On Wednesday our group left for Andalucia – yes we missed two days of classes because travelling is a priority here. (Every time I talk to my parents, they’re kind enough to ask how my classes are going. Hopefully they’ve caught on by now that classes are the smallest portion of how I have been spending my time here in Spain.) We all packed onto a bus and headed to southern Spain.
Our first stop was Consuegra. We parked at the top of these hills which had the windmills Cervantes used in his tale of Don Quijote – when he attacks the windmills believing they are monsters. The view was amazing and we spent 30 minutes shooting and getting pictures. We then headed to our second stop – Cordoba. As we kept traveling further south, the weather got warmer and warmer. As soon as I saw palm trees, I knew I loved everything about southern Spain. That’s pretty much the same for anywhere I travel: if there are palm trees and it’s decently warm, I’m happy. Anyway there is this beautiful river that runs through Cordoba that we went over to get to the cathedral. La Mezquita Catedral was originally constructed by the Moorish and you could see the Arab design of the building. There were hundreds of these double arches with red and white painting on it. Here the 7,000 Muslims would come to pray. They would all lay on the ground with there heads down praying in unison. Our director, Cynthia, told us to imagine that many people in the building and the echo it would create – the image painted in our minds was astounding. The most interesting part about this was that when the Europeans gained back Cordoba they constructed a Catholic cathedral in the center of the building with an altar. So, the mix of the two uses of the building was interesting. We also went to these gardens outside the building in which Isabel and Columbus supposedly discussed his plans to sail to the Americas. It was a beautiful day and the gardens had ponds with fish, palm trees (of course), and tons of orange trees. A couple people picked oranges, peeled and tasted them, but soon discovered that they were not ripe oranges. We wandered around for a bit through the narrow, windy side roads. We got our gelato too and went into the stores that sold lots of little trinkets. After a few hours in Cordoba, we headed to our final destination for the next two nights – Sevilla.
Seville is my favorite city we’ve stayed in so far. It might be because we had the most time there, but I also really enjoyed the layout of the city. It was divided by this beautiful river with bridges to get back and forth. There were several restaurants lined along the sides of the river. It was a busy city but not overwhelming. Once we all checked into the hotel we dropped our things off and went to find a place to eat with everyone. We decided to keep things fairly cheap and went to get kebabs. We walked around for a while, but we were incredibly tired from the travelling that day and a group of us gathered in one of the hotel rooms to share American milanos and chit chat.
We woke up early and headed on a tour of the city – obviously of the cathedral and/or castle/palace that’s in every European city. Seville has the “world’s largest Gothic cathedral” which was actually huge on the inside – an architectural masterpiece. We were able to climb up the bell tower (which was ramps on the way up, not stair thank goodness!) We also went to the palace in Seville, El Alcazar, that was entirely inspired by Moorish design – Arabic writings and bright colors. The gardens in the palace were beautiful too that had a pipe pouring water from the roof of the palace into a pond. And there were palm trees, of course. After our tour it was such a beautiful day outside that we just wanted to find an outdoor place to eat and sit in the sun. We walked through the tiny side streets to find some gelato and sat at one the monuments by the cathedral and layed down at the stairs. I fell asleep for a while. As we were talking, we all started to realize how incredible this trip really was: we have seen all these monumental cathedrals, palaces etc and are able to travel to some of the most beautiful cities in Europe. We frequently talk about how grateful we are to be here this semester and enjoying all these experiences together.
After heading back to the hotel, I wanted to do something a little more active so I went with another group of students to rent bikes! This was a hard decision because we needed to “subscribe” for 7 days and the initial fee was 10 euros. I weighed it out in my mind and it didn’t take very long: was it worth 10 euros to ride a bike for an hour and a half along the river of Sevilla? Yes, absolutely. We got all the bikes right when the sun was setting and it was basically a dream come true – incredibly surreal. For anyone that knows me will know that I’m not incredibly comfortable on bikes especially in stressful situations – among traffic, lots of people etc. But everything worked out because there were designated bike paths on all the sidewalks that really helped me out.
