patio, just below it is another one, that is even more beautiful, and then after that, just slightly lower is a longer pool, surrounded by trees and flowers with little streams of water shooting out of the sides of the pond and crossing in the middle, if that even makes sense. Then on the one side of that, there is a small patch of trees with a path running through them, and on the other side of the long pond is yet another amazing garden! So some people took fake engagement pictures, and the rest of us just took regular pictures and enjoyed the scenery. 
When we were done with that, we went to a street in Cordoba that is famous. It’s called Calle de los Flores, and on the walls there are flower pots and its gorgeous, and when you walk down the street and get to the little patio area at the end, you are able to take a picture of this gorgeous street, with the tower of the Mezquita in the background, its gorgeous! So we took pictures there, sat by the fountain and ate a pastry, then went back to the hotel to check out and get back on the bus to go to Granada.
It was another pretty long drive to get there, so we all read our books and talked to people till we arrived. The thing in Granada that is big is the Alhambra. And luckily enough, our hotel was right across the street from this place! So the bus pulled into the bus parking and we unloaded and walked right into our hotel and after checking in, we had about 45 minutes until we had our appointment for the Alhambra. So a few of us thought that we had time to go and grab some lunch at a little restaurant down the street, which turned out to be a stupid idea. Spanish service is not quite as prompt and caring as they are in the states (probably because they just add the tip into the check everywhere you go), so after waiting for a while they finally sat us, and then left. We all already knew what we wanted, so when they brought us the menus and we tried to tell them that we were ready, they just kinda looked at us and then walked away. It then took us a good 15 or so minutes to get someone to come over and talk to us, and after telling them that we were in a slight hurry (because we now only had 20 minutes) we ordered sandwiches (bocadillo de patata España, I’ll explain what it is another time, but its amazing!) and a couple soups, and then didn’t see the waiter again. So we waited, and waited, and kept trying to flag people down to check and see what’s going on, and with about 5 minutes until we were supposed to be meeting to leave, they brought the soup out to two of the girls, then a couple minutes later they brought out the rest of our sandwiches, and luckily the check. So we threw some money on the table, some of the girls were able to finish their sandwiches, but I decided that I wanted to save half of mine, so while everyone else was running out the door, me and Cassi were sitting there, me wrapping my sandwich in napkins to save for later and Cassi trying to finish her soup, when Prof. Shumway shows up in the restaurant, tells us that we are late, gives us our tickets and runs out of the restaurant. The logical thing was obviously to run after him, so I put my sandwich remains in the water bottle p
ocket of my new bag, and we ran out the door behind our professor and power walked down this long hill because inconveniently the main entrance was closed. Well we got there in time, with time to spare actually, and while we were sitting there doing nothing, I was really wondering what the reasoning behind the power walk was.Anyways… the Alhambra was the home of many kings and such people, and was actually the last strong hold that the Moors had in Spain before the Christians took over. When we entered, we went into an elaborate room where they held meetings and then through some rooms or queens, coming across a little pool every now and then. There was this one patio area where there was supposed to be a statute of 12 lions in a circle, and when the Moors had control, a lion would spit water out of its mouth every hour, so if it was 1 o’clock, the lion in the 1 o’clock position would spit water and the 2 o’clock lion would spit water at 2 and so on, but when the Christians came they took it apart to see how it worked and never were able to make it work again after that. But this too was under construction, so there was a big opening in the middle of the plaza with a nice picture of what should have been there but wasn’t really. We then walked over to where they would keep the prisoners and saw the dungeons (there was just a couple feet of the walls remaining, but you got the idea), walked up on the wall and into watch towers, and this was probably my favorite part of the whole tour! The view was amazing from anywhere that you stood! You could see the Cathedral from one side, gardens from another, the rest of the castle from another, and then a breathtaking view of the city from another! It was so cool to be there and see! There were more gardens to see after that, and while they were not quite as grand to me as the ones in Cordoba, they were still fabulous! Half of them were actually around the Alhambra itself, and then the other half, you had to walk along this nice path for like 10 minutes to get to. One cool thing about these gardens, tho, is they had water running everywhere in them, whether it was from a fountain or a little stream, there was even this place where the rails by some stairs were made out of rock and had crevices carved into the top of them with water running down those too! But when we reached the top of those stairs, I guess it was time for them to close, because the guards started herding people towards the exits not even letting us stop for 2 seconds to take a picture.
So when they closed the gates right behind us, we headed back to the hotel for the nigh
t. Katelyn went to town and actually ended up buying a guitar (no, she doesn’t play… yet. Haha!) which was the entertainment for the rest of the night! Brock, a guy in our group, used to be in some rock band in high school where he played the guitar and was the lead singer, so we sat in someone’s hotel room and sang songs while he played the guitar. It was then that just about everyone in the group found out that I can sing. Haha. Brock started playing a song by Keith Whitley that nobody else know, and so I harmonized with him (very not like me, I know!) and we got quite the applause after it! Haha! It was fun! We ended the night with a song and dance to “Breakfast at Tiffanys” and then went to bed! And yes, it was another amazing day!
1 comment:
Yay for you for singing in front of people!!! I'm so proud of you!! And I'm so glad you're having so much fun with all these people. What fantastic memories. :o)
Post a Comment