Sevilla y Córdoba

Hello Everyone! I know we’re all busy with life and so I’ll try and keep this short. (Also I actually just don’t remember a lot since I’m writing this after a week full of incredibly stressful midterms, a lot of things has been blocked out permanently. Apologies. )

This past weekend I got to explore Sevilla and Cordoba with my program. Initially I was annoyed because this is the only over night trip my group takes the entire semester and of course they chose to do it on the week before all of our midterms. Unfortunately, being frustrated and whiney about timing never actually changes the timing so I did my best to get over that quickly (with the help of gelado and knowing I would get to complain one last time in this blog post).

To begin, Sevilla and Cordoba were both beyond beautiful. Sometimes its nice to get out of my Granadian bubble and see what life is like in the rest of Andalucía. The first thing I realized/remembered was that in the rest of Spain tapas are not free like they are in Granada! Here I can buy a 2-euro glass of wine and get a free sandwich or a platter of fries/meat etc. BUT this is only specific to Granada; in the rest of Spain you pay for any of the food you want to eat. This seemed like a waste of money to me so after 1 sub par sangria and 0 tapas I decided I would save the drinking until I was back home in bank account friendly Granada.

First off, Plaza de Espana en Sevilla had me flashing back to Star Wars episode 2...and i loved it!  

In Sevilla we also explored the Alcázar of Seville, which is a Moorish fort turned into a royal palace. The entire stronghold was almost like the Alhambra on a smaller scale except with a feeling of greater unity. In addition to the easy flow between the rooms it definitely seemed more livable when compared to the somewhat desolate impression that the Alhambra gave me at times.

The Cathedral of Seville was, of course, gorgeous, but as I’ve seen sooo many Cathedrals during my time around Spain and in Italy they’re all starting to really blend together. This cathedral didn’t leave any sort of lasting impression on me compared to others that I’ve seen. ALTHOUGH there was a wedding going on at the time we were there, the bride and groom looked like they were straight out of a story book with her long train getting lifted into a horse drawn carriage. The fairytale moment soon turned to reality by noting that during the entire course of this action I was standing on the sidewalk (with my sleeves rolled up) multitasking between gawking and chewing on the tuna salad sandwich my host mom made me for lunch. A charming image I’m sure. I can only hope that the stunning newly weds got a chance to look down from their carriage at me in my sunburned glory eating a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. Life isn’t perfect, people.

After this I went to a local Starbucks, because I consider everything in Spain to be temporarily Spanish. Spanish Dominos…Spanish Starbucks…Spanish Burger King. This temporary logic made me feel better about ordering a Frappuccino.

The following day in Cordoba we saw the Mosque of Córdoba, which I was unbelievably impressed with. The lead in to the Mosque was a large courtyard filled with cobblestone and orange trees. The courtyard gave a positive atmosphere to the already warm and sunny day. The high walls surrounding the courtyard provided shade while still giving off a free and open feeling not common with an enclosed area. 

Once we walked inside the mosque I was struck by the sheer size of it, I couldn’t’ see the end! The dimly lit area full of cold stone tile gave off a haunting feel from the courtyard a couple hundred yards away, and the horseshoe candy cane arches added a feeling of assimilation throughout the unique portions of each section of the mosque. I think the most striking part was the 856 columns throughout the Mosque; some were from the original Gothic structure, others were sent as gifts, and handfuls were newly designed purely for fresh aesthetic purposes. Islam does not allow any representations of God or humans through design so the entire mosque is filled with a variety of organized and rearranged geometric shapes. Honestly I prefer shapes and patterns to faces and statues, I think it’s much easier to find perfection within configurations of figures and forms. This might just be my opinion but I dislike when a building is overwhelmed with statues that are meant to represent humans but lack the powerful and difficult details that a piece of marble needs to look realistic. I would favor the intensity that’s found between the arrangements of colors and shapes within stained glass or any other type of design base over any replication of human form…but hey, that’s me.

The bus ride home was filled with lots of sleep as I let Bon Iver and Alt J help me forget about the upcoming week of doom.

Stay tuned for my upcoming weekend in Barcelona, I’ll try to make it more interesting J