Sevilla is also known for its fish. So, Thursday night we went to a casual restaurant along the river and ordered batter-fried grouper, cod etc. It was quite a romantic evening to share with 4 other girls. The best part was the stray black kitten that wouldn’t leave from underneath our table, or maybe the 2 euros Lexi was charged for ketchup. We wandered of course afterward trying to find the Plaza de Espana that is supposedly beautiful and covered in the tiles Sevilla is infamous for – every souvenir store has the most beautifully decorated, colorful tiles that I want to buy for my kitchen some day! Anyway, we walked around for 30 minutes and we were being pointed in all opposite directions, so we decided to head back to the hotel. I would say it was our first unsuccessful wandering experience, but I was tired enough that it didn’t bother me.
I woke up the next morning with Jenny and Brooke at 5:45am to go running. It was obviously still dark out and not cold at all. We didn’t think about it before but as soon as we left the hotel we realized we were going to run into all of the partiers who were still out and just turning around to head home. Boy, did we underestimate! It was almost scary because we were called after, yelled at, cheered on, sang to and even chased after! It was really, really funny and probably paid off because we certainly picked up the pace and laughed a lot. I ended up keeping up with the track stars (I was quite impressed with myself since I hate running) and we ran four miles in the early morning throughout Sevilla! It was a memorable experience. We quickly showered and packed up to head to Granada with the group.
We were barely in Granada for 24 hours so it’s hard to say we saw a lot but we did go to the famous Alhambra! Alhambra is the city where the imam lived during the Moorish rule – a city within a city basically. In Alhambra, there was a magnificent palace and gardens. All of the walls in the palace were intricately sculpted and decorated with Arabic writings and the beautiful tiles southern Spain has everywhere. After our three-hour tour of Alhambra, we walked around the main streets in Granada because there was lots of shopping. Everyone’s favorite store was called Pull and Bear, which had cute things at fair prices. I bought a shirt that says “Jump, Shout and Feel Free”: possibly the newest motto for my life. There was also an “Arab market” which had lots of random, cheap things and I was able to get a couple souvenirs and bags of herbal tea! For dinner, we walked in and out of the windy side roads again and found a tiny little restaurant tucked in the corner of this small plaza. We all got pizzas that were really enjoyable and tasted like they were made with mozerella cheese. We headed straight back to the hotel because it gets much colder in Granada at night than Sevilla because you’re higher up and closer to the mountains. There are even places to ski really close to Granada.
We woke up early again on Saturday to go running through Granada and ran down to this aquaduct-river-type-thing to see if we could watch the sunrise. We realized that the purpose of the canal-thing was for when all the snow on the top of the mountains melts. We had to be back at the hotel at a certain time so we didn’t have enough time to watch the sunrise but it was fun enough to see Granada in the early morning. Once we checked out of the rooms, we had time to either go to the Cathedral, which housed the tomb of Queen Isabel or go to the spice market again. We headed to the market to look for more gifts for our families and friends.
Saturday morning was the same morning I found out I didn’t get the internship I was hoping for this summer. I was really bummed because I had felt so confident in how I did with the interviews and I had gotten such a positive response back from the company. When I told my friends in the program, they were really comforting and helped joke around for me to get my mind off of it. I’ve really grown to love the girls I’ve met on the trip and their wonderful personalities. I’ve learned so much from them and have been able to work on my characteristics that I think need improvement. Spending time with these girls, we can always laugh and have a good time. Although I didn’t get the internship, they quickly helped me see life goes on and that this might be for the better. It was hard to not think about it on the long bus ride back to Alcala. We drove through this area literally filled with olive trees. As far as you could see into the distance were olive trees – it was incredibly overwhelming and after a solid 30 minutes of driving through it, very boring. I thought about how much I really dislike the taste of olives and have always pushed them off my plate before this trip. Now being in Spain, olives are one of the main tapas dishes and I’ve tried a few here and there at the various places we’ve been. Slowly, I see myself getting more acquainted with the sour taste. As I thought about my literal tastes changing I thought about how this trip has helped me to mature, easy-going and become more of an individual. I swear if I had been back in Provo and found out about the internship, I probably would have stayed in my room for the rest of the weekend. But life goes on, and I will have to make do with what I am given and try to make the best out of that. When life gives you olives, try one and maybe it won’t taste as bad as you think.
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