Cordoba - Where Waiters Steal your Camera!

The next ISA run event was a weekend trip to Sevilla/Cordoba, two cities relatively near each other and in almost every way different. Sadly, I have 0 photos from Sevilla. The reason for this is because that was the day we went skydiving! I opted not to bring my camera that day, just to make sure I didn't lose it. I'm still in the process of getting some skydiving photos, so when I get those I'll try to post them. In short, skydiving was amazing, terrifying but thrilling all at once. I would definitely do it again.

The next day, we left Sevilla and headed to Cordoba, which was at one point the capital city of Spain. It is known for a couple different things: its winding small streets, its tapas, the Mezquita (a mosque turned cathedral that is incredibly famous) and its women. Yup, women. I didn't know about this until afterwards, but apparently the most attractive women are said to come from Cordoba. I believe there is even a saying that is something like "You look like a Cordobesa," which is a compliment. We were only there a matter of hours sadly, and I honestly didn't really look to see if this notion is true. 

Anyway, onto the photos. Here we are getting off the bus. This reminded me so much of Toledo, and because of that, I knew I was going to like this town. We even crossed a bridge to enter, very Toledo-like.

 Here's an example of a typical street in Cordoba - skinny and long. Some are too tiny for cars to drive on, which is nice. Tons of little tapas bars here. If you look on the left (above) you can see two blackboards with a lot of menu options on them. This place was called "100 tapas" and literally had 100 tapas to choose from. Que guay!

When we arrived, it was about lunchtime and we were told we had an hour to grab lunch. Some friends and I begin traversing the skinny streets for a tapas bar thats not super crowded with Americans (at the time we were there, 2 other programs were also visiting. There were at least 200 Americans in this little town). We walk for about 5 minutes, find a place to eat, place our order. The place was pretty dead, granted it was a bit early for lunch in Spain (1 pm). The waiter begins joking around with us a bit. I took my camera out of my pocket and set it on the table so it wasn't bulging in my pocket during the entire meal. The waiter noticed this, cleared one of my plates and also took my camera. I questioned him about it, but apparently it was too late. He had walked away. I wasn't too worried, as we were in a funny mood with the guy. When he returned, he had taken this photo of his chef, the lady making our food that day:

Bizarre. He came back about 5 minutes later and took this group shot of all of us:

For sure an interesting meal. The food was really good for sure. They also had my favorite beer (Alhambra 1925) on tap! Points for that, for sure.

After the hour was up, we met up with our mega group of 100 kids, and toured the main attraction of the town: the Mezquita.

 Here's the main tower in the courtyard.

 The lady with the black hat and orange scarf was our tour guide. She did a great job of keeping it interesting and speaking clearly for everyone. She knew English pretty well too, and was all around really knowledgeable.

 The ceiling in one part of the Mezquita.

 This what pretty much everyone knows the Mezquita for - these red and white arches. The red part is made out of bricks, and the white is made out of....stone? Of some sort? Sadly I forget exactly. The columns are also made of a different material, I believe it was marble. Also, where the column connects with the bottom of the arch has a unique feature. No two of those in the entire mosque/church were identical. And, as you'll see, there are a lot of pillars.

 Here's me fiddling with a feature on my camera.

 This arched look is something you've probably seen in my photos before - it's a very muslim look. Like I've been mentioning, the Mezquita was a mosque that eventually changed into a church. Spain throughout history has been ravished by many cultures/civilizations: Romans/Visigoths/North African Muslims. Because of this changing of hands that happened so many times, many places were destroyed and rebuilt over and over. Thankfully, this mosque was mostly preserved, and, as you'll see, added to.

 Here's a crazy trophy or something. All I remember is that it is real gold.

 Another trophy room.

 As you leave the area with all the trophies, you're once again presented with the beautiful arches that put Cordoba on the map. However, you walk a bit further and you begin to see where another religion took hold...

 This cathedral was HUGE. So tall. It was nearly impossible to get a floor to ceiling shot of everything. And the level of detail was astounding.

 Keep in mind: this is the exact same building. We didn't leave and enter another place. You can notice on the lower corners here the red and white arches. Quite insane, really.

I really like how this shot turned out. The dark area is a sectioned off part of the church. Almost like a church within a church. Very cool.

 Another shot of the courtyard with the main tower.

After we leave, our tour guide takes us to some interesting streets in the town. Here we are looking back at the Mezquita tower through one of the most famous streets in the town:

Definitely a cute little town with a ton of history.