What Happened in September Part III
Trip Start
Aug 29, 2009
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3
Trip End
Dec 22, 2009
Cordoba, Andalusia, Spain
Sunday, November 22, 2009
I've heard that people have actually been reading this blog! Thank you! So to continue, I thought that I would write about my first excursions within Cordoba. Cordoba is actually both a city and province. It's comparable to LA - there is a "county" of Cordoba, which includes the city of Cordoba. One day in September, our host famliy (well only Araceli and Ara) decided to take us up to Priega, a little village in the hillsides of the province. Amanda and I had originally thought that we were going to see how cheese was made, but then we realized that they just wanted to go buy cheese there! Oh by the way, there have been many of these little miscommunications due to the language barrier. Some have turned out to be quite hilarious, let me tell you! Anyway, it was a wednesday afternoon after we ended our classes. We ate lunch and then drove out of the city into the campo (country). The hillsides of Cordoba are golden and scattered with olive groves here and there. Driving through the country, it becomes apparent what Andalucia's main agricultural product is - OLIVES! We have eaten them, oh, at about every family gathering and they are served with bread at most restaurants before the meal. Our family actually makes their own olives, meaning that they pick them, soak them in water for a duration of time, and then soak them in spices and vinegar. They are so delicious! I want to take them back with me!
We stopped at a little roadside store along the way and bought the most amazing and fresh cheese, and then continued on towards Priega. We met up with Ara's cousin and walked EVERYWHERE! We went to a fountain in the middle of the pueblo and Amanda and I made our fabulous mark on Spain. Our footprints and initials will forever be engraved in a street in Priega, well at least until it's repaved. We walked through the narrow streets and stopped at a cafe to grab a quick cafe con leche y postre (coffee with milk and a pastry). Ok, I know you all must be dying to know....at what ungodly hours do we eat!? Let me explain to you all how our days work here in Spain; they revolve around food. You wake up and eat toast for breakfast (desayuno) every single day of the week (yes Dad, this means no huge breakfasts of eggs, potatoes and bacon on the weekends). Lunch is usually humungous and begins anywhere between two and three. Normally, we eat a soup or stew of sorts or empinadas, amongst many other dishes. Bread is served with both lunch and dinner, and we always eat a piece of fruit after lunch (almuerzo).Now there is another period of eating that occurs before dinner called merienda. It consists of coffee and some kind of dessert or pastry. We students don't usually partake in this meal, seeing as its not included in our "study abroad package", but the rest of Spain surely does. Between five and seven, all of the cafes are packed with people. The final meal of the day is dinner (cena) which is served at about nine or ten. So as you can plainly see, most people's days revolve around when they consume food. And unlike in America, people stick to these desginated meals and times and (surprise!) spend them with their families and friends. Quite the concept, eh?
Back to Priega...The pueblo is known for its amazing views of the surrounding countryside. The pictures speak for themselves, so I won't go into how beautiful the views were. But I will tell you about our stroll through the city. An old cobblestone lane wraps around the entire pueblo and has several places to stop and sit to look out at the views. Groups of teenagers were scattered here and there, as well as groups of older men. We admired the beautiful white walls of the buildings and the bright blue flower pots that dangled from them. Amanda and I had a fabulous time making jokes and taking pictures everywhere. Ara helped us take some; including one that turned out to be quite embarassing. Amanda and I had just commented on a guy who had passed by and how he had the most beautiful eyes we had ever seen. We were walking toward a group of guys our age at that very moment when Ara suddenly decided to help us get a picture with cute Spanish boys.The funny thing is that we never asked!!! So she stops the guys and says that we're visiting from America and want a picture with cute Spaniards. You can only imagine how red we both turned. Once again, the picture speaks for itself. We then stopped in at an Arabic bath and got to go to the roof and watch the sunset over the pueblo. On the car ride home, both Amanda and I passed out from exhaustion. It was one of my favorite days in Spain thus far. It felt so good to spend the afternoon in such a rustic place and to have the chance to see Spain at its very roots.
Back in Cordoba, through out the first few weeks there, we all had to get used to another culture. The transition wasn't as horrible as we had thought it would be. I think that we all underestimated the extent of people's kindness and patience, as well as our own. I remember one afternoon Amanda and I were walking to the train station to buy tickets for Cadiz and we got lost. Of course it began to rain and we didn't have umbrellas. We asked a lady who was just getting off of work how to get to the station. Instead of telling us, she took the time to actually walk us all the way to the station - in the rain! She knew we didn't speak Spanish very well and therefore also helped us buy our tickets. Thanks Loli! We have a program at UCOIDIOMAS (my program here in Spain) called Intercambios (exchange). What happens is one or two students from California is paired with a Spanish student from the University of Cordoba. You meet up and practice English and Spanish. Amanda and I met our intercambio, Rafa, at the end of September. He speaks english very well, which is good and bad at the same time. The funny thing about the exchange is that its more of a way to make friends and get to know Spain. Rafa has taken us to numerous bars and clubs and even to another city for a carnival. I also have another intercambio, one that I gained on my own. I already mentioned how I met Mercedes in another entry, but I haven't yet told you all what a big role she has played in my stay in Cordoba. Mercedes and I both struggle with learning languages, I think, because we busy ourselves with so many other things that we don't give it enough time. Mercedes has lived in Cordoba, amongst four other cities in Spain, for many years. She went to school here and lived in a beautiful, little convent that she showed me and also met her husband, Eduardo, here. We try to meet weekly to practice speaking and to share information about our cultures with one another. I have seen and learned more about Cordoba from her than through any other means, including my history class! The reason behind this: When she tells me about a certain chapel or how Cordobans tool their leather, we're standing right in the midst of it! We're similar in the way we think and express ourselves, so we had an instant connection. She took me to her home a few weeks back. It was so fun being toted around her neighborhood, being shown off as her pretty American friend (her words, not mine). Someone thought I was her son's Cretian girlfriend! Ha! Anyway, I always have a great time with Mercedes, whether we're walking the streets of Cordoba in search of churches or monuments that I MUST see, or just chatting over cafe con leche at a little cafe.
Another new thing in my life beginning in September was Flamenco. Yes, the dance! Sadly, I can't say that I remember them all that well. I'm more of a freestyle dancer (haha). But the class was really fun and was only for the students in my program. This is also where I got to know my friend Aaron. I don't know how it happened; I think he took pity on me and decided to be my dance partner each week. I'm so glad he did; those classes just wouldn't have been as much fun without him! Our class was instructed by a vivacious women named Gloria. One moment, she would be sweet as a button, the next, she'd be yelling out steps and clapping her hands in your face! No, she really is a very sweet woman and put those classes on at an extremely discounted price.
The final weekend of September was an amazing way to finish off my first month in Spain - It's when Kristina and Jeremy came to visit! They spent a few days on the coast before they drove up to Granada to go hiking and see the city at night. I took a bus there on Friday, the 25th, and met up with Samantha. To be quite honest, I was very proud of myself for being able to get to Granada all on my own. It felt good to know that I can travel somewhere on my own without the company or help of friends and family. I met Sam in one small section of the bustling city of Granada. We took a taxi to the beautiful five star hotel that Kris and Jer were staying at. I cleaned myself up and we headed out for a night on the town, which turned out to be another favorite night of mine thanks to Sam! We went to a few different bars and had a great time talking and being with each other. One of the cool things about Granada is that you receive free tapas (mini meals) with the drinks that you order. The concept of tapas has been explained to me many times in Spanish, so I'll try my best to explain it to you. One of the ancient kings of Spain noticed one night how drunk all of his court was and realized that this was not a custom that should continue. He decided that instead of banning alcohol and causing an uprising amongst his people that he wold create a custom where food was served with all alcoholic drinks. These little meals are called tapas because they were placed on top of the glass of alcohol on a plate. This is why when you go to out to bars and clubs you can usually tell who the Americans are, because they're normally the only drunk people there.
The next day, Kris, Jer, and I drove back to Cordoba and found a place for them to stay. Later that day they visited my humble abode and my family introduced them to real Spanish tapas. Ara pulled out her huge cured pig's leg and carved off some Jamon Serrano for them to try. Ha! If you could have only seen the look on Jermey's face! Good times...That night, Amanda and I met them in the center of the city and we journeyed over to my favorite club in Cordoba, Cibeles. There, we met Rafa (our intercambio) and danced the night away. The next day, though, was the BIG day. My childhood dream fnially came true! Amanda, Jeremy, Kristina and I got to play dress-up for most of Sunday! We felt like Spanish models in those Flamenco dresses! We began with pictures in our patio, then we moved to the street. I felt a little bit like a poser, walking past all those Spanish people in my Flamenco get-up, but who cares - we had a damn good time! We even climbed to the top of a scary tower in our neighborhood and took pictures on the rooftop. We joined my family for drinks and tapas in the afternoon and then we all took a siesta before meeting up again that night. Ahh I don't even want to write about this night becaues it was a failure on my behalf. I had thought that there was a reggae performance at the Jazz Club (a cool nightclub with live jazz music on tuesday nights), but I had been misinformed, or rather, I had read the sign wrong :(. I'm just going to move onto Monday...We went to a lounge called Soho that overlooks the Guadalquivir river and (again) had drinks and talked with a group of my friends. Thinking back on all of this now, I wish I had known of all the places that I know of now when they came to visit. Sorry guys! Next time?
We visited the pueblo of Montilla and the ruins of Medinat Al-Zarah on Tuesday. We drove up to Montilla to go wine tasting with a group of students from my program. We got to try three wines, which I thought were horrific. I asked if we could try one that was LESS sweet and LESS strong, and received a wonderfully smooth white wine - the only one I liked. We were not impressed with the sweet wines the region is known for, but the winery itself was a pretty cool place. We got to see how it was made, stored, processed - you name it, we saw it! We had lunch after and then went to the ruins, which I had already visited with my program. I tried explaining the history behind them, but Jeremy turned out to be the better tour guide. After our afternoon in a deserted city that had once stood 1,000 years prior, and in its glory maintained a population of 80,000, we bid each other farewell. After Jermey and Kristina left, a wave of homesickness hit me, hard! I had a cold and felt oh so alone. Thank goodness for those DVD's I brought, romantic comedies always make me feel better! Still, they can't fill that little empty space I've had in my heart these past few months - only home can.
