Road Trip Day 1: Córdoba

September 13th

I slept over at my piso and got up early to meet up with the other Erasmus students to rent our cars from the hotel down the street.  We rented a small Fiat and a slightly larger Volkswagon.  There were 10 of us total, 6 germans, 1 Italian, 1 Spaniard, 1 Austrian, and me.  We had decided to equally split the cost of the cars, gas, and shared food.

Speeding along the olive grove lined freeway, I spoke in Spanish with Antonio and another German student.  The ride was only about an hour and a half as we made it to Córdoba by 11:00am.  We decided to go to the center and then famous mosque.

Córdoba is a beautiful, small, quaint city.  I thought certain parts were more beautiful than Granada although I think living there for the whole year would be difficult as it felt isolated and limited in regards to the social life and new events.

The centro was nice, but the courtyard of the mosque was amazing.  We paid 8 euros to enter and once inside, the admission was well worth the price.

Looking just like the pictures I remembered from my Spanish and History textbooks, the interior of the mosque was sublime as hundreds of red and white, double-stacked arches on columns supported the lofted ceilings.  It was so beautiful and big that it was difficult to absorb the entire picture.  The building had initially started as a cathedral, then became a mosque, and then another cathedral as the power shifted between Christian and Muslim.  Today the building is a mosque/cathedral as there are additional Baroque editions at the far ends of the halls. 

Outside, I met my friend from highschool, Jolene Tanner, who I had not seen or really talked to in 4 years.  On facebook I had seen that she was studying abroad in Córdoba for the semester and had sent her a last minute message seeing if she would be free to meet up.  It was really fun meeting up with her in Spain and she joined our group for lunch and our tour of the city.

We went to the Jewish Quarter and turned the synagogue (one of three left in Spain).  It was much smaller than the mosque but with beautiful architecture.  Outside on the wall there was a sign from the Spanish government apologizing for the Inquisition and celebrating the "Jewish genius."  ¡Viva España!

Wandering through the narrow cobble streets of the Jewish Quarter, we made our way to the Museum of Bellas Artes.  I was supposed to pay admission as I was a non-EU citizen, but I avoided the "American tax" as I blended in with the German students in our group.

Rather than spend the night in Córdoba, we decided to drive back to Granada to sleep at our own piso and decide what we were going to do over dinner.  We made our own tapas back at our apartment.  After a few calls to his parents and friends, Antonio told us that we were all invited to his vacation home in La Alpujarra, a mountainous region south of Granada.  Tomorrow we would go to his home and then the beach in Almería.