Madinat al-Zahra and Córdoba

On our way to Córdoba we stopped in a place called Madinat al-Zahra. It was at one point the capital of Muslim Spain. The capital had been Córdoba, where they were building the Mosque, and where the mosque had been expanded on numerous times. Abd al-Rahman III build the city in just 40 years, as it is only a few km away from Córdoba, and it was at one point an incredibly beautiful statement of power. It was a city just for the royal family and subjects. It is now ruins, as you can see in the photo above, but pretty awesome ruins. They had a pool of mercury sitting in front of the throne that a slave would stir when visitors came so that the architecture, gold, etc. would reflect and dance around the room and strike awe into visitors. There was also a mosque there, baths, and only one protective wall because the other side of the city is a mountain.

Madrid cont'd

Also in Madrid, I don't have pictures so this is boring/ quick, we went to a club called Kapital. It has i think 7 floors (could be 6) and they are all differently themed with different lights, themed bars, and music. The top floor is like a chill lounge that during the summer is open air, it was covered when i went. One floor is like techno, others are hip-hop, one seemed to be dedicated to bacardi, others were just fun. The night before that on Friday we went to a place called Paris which was like a bar/club hybrid. It was fun and much more chill. We went to 2 botellóns, but one was broken up by police, which i didn't realize could happen because we thought it was legal. Anyway, everything was fine.

Madrid

My first non-IES trip was to Madrid. I went there to meet a couple friends from Bowdoin, and to explore the city. Walking around Madrid was incredible. It is just an absolutely beautiful city, and was my first experience with a metropolis since being in Granada, which is a biggish city, but by no means huge. Madrid is huge. It had a very efficient metro system, great bus system, and tons of beautiful, old, and world famous works to be seen.

The first thing we saw was the Palacio Real de Madrid, real meaning royal, not real. We waited for probably 90 minutes in line in the rain, alternating between drizzling and pouring. We were sharing one small umbrella between 3 people. It was more than worth it. First of all, it was huge. Pictures were not allowed inside, but you can get a feel of the size of it from this picture of the courtyard. It had incredibly intricate ceilings, walls, and columns all over the place. Everything was hand crafted, gold plated, complete with religious significance or mythical and legendary representation. It had rooms inside to pray, an armory, the throne room, which was unbelievably well decorated, including huge priceless mirrors which made it seem even bigger. The kings really must have lived the life. Many of the rooms were themed, like about Atlas, or gold, or porcelain. They also had some of the dining utensils that were used by the royal family, and you could see the dining room. The table was comically large and the glasses looked like I would be scared to use them for fear of breaking them or ruining the decorations.

We also went to the Prado, which is a world famous museum, and there I was actually continually stopped from taking pictures. It was impossible to get any, so I took a few from outside, but none of the actual museum itself, just of the surrounding buildings. The museum had a pretty modern entrance into a pretty modern entrance hall. Inside though it was a very old building with great and beautiful architecture as well as paintings dating back often times 4-500 years or more. It was really cool to see all that stuff and feel my appreciation for art start to develop a lot more. While I still have very little idea what is happening in paintings, the techniques, who the artists are, or what they were trying to say, I started to like the art.

This appreciation started to really develop when we went to the Reina Sofia, another museum of modern art. Modern art sucks. It truly is just arrogant, untalented excuses for artists pretending to be grand philosophers and world activists. Of course, because they are so much above you intellectually, you will not be able to understand why them drawing a line on a white sheet of paper and calling it "line on paper" is so profound.

Of course, I generalize. Some of the art is complex, although rarely beautiful or worth looking at. The good thing, though, about being in a city as old as Madrid is that the modern art museum is where we saw the Picasso paintings, including Guernica, one of his most famous works. It is also there where we saw the exhibit of Salvador Dalí, who, while I didn't know before, is now one of my favorite artists. Photos were permitted here. I took some. The top photo is by Dalí, a really interesting piece, and the photo on the empty plate is of Hitler. This was painted in the 30's before the outbreak of WWII which is one thing that makes it interesting. The bottom photo is Guernica.

We also stopped by the Cathedral of Madrid. It was big and impressive, but nothing compared to Sevilla, and because it was so recently afterwords, I found myself slightly disappointed. It was cool though because we thought it was closed, but really just the store/museum was closed and the entrance to the Cathedral itself was open. So we didn't learn all the history and see all the artifacts, but the cathedral was awesome. This is one of the cooler paintings under one of the cooler pieces of stained glass, so...It's extra cool.

The last thing we did before leaving, literally walking with our bags (which were backpacks) because we had checked out of the hostel, was go to the open air market. It was literally over a mile of shops on one street, and it had offshooting streets and plazas where the other shops, often times more expensive ones were. It was just tons of stuff to buy sitting for cheap prices in the streets. After a while you realized that the wares were sort of repetitive, bags, shoes, tshirts, belts, hats, etc. But there were tons of stands that were at least somewhat unique, if not completely original. This is a picture of the crowd. It was literally impossible to go against the flow, you just got rushed along, and the only way to take a break was to step into one of the tents/stands for a moment, and then get pressured into buying something and fleeing before you had to.

Well that took longer than I thought, so I am going to take a break. Check back soon (tomorrow?)

Inspired by the Madrid flea market we searched for the one in Granada, which is almost better. It is smaller, less impressive, and has less options, but it is manageable and navigable. Also, it's close to us. We were able to find sweaters there to go out in and look euro/classy/stay warm. It is right near the fútbol stadium so we were able to see that as well. I still want to see a Granada game, but it may be a let down after seeing the All Blacks play Scotland (more on that later).

Granada

Granada, while far from home both physically and in a lot of ways including food, culture, schedule, mindset, language, dress, and almost everything else you can imagine, has become a place I am at least comfortable and having a blast. I have come to understand a lot of my classes and have grasped the language, at least as far as listening goes. My speaking still leaves a lot to be desired, as does my ever more apparently small vocabulary. I was able to go to one party at an appartment with a bunch of spanish speakers, mostly spaniards and one mexican, but also many americans from a different program. That was, unfortunