Home from our first weekend excursion to both Granada and Cordoba, Spain!

Friday morning, our group of ISU studnets hopped on the bus for our 8 hour trip to Granada. Thankfully our bus wasnt completely full, so we were able to spread out and relax on our trip to Granada. We pulled into town around 3:30 and were dropped off at our hotel for the night. We stayed at a really nice hotel in the center of town, close to one of the main cathedrals in town. After getting all settled into our rooms, we made our way to the catholic cathedral in town. Out of all of the cathedrals I have seen throughout spain, this was definitely one of my favorites. The pillars of this place were absolutely enormous. Details that you cannot imagine,and architecture well beyond its years. It always amazes me how much they could do/build with such little technology. The cathedral took 130 years to complete, and is one of the more visited spots in Granada.

After the cathedral, we had a little bit of free time before dinner. Ginny, Sean, Andrew and I walked around town and landed at a dessert shop. Both Ginny and I have developed quite the sweet tooth since we have arrived in Spain, so we each got a different assortment of cakes and chocolates. After our snack, we walked back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. We met as a group and walked over to a buffet in town. Buffets are always a great idea when you are trying to please 30 people. The place was great, and we ended up staying there until 11:30. They had happy hour all you can drink beer until 11 and lots of good fresh food on the salad bar, so we were set for the time spent there.

Once we were completely stuffed, we decided to go out for a night in Granada. We tried finding a place with some live music, but ran out of luck. We happened upon a bar called Babylon and decided to get the group to stay there for the night. Since it is Carnaval time in Spain, they handed out fun feather masks when you entered the bar. A fun twist to the evening. We spent most of the night dancing and meeting other americans that happened to be at the same bar. We called it a night at around 2 so we could get some sleep for the next day.

Saturday morning we were scheduled to visit the Alhambra in Granada. Our group took the bus to the top of the mountain overlooking granada at around 11 and spent the rest of the day touring the Alhambra. The Alhambra is one of the most visited muslim fortresses in Spain. It is well known for its beautiful gardens, reflective pools, and amazing view of the city. I had the chance to visit this place when I came to spain a few years ago, but it was amazing the see it once again. The details of the temple are breathtaking and the continuous water running through the temple reminds you of its islamic roots.

After spending a good 4-5 hours walking around, we went into town to grab a bite to eat. We found a really neat Turkish place with great kabobs and sat down in the town plaza to eat. We ran into one of professors that had been showing us around the alhambra and invited him to eat with us. Julio, one of my art professors, acted as a tour guide for the whole weekend and was a huge help in describing all of the art and architecture in all the places we visited. Our meal was amazing, and we topped it off with some icecream at a near by shop. We left shortly after that and headed for Cordoba.

Upon arriving in Cordoba, we quickly settled into our new rooms and got ready for dinner. The place we stayed at in Cordoba was really nice. The rooms were more of an apartment style so we had plenty of room to hang out in each others rooms. We went to dinner as a group and enjoyed an assortment of different spanish tapas. It was nice to just relax and enjoy some good cultural food. We spent the rest of the night hanging out in Maren and Melissa's room. It was a lot of fun with all of rooms since we had windows that all faced each other as well as terraces to hang out on.

The next morning we took the bus out to an old city that had been forgotten about after its destrctuction hundreds of years ago. The town of Madinat al-Zahara, also known as the white city, was destyored by the Muslims when they came to the Cordoba area. Apparently one of the radical groups of Muslims did not like how the city was all white, which is more of a sign of showmanship, so they destroyed it. The ruins became overgrown and covered by the mountain over time, and up until 1911 had not been rediscovered. Since then, the town has under gone a renovation. They have been able to maintain a good portion of the ruins and have learned a lot about the cities past. No one knows where all of the cities habitants ended up, many are rumored to have gone to Cordoba or near by cities, as well as others who died during the attack. The ruins were really interesting to learn about and our professor was great about explaining all of it.

After the ruin site, we went into town to grab lunch and visit the Mezquita (the Cathedral of Cordoba). We found a little side shop of sandwhiches and grabbed some food to take to one of the open plazas. We sat down and enjoyed the wonderful weather that we had all weekend. We were lucky enough to have sunshine and clear skies for the whole weekend. Temperatures in the 70's and a nice breeze. After we lunch, we got together as a group to visit the cathedral. This is one of the most famous sites in both Cordoba and Spain. This once Muslim Mosque, is now a catholic cathedral. When the Muslims invaded Cordoba they began the demolition of the martyr church of St Vincente and in 785 began building the Mosque, a building that would come to be considered the most important sanctuary of Western Islam. The mosque went through 4 more additions after its original bulding, but in 1236 all of that changed. King Ferdinand the third reconquered Cordoba in 1236 and it was his will that the entrance to the city be proceeded by the cross. This began the transformation of the mosque into a catholic cathedral. Although the mosque is still in tact, there is a huge catholic cathedral in the very center of it. This place is known for its cultural and religious impact on Cordoba. It was quite the site to see, and one of my favorite places of the whole trip.

We took off from town at around 5 and got back into Caceres at around 10:30 both excited to be home and exhausted from a long weekend.

Learning about the history of Spain has been really interesting, but also has given me an itch to learn more about our nations history. Although Spain's dates back way further than any of our history, I am starting to feel a little uneducated when it comes to our own history. I am hoping to be able to learn a lot while I am here and continue that urge to know more when I come home.

Classes were cancelled today due to Carnaval celebrations that are taking place all over in Spain; predominately in Badajoz. A group of students went and visited today and will be returning tomorrow. I decided to take the day to get some rest and prepare for the week/weekend ahead of me.

Barcelona is quickly approaching so we are in the midst of trying to book a hostel and find some cool places to make sure and see.

Looking forward to a quick week of classes and a weekend in Barcelona!