Trip to Andalucia Feb 4th-10th, 2008

About a week ago I got back from my trip to Andalucia. The first four days were with my class as an organized "excursion" and then for the weekend a few of us went to Carnaval in Cadiz. That was an adventure for sure. Andalucia is a city, but I'm referring to the province in Southern Spain. We went to Cordoba, Sevilla, and Granada (and then Cadiz). So here are my reflections and notations on the trip.


Drive down south:

I don't know what I was expecting the plant life to be like but it certainly wasn't what I saw: A lot of it was desert and reminded me of driving from Los Angeles to Dallas through the rocky, mountainous desert. We were driving through rocky terrain, there was no soil, and there were cacti. In retrospect I SHOULD have expected this because southern Spain is just a hop away from North Africa and the Sahara. Also there were FIELDS AND FIELDS OF OLIVE TREES! That's what I expected to see when I go to Greece, but apparently Spain is the #1 producer of olive oil in the world (even over Italy). So that was interesting.

Cordoba:

We only stayed here for the day. Cordoba is important because during the 800 years that the Arabs ruled Spain, Cordoba was the capital for them in Spain and North Africa (the Caliphate). So the sense of it's former days as an Arab capital was really obvious. We toured the Mezquita (mosque) where construction began in the 700s. There was a cathedral built within the Mezquita after the Reconquista (when the Christians took over again in the 1200s). The cathedral wasn't that impressive but the mosque was. It was HUGE and there were tons of columns everywhere. For 1000 years it was the second largest Mosque in the world. (now I think it's the third.) The gypsies in Cordoba were more aggressive than in Madrid.

Sevilla

Late that night we drove an hour and a half (barely) west to Seville. This place was BEAUTIFUL. Now the scenery changed to tropical. There were palm trees and orange trees all over the place. Orange trees lined every single street and they were in full bloom. The next day (Feb 5th) we took a tour of the Reales Alcazares, which was where four royal palaces were grouped together to make a huge complex of luxury. These Alcazares were mostly used by the Arab kings when they ruled, and then later some of the Christian kings lived here too. Since a Muslim garden is supposed to be like paradise and be a treat to every sense, they were beautiful! Full of plants, birds, fruit, fountains. etc. Also, because this is where Columbus came when he returned from the new world, all the gardens are decorated in tropical plants that he brought back with him from the indies. (ex. birds of paradise, all kinds of palm trees, fruit trees, ficus trees, etc.)
Feb 6th- We stayed in Sevilla two days, so on the 6th, which HAPPENED TO HAVE BEEN MY 21ST BIRTHDAY, we got to go to a Flamenco show. It was a really beautiful, intimate setting. I'd never seen Flamenco before and it was not what I expected. The dancing was, but the singing wasn't. It was a lot more tribal wailing than I figured. Beautiful none-the-less. Later that night we were hitting the town and a few of us stumbled upon this bar in an alley that turned out to be a really cool underground place (kind of like Churchills in little haiti, for my miami buddies). There turned out to be an impromptu flamenco show! And that was REALLY cool because we were seeing what the locals see.
*Note: I also climbed the Giralda tower and got to see the grave of Christopher Columbus.

Granada

Next day we made the drive even further to Granada for our last stop. Basically all we saw in Granada was La Alhambra, the AMAZING ruins of a city within a city in Granada that was a great fortress of the Arabs. (means "city of the red brick" in Arabic) It was huge and beautiful. If there's one thing I've learned about Arab architecture is that it seems more intricate than any other I've encountered. The carvings and tile work must have taken SO LONG to do....I can't describe it in words. You'll have to look at my pics on facebook. We also made a stop at the Capilla Real and saw the tombs and coffins of Isabel and Ferdinand. That was pretty interesting.

Cadiz

That was an adventure in itself! The first day was really stupid and confirmed for me that it was just a huge waste of money. (Because the only reason I wanted to go was because I thought I was going to go to Morocco first, and that didn't end up happening.) The second day made it almost worth the money. We went to the beach (atlantic ocean) and while it was way too cold to get in the water, the weather was pleasant and eerily windy. That night though, was the Carnaval celebration...PARTY LIKE YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN! It was just thousands of people my age in crazy costumes, getting drunk. There were no bathrooms either...which I won't get into.... people were also doing debaucherous things. I actually saw a couple DOING IT in the middle of the street with 100 people around them. I couldn't believe it. I ended up having to leave the party kind of early (3ish) because I needed to go back to the hotel, get my stuff, then head to the airport because my flight was at 7:05. Have you ever been to the airport drunk? well...I can cross that off my list! Not to mention I was alone. It was just crazy. This was a tiny airport too. When I got there I was apparently TOO early and the airport was CLOSED! I sat outside with some Spanish girls also waiting for the Madrid flight. As we were sitting outside, we could see birds flying around INSIDE the airport and even a cat wandering around! I kept saying "How'd the cat get in??? Maybe we can get in!" Apparently backwardsness like that is typical of Andalucia. Just to add to it, when they finally opened security, I went through and put my bag on the xray thing and NOBODY WAS WATCHING THE XRAY MACHINE! If I'd beeped going through the metal detector nobody would have been there to stop me. And to top it off I had to walk onto the runway to get onto the plane. I guess they're not worried about terrorism...So eventually I got back to Madrid and went to bed at 9:30am on Sunday, Feb 10th. (avoided the senora ALL day)

What a trip!
I was surely ready for a normal week in Madrid.
I took 117 pictures and they're all on facebook if you want to look at them.