Andalucia

Weeoo, update central. This was a great trip! I loved the weather, a common sentiment within the group, and was feeling a little SAD to go back. But really, Andalucia is a nice place to visit but I don’t know if I’d like to live there. The cities we visited were Toledo, Granada, Sevilla, and Cordoba. I’m going to plug Valerie’s blog about Andalucia because she has pictures and it is just very good.

Ok, the first city we went to is Toledo. This place feels historic. Because it was the capitol, it’s easy to tell it was important from an architectural standpoint. The heart of the city is encompassed by a large muro that was meant to protect the city from invaders. Spanish history is fascinating, there are so many conquests and invasions that it’s like seeing history like a parfait cup. The first layer is Romanesque/Celtic depending on the region. There’s another layer of Islamic culture, one of Judaism, and of course Catholocism. In Andalucia, this is very obvious in the religious buildings; in Toledo, La Iglesia de Santa Maria la Blanca perfectly exemplifies this. It was originally a mosque, then was converted into a synagogue, and then as a catholic church. Standing in ‘houses of gods’ like this is kind of strange. It really throws me because it’s hard to think of them so entwined, but the power trips religions had/have over others is a no-brainer. Toledo is an absolutely gorgeous city, unquestionably, the views that it provides are breathtaking. The first one was pretty much where El Greco did his “View of Toledo” and the second one was Valerie, Alana, and I going to Heaven. I know!! We went to a church across from the Cathedral of Toledo to see “The view of Toledo from Heaven!” We took a photoshoot here which was a ton of fun. Then we hit up a tex-mex restaurant, this registered a Pavlovian response that pretty much hit the spot. Living far away from North America, there are a few things I’ve started missing: Reese’s peanut butter cups, double stuf Oreos, and Taco Bell. This place, Ye Olde Tex-Mex Shoppe or something, was a little bit of home away from home. The nightlife here wasn’t really that great, the whole city seemed too old to really house modern fun bars. In conclusion, Toledo is a great historical city but a slightly boring city for college students.

Next up was Granada. I thought it would be really funny to pronounce it like Canada, when really it is more like this: gruh-naaaaaah-duh. The most famous part of Granada is the Al-Hambra, which is one of the two most visited sites in Spain with La Sagrada Familia. It is a huge palace that hosted the dynasties of Islamic kings in the region, the last were the Nacines before Charles V took over. Charles V, being very male, Christian, and power-hungry, made his own palace next to Al-Hambra and exploited muslim slaves to build it; it wasn’t finished until the 20th century because ‘the people’ were protesting the construction of his palace. The coolest part of Charles V (or Carlos 1 in España)’s palace is the bull-fighting ring. It just seemed very Coliseum-esque (I’ll be able to do a better comparison after visiting Italy) and just another part of the overwhelming dogmatic religious culture of the good old days. After seeing Charles’ Palace we went to the actual Al-Hambra. This is soo pretty! I think it’s just so impressive how intricate everything is, pictures really don’t do it justice. Afterward we went to El Generalife (garden of the high paradise, or so) and just popped around there for a bit, it made me feel very reminiscent. We bussed around, the roads are really windy and narrow so we feel lucky when we get to use transportation instead of walking, and went to the hotel to relajanos (relax ourselves). It’s a good thing we did because the night was crazy. I’m going to censor myself and just say that we drank a lot of orange juice and fruit punch. We made friends with the ‘waiters’ and they gave us even more free orange juice; Valerie, Alana, and I were surprised that they spoke to us only in Spanish – the trip had been prefaced by Mar telling us that people always try to speak English to practice or because they think they will do better business – so that made it even more fun. Since we arrived in Granada at night after leaving Toledo in the afternoon, it made the night feel even longer. The next day, oy, was when we saw Carlos I’s palace, the Al-Hambra, and El Generalife, which also was a really long day. That night we saw a flamenco spectacular! It started with a tour of the muslim barrio which is super windy and easy to get lost in, and then saw the palace’s from across the town illuminated at night. It was absolutely gorgeous! To toot my own horn, we translated the tour for an English couple and the tour guide was really pleased by Valerie’s and my translating and called me her cariña and gave me besitos. :) The Flamenco show, in an amazing twist of fate, was the EXACT same show Valerie and I saw when we were in Spain! It was crazy! It inspired me even more to learn how to tap dance. As well as served as a marker for how much my Spanish has improved since then: obviously it SHOULD have improved with 5 years, but I’m also going to say that living here and being completely immersed played a big role. Grade for Granada: Good culture, good nightlife, good modern/antique feel.

Our third city is Sevilla. Sevilla is Kansas City’s sister city! Lawrence has two sister cities: Eutin, Germany and Somewhere, Japan. I don’t really know the significance of haivng sister cities, but I think it’s pretty cool. In Sevilla there is an avenue called Kansas City and in KC there is a replica of the Torre Giralda in the plaza, so maybe that’s the exchange? Anyway, our time in Sevilla is very brief and we are here just for the one day and night. We don’t have any group activities but are obligated to visit at least one ‘cultural’ thing (see, this is not a vacation, but a cultural experience and we had homework and requirements) so Alana, Valerie, and I opted for another palace. We went to the Real Alcazar which was SOO gorgeous! It was very similar to La Al-hambra structurally but the garden was INFINITELY better than Generalife. The gardens are meant to represent paradise for the muslims; they sure did it up right here! There was so much to look at here, the fountains, trees, houses, and the sunlight made it absolutely magnificent. After the beautiful garden/s (it was humongous but not empty or crowded, very impressive), we went to La Torre de Giralda. To get to the top of the tower to see a view of the city, are we all seeing a common theme here?, you have to hike up all the ramps within the tower. Before the Christians took over and converted the mosque into a cathedral (the largest cathedral in Spain and the third [or so] largest in Europe), the inside of the tower was completely ramped, which we all loved :). The highest part of the tower is what we have replicated in KC and that’s where the stairs are. After absorbing all the culture and views of the city, we made an immediate stop at an Irish place. They had nachos! We randomly saw Stephanie walking around and finalized our plans for the evening, ‘finalize’ is relative in Spain but in Andalucia I guess they have more structure? Anyway, we start the evening out at another Irish place and the accent here is so thick they must not have understood ‘sandwich club’ so we got something with eggs, but that was all right. After that we went to another bar where the ladies get free sangria until 1 am, so yay! Then after we all sufficiently cleaned the bar out of sangria we head off to a very posh nightclub called Buddha. This was the fanciest club I’ve ever been to, it was like from a movie or something. There were four layers and each one had a different ambience, I think we went to the top level and despite the slightly odd clientele, Stephanie and her friends showed us a really good time. It was so nice to see someone from home so far away, it really makes the world seem small. Cutting the night short because of some sketchy guys, we went back to the hotel so we would be ready to leave in the morning for our last city. To continue with the grading system: Sevilla, historically didn’t seem as profound as some of the others, but the modernity of the city made it a LOT of fun at night.

Finally we were in Cordoba. The grupo de Kansas is kind of sad to leave Andalucia because despite the thick accents where they cut off half of every word, at least there is sun and plenty of it. Most of us even got a little quemadura (sunburn)! The landmark of Cordoba is the mezquita (mosque), but really it’s a functioning cathedral! Just another instance of religious invasions and crusades, it seems. It was really pretty and I actually learned a lot. During the trip I like to think I generally asked intelligent questions and had some good conversations with the profes, despite how stupid I might sound. Deciding that now is the time to take in the cultural food – and they do make it seem very ‘cultural’, particularly to tourists – and tried salmorejo (a creamier gazpacho), rabo del toro (bull rib! It sounds cooler than it is, it was pretty much like really tender beef or briscuit), and arroz con leche. I also tried a ‘flanquin’ which seems to me like ham rolled up and then deep-fat fried, another food surprise. We crashed at the hotel to recharge our batteries knowing that the bus ride home was going to be like 11 hours, uf! I’d try to give Cordoba a grade but I don’t know how fair it would be since we weren’t really there for a long time, but nonetheless: culturally it is pretty impressive. The mezquita is the only one that does NOT face Mecca and actually has a cathedral WITHIN the structure as opposed to completely taken over. And there is a middle-eastern vibe throughout parts of the city and houses but also a Jewish barrio, so who knows how that dynamic works. It seems like Cordoba would be pretty fun at night, but also that it is still stuck in a more historic age.

To conclude, Andalucia is an absolutely gorgeous region of Spain. I was surprised to find out that it is one of the poorest ones, like Galicia, even though it is so touristy. Apparently it’s because the ‘mars de olivas’ (oceans of olives) don’t really provide a lot of income and the popular crime there is to steal kegs of olive oil. We were really pleased with the weather and it was a downer to return to Santiago, the city of rain. If nothing else, this trip has shown how much my Spanish really is improving even though it sometimes feels like I hit a figurative wall. Also, it was really cool to be able to compare cities from five years ago and to see what has changed and hasn’t. I love vacations! Or field trips for school, whatever the case may be. :)

PS- Make sure you read my Barcelona/Carnaval novel too.
PPS- So Valentine’s day in Spain is an ‘americanada’ which essentially means a stupid holiday they imported that everyone makes fun of, which explains the lameness of my Valentine’s day. The Latin lover thing: still holds true. Manu planned a cute picnic for me at a point overlooking the city to watch the sunset, but I was trying to be Spanish and showed up late – oh well – so it was just a picnic at night but it was still very cute.