Week 13 – Cordoba

Cordoba:

·         Around 1000, Cordoba was the largest city in Europe, thriving under Muslim rule with Jews and Christians tolerated, although with limited rights.  Like Arles, it was a Roman settlement 2,000 years ago and was declared a UNSECO site decades ago.

·         We took walking tours with Isabela, Maria, and Jose.  Jose is 47 and thinking about a PhD in archeology and was excellent at answering questions as he took us through the Mezquita, the cathedral that used to be a mosque.  The others took us on city tours and were good but didn’t have the same depth.  Plus, even though the Mezquita had a very plain exterior the interior was beautiful, varied, and enormous.  It was started in the 8^th century and a lot of the columns were recycled from the Roman buildings.

·         The town itself was loaded with Spanish tourists.  We knew there were 2 holidays in Spain this week but didn’t realize schools went ahead and closed for the whole week.  The level of English was lower than I expected but it was a relief to feel like I could communicate at least a little in the local language (verb tenses and overconfidence being my weakest points.)  We met some Americans, including Zack from Paris, Texas during the American-Netherlands game who is teaching English in Madrid.

·         The food in town was again only OK, except for the flan on the first night, which was outstanding.  And the house wine was generally good.

·         Spain lost to Morocco on our last night, which meant no wild celebrations but when we walked to a gluten-free bakery during the game it was a ghost town – I bet there were about as many people walking about at midnight.  But the game watching itself wasn’t as visible as I expected – about 1/3 of the bars didn’t have a TV and the others weren’t packed, even outside the touristic area.

·         We also rode 2 Hop On Hop Off tours, which weren’t bad for seeing the city outside of the historic district but nothing special.

·         We went to a horse show where the riders did some dancelike movements.  Karen liked it more than I did.

·         The Xmas market wasn’t in full swing yet, but there was definitely an American flavor to what they had, including the songs and even seeing “Merry Christmas” in English on some storefronts.  They had a small skating rink in town, with slushy ice and tentative skaters who made me look like an average skater.

·         Throughout this trip we’ve been trying to eat big breakfasts and a snack for lunch, then an early dinner, but it was harder in a place where a lot of the restaurants close after lunch and don’t reopen until 8:00 PM.