Que Guay- Early Days in Cordoba

I have now officially been in Cordoba for a week and my trip continues to be wonderful. Let’s see how well I can recap the past few days. Mostly these days have been days of exploration. Lots of walking all over the city. And let me say that these have been wonderful walks and there will be many more to come. There is still a lot of the city I have not seen.

I left you last on Monday evening, so we shall pick up on Tuesday. Tuesday night was our first group event since we arrived in Cordoba. After a presentation by the teachers of the “cultural classes” available to us (guitar, cooking, sevillanas dance) we headed across the street from our facultad for a slightly awkward cocktail mingling hour where we were able to meet almost all of the Preshco professors. It was a nice idea, but the room was very crowded and loud and actually talking to too many professors wasn’t really much of a possibility. After the mingling session we walked a few blocks over to a flamenco performance! How wonderful! It was a pretty low-key theater experience with wonderful performers. Flamenco is such a passionate dance and we certainly saw a passionate performance. It was so rhythmic and precise, despite improvisational aspects of the flamenco tradition.  The performance was not over until around midnight, so I was feeling pretty tired by the end and pretty much went straight home and to bed.

Cleary I was very tired, because I ended up sleeping until 11:30 the next morning! Yikes. How uncharacteristic of me. After a leisurely morning, Pilar walked with me and Viola to show us where some things were and then we went over to Pilar’s mother’s apartment to meet her. Her apartment was huge and she was very friendly and very excited to meet us. Later Viola and I headed in to class in the evening for my history of song class. It was a little harder to understand the professor this time then on the first class on Monday, but I still think this is going to be a great class and I am pretty happy about the other people with me in the class and thus also with me in the chorus. Should be fun.

Thursday was our next group activity. Before our 6pm meeting time, Mary, Laura, and I went to a wonderful place we had found a few days before: Salon de te. It is an unbelievably gorgeous and cute teashop in/on one of the typical Cordoba patios. Everything is very Arab influenced. We decided to try the Te Andalusi since we are after all in Andalucia. It was delicious and I was so happy to finally have some tea! After our tea date it was off to meet the group. We took a group photo, had a sort of cocktail hour at a bar, and then were officially welcomed into the Universidad de Cordoba in an official ceremony or as our director said “Spain really values protocol.” After our protocol, was cena en grupo. I was pretty excited to have a group dinner, I had enjoyed them so much over the tour. We went to a Chinese restaurant and there was sooooo much food. I absolutely stuffed myself. After dinner, I went with a bunch of people to a bar nearby. We got there around 11/11:30, and it was still a little early for too many Spaniards to be there, but the place started to fill up shortly afterwards. I liked this particular bar. It was really laid back and cozy. But there was the drawback that is unfortunately everywhere here: it is perfectly acceptable to smoke pretty much anywhere. It hasn’t been too big of a deal, but on Thursday a lot of the people I was with were smoking and after a while it was starting to give me a headache. And of course, when I went home my clothes and hair smelled of smoke. Ick. Not my favorite part of European life.

The only downside of Spanish customs I have found so far: dog poop. No one picks up after his or her dogs here. You really have to pay attention to where you walk and it is always unfortunate to find a smeared specimen because then you know some poor soul stepped in it.

Anyway, as there are no classes on Friday, Friday was Mezquita day! It is an incredible building both architecturally and historically. The Christian cathedral was built in it when the Christian re-conquered Cordoba after centuries of arab rule. And what did the Christians do but tear down interior walls of the Mezquita and quite literally build a cathedral within the existing structure. Arab architecture collides with Christian designs. It is incredible.

Other than that, exploring, exploring, exploring. Yesterday I walked around with Viola and our friend Tara and after exploring Pilar invited Viola and me to join her an her friends for a midday cerveza. It was fun, but a little overwhelming because we met quite a few people and it was hard to pay attention to what was going on.  But it was a lovely Saturday activity. We were sitting outside in the square where Pilar’s mom lives. Pablo and Pilar’s friends’ kids where all playing. It was so relaxed and such a lovely lifestyle to have that as a weekend norm.

That is all for now. I am off to explore the Cordoba Botanical Gardens with some friends. Hasta Luego.

Adios.