October 12, 2009

5:58 PM

Location: It’s always the same

So, even though it’s mid-October, the summer is over, and the weather should be cooling off, it’s maybe hotter here than it was the third week of our stay. It’s awkward because we wake up in the morning to frigidness (about 15-18 degrees Celsius, which equals about mid 50s F for all you non-Europeans), but after two hours of class we step outside to a broiling sun. The other day I went on a walking adventure wearing my black jacket (I wear it everyday, it’s kind of awkward), some jeans and some sandals. After about 15 steps I was sweating profusely and had to take off my jacket. Two hours later, after walking around the entire city doing errands and eventually hiking up the mountain to our dorm, my backpack and jeans were damp. Yummy. I love the heat. In October.

I lost my train of thought at this point because I received a phone call from tbernie14 and we planned a trip together in a few weeks! I told her that in my blog I strive for hilarity. Anyway, it is now 3:18 PM on Tuesday, October 13.

Apparently here in Spain Tuesday the thirteenth is an unlucky day just like Friday the thirteenth for us. Who knew? The minute after our professor told us that I broke the clip off the pen that I was borrowing while sitting next to the kid I was borrowing it from. Very unlucky.

I went to Paris this past weekend and I have a ton to write about that, but I’ll give it its own post. For this entry I think I’ll dedicate it to lovely Andalucía. Last weekend (the one before this past one), we made a day trip to Córdoba to see the mosque that is still there from the Islamic era.

We had been learning about it in Art History class, and it was unbelievable to see it in person. It helped that our tour was led by Lupe ‘the great’ (that’s my nickname for her). She is the best professor that has ever graced this earth. I want her to adopt me.

The mosque is absolutely massive and has gone through five expansions.

Everything has its own little story and Lupe explained it like a pro. The best.

Weirdly, in the middle of this dark, mystical mosque is a really tall cathedral. It’s just plopped right in the middle. When the Christians conquered Córdoba they left the mosque, but made it a “Christian” Cathedral. So crazy to see.

After our trip to Córdoba we went to Medina Alzahara, the ancient runes of Abdrrahman III’s (mouthful) royal city. It was pretty awesome, but it’s dry to write about, and I have sweet pictures from the disposable camera I had to use. I love disposable cameras, by the way. Not.

On Saturday I had a Granada day and found an AWESOME Brazilian store. The guy made me juice, and it was really good. I love Brazilians. I also found out that my camera cannot be fixed. F. Sunday, though, was the best day of all. At 2:30 PM, packed lunch in hand, four friends and I met at the bus stop and took a day trip to the Sierra Nevada for a hike.

The bus ride up there was nauseating, to say the least, and when we finally arrived in Monachil (the town we were to start from), I wanted to boot everywhere. Gross. We walked a little ways through the town looking SUPER American and eventually reached the “trail head.”

I put that in quotation marks because there was barely an official sign. The sign pointed up the mountain and read “Los Cahorros.” There was no map, no visitor’s center, nothing. I think Sharon Levine would have had a heart attack. So we headed off into the mountains, cameras in hand ready for action. I took my broken camera with me and snapped some pretty cool blind pics, so enjoy those throughout this blog.

Some cool/weird things that we encountered along the way:

- A thin bridge on which only four people were permitted at a time. It wobbled.

- Way too many little kids running around the edge of this river.

- Fresh figs (higos) that I was too scared to eat, but that Lucas was not.

- A really cool ledge

- A scary rock wall that Miriam wanted to climb

- A man putting a lot of effort into getting a remote control truck to drive up a vertical rock wall. He was not successful.

- Lots of poop. Not surprising, considering it’s Granada and there’s poop everywhere. I’m pretty sure this was wild animal poop, though, which makes it more exciting.

- Rattle snakes. Well, not really, but we thought we heard some. I actually think it was a bush and the wind.

- The spikiest plants ever

- A snake skin.

- People from Finland.

All in all, a great hike.

At the end we headed back down into Monachil and had beers at a restaurant next to which, every few minutes, a man would set off really loud fireworks. He creepily stood there doing nothing and then would randomly pull a firework off the stand and ignite it. It didn’t even look cool, it just made a bang. He probably should have grown out of that phase of his life years before. Whatever.

Anyway, not too much to say here, but felt I had to update everyone on our cool hike. I felt very outdoorsy afterwards. I’m glad that outdoorsy is a real word.

An annotation: Sydney and I sometimes dance in our room.