Gibraltar, Sevilla, and Cordoba!

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  Seville, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands
Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Since my last entry I spent a quiet weekend here at the residence and hung out with friends. The next weekend we went on a trip with AIFS to Gibraltar, Sevilla, and Córdoba. We left Granada around 9am and made it to Gibraltar in about 4 hours. We had to go across the border and show our passports because technically Gibraltar is part of the U.K. One of the guys on our trip is not fully and American citizen and carries a Russian passport and sadly he was denied entrance, we all decided that the U.K. needs to change its border control! It wasn't fair. Other than that Gibraltar was really nice. We spent the first hour or so wandering around the town which is small and didn’t have much to do other than shopping but all I bought was a postcard. After that we met our tour bus and went up the rock. We stopped at this beautiful lookout and you could see Africa from one side and Spain from the other. It was super windy and it made it hard to take good pictures of people (hair was blowing everywhere!) but we tried our best

Welcome to Gibraltar!

. From there we went into this cave. It was similar to the cave that me and Aunt Sue visited in Spain before but larger, they actually had an entire stage set up inside for concerts! After we went down the rock a little and saw the apes! The apes weren’t afraid of people at all and one immediately came up to our bus and went inside the driver’s side window. Our tour guide had food for them so he would lure one over with food and get it to sit on our shoulders! We saw whole families of monkeys, from really old ones to babies; it was a lot of fun!

From there we left Gibraltar and drove another couple hours to Sevilla. We got in late that night, ate dinner, and headed to bed to get ready for an early day. The next day we went to the Alcaza (castle), the old Jewish quarter, and la Giralda. The Alcaza was really beautiful and very reminiscent of la Alhambra in Granada. It had some amazing tiling as well as interesting art. There was one very old tapestry of a map of Spain and Africa but the tapestry was made from an upside-down point of view because back then it was easier for them to plot out ship routes if they were going "up" to Africa rather than down. From there we walked through the old Jewish quarter and saw a synagogue that is no longer in use. The Jewish people in Sevilla were seen as very important people before the Catholic rule and their quarter was located right next to the castle

Lighthouse in Gibraltar

. Next we went to La Giralda and the Cathedral. The Cathedral in Sevilla was originally a Muslim mosque and the bell tower, or La Giralda, used to be the tower where they would call out the Muslim prayers every day. The Cathedral was beautiful but the view from la Giralda was the best because you could see all of Sevilla from 4 different directions.

After those guided tours we were given the rest of the day to travel as we wished. I went to lunch with Chryssi, Merete, Lauren, and Breana at this restaurant with real toro heads from the bullfights mounted on the walls. The food was really good, but I didn’t eat any bull! My friend Adam had studied in Sevilla for a month during his freshman year of college and had recommended some places for us to see so we took his advice and went to El Torre de Oro along the Guadalquivir River and the big park in the center of the city. The walk by the river was really nice and unlike the “rivers” in Granada the Guadalquivir actually had water! El Torre de Oro is no longer covered in gold but it used to be completely covered in ceramic tiles which made it glint like gold in the light, however, all the tiles were stolen and pilfered. The park was really nice and we rested there for a while before heading off to the shopping streets.

Merete had brought along her Spain travel book and she had found a famous pastry shop we really wanted to go to near the shopping streets. We wandered for a while but eventually found it, it was definitely worth it and we each got some delicious pastries! We had been told that there was a professional futbol match being played that night at the stadium near our hotel so we looked into tickets but they were all about 40€ and the team that was playing Sevilla didn’t have a very good name for itself so even though most people from our program went a few of us decided not to go, went to a bar, and watched on tv instead

Me and Daryl, told you it was windy!

! We went out that night to a bar and a club and had a fun night. The next day we headed out to Córdoba.

Córdoba was a great city and while there we saw the Mezquita. The Mezquita was originally a Muslim mosque but when the Catholic rule began, rather than rebuilding it, the rulers decided to simply build a cathedral in the middle of the mosque. There is a very interesting mix of Catholic and Muslim art and architecture. We had recently learned about it in my Art History class so it made it even more interesting to visit it. The rest of the day in Córdoba we had free and it was a very pretty area to walk around in. I bought some nice souvenirs and caved and ate my first fast food, some good old Burger King! Almost everyone in our program got it and our friend took this really funny picture of all the Americans chowing down on BK! Overall that weekend was a lot of fun and I got to see some really amazing places.

The next week was same as usual. Went to my classes, did my homework, hung out with friends. Then on Wednesday Grandma and Pop-pop arrived! Even though Grandma wasn’t able to get around all that well we still managed to have fun and it was great to see them! I loved spending time with them and it made me even more excited to see Mom, Dad, and Diane at the end of November

Africa!

! Last weekend was also Halloween so we were all a little concerned what Spanish Halloween would entail; do the Spaniards dress up? Is there candy involved? If we dress up will we seem strange? So we checked it out with our Spanish friends who told us that people do dress up, candy is not really part of it, and the costumes must be scary. So Lauren and I decided to dress up as zombies/dead people. On Halloween we went to botellon which is a legal area outside where all Spaniards go before going out to a club to meet up and socialize. There are usually new people to meet and it’s always an experience! After we went to a dance club and danced the night away. Luckily most of the people were dressed up, even though dressing up as something funny or silly seemed perfectly acceptable.

It was a really fun night and the next day I got some homework done and then hung out with grandma and pop-pop for a while. While they were here we went to the science museum with my friend Lauren and out to eat with Mirella, Daryl, and Lauren. Pop-pop and I went to an art museum. I had such a great time with both grandma and pop-pop. The next few weekends I’m planning on staying around here and on November 20th we head to Morocco. After that Mom, Dad, and Diane will be here and then my time abroad is almost done. Though I miss home I’m really going to miss living in Spain!

Para Dad y Grandpa. Ahora voy a escribir un poco en espanol! No tengo acentos en mi ordenador entonces mi ortografía es mal. Mi vida en Espana es magnifico. Me encanta Granada porque las montanas y playas son muy cerca de la ciudad. Le gente aqui es muy simpatico y tengo muchos amigos espanoles. Espero que todo en Massachusetts este bien y te echo de menos toda la familia! Besos y Abrazos, Marisa!

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Caves	Caves	Stage ine the cave	Me and the Ape!
monkey!	a whole family	pretty!	Plaza de Espana
In front of the Granada mural

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