A trip down South.

  Córdoba, Andalusia, Spain
Monday, December 22, 2008

 After my dad left for
the States I waited another 3 hours in the airport for my flight to Sevilla. In
Sevilla I took the train to Cordoba to meet up with my good friends, Denise and
Tyler. There was a notable geographic change and more importantly, no rain!! It
even felt a little tropical with all the palm trees around but not as green as
up north. The landscapes were dominated with plots of oranges and olives and I
didn't notice much for livestock. I had heard that the spanish dialects are
different by regions, but didn't assume it to be this drastic. Not sure how to
describe it because I'm not really an expert in 'normal' spanish. (The bank
lady put me back in my place after I asked to change 'pains' into euros.
American dollars are 'dolares', not 'dolores'). One example: they don't say
their s's at the end of words. Mas o menos = ma o meno. It was difficult for me
to understand, but then again a lot of things are: like why they don't they
refrigerate their milk in the store. You have to once it is open, but there are
whole isles of room-temperature milk. Crazy.

  Back to Cordoba... For the most part I
stayed in the city and attended school and tutor sessions with Denise. From
what I saw both Denise and Tyler are doing a great job of teaching in
Andalucia. The school systems are not nearly as organized as home and they have
to improvise daily. They also gave me a tour of the Mezquita 

Mezquita

and the Judaria,
reminders of the historical Arabic influence in this region. We went to an
orchestra concert 

Orchestra

and each received a whole bag of gifts promoting Cordoba for
a candidate of the European Culture Award in 2016. Back at their apartment we
rummaged through them like kids on Christmas morning. We really were excited,
despite the fact that we were all 23 years of age.

Free stuff!!

 That night we had visited
the 'One Euro' bar and met up with some of their friends and fellow teachers. I
hadn't heard so much English since I left home! Here I met a couple from Nevada
and a guy from Boise. There we go again with the small world business. 

  Thursday night before I left we had a
Christmas party at their house. We only had enough people for 2 tables of Bunko
(dice game) but it was a blast. Denise had made tortillas de patata and I
attempted to craft some pintxos. The other guests brought food and a present
under 6 euros for the gift exchange. Luckily I picked the gift of earrings that
Denise had made and nobody was out to steal them (in a 'white elephant' gift
exchange you can steal someone's present or pick one to open). We both wore our
santa hats and the Christmas music made it seem much more like the holidays
were here. 

Christmas party

  I had to catch the bus at 11:00pm to
return back the San Sebastian, about a 13 hour ride. Those of you on the
2005-2006 ACI team think of the trip to Havre, MT... but no movies, no teammates,
and half a dozen men loudly speaking Arabic and smelling of ham. The bus was
clean and my seat partner was a very nice older lady (but spoke way too fast in
spanish). When I wasn't sleeping I was staring out the window watching the
Spanish countryside pass by with the lyrics to Jingle-Bells and Frosty the
Snowman stuck in my head. I made it back to my apartment in time for some
lunch, a quick nap, and then headed off to practice.

Dee and Tyler thank
you for a great stay in Cordoba and I'll be seeing you soon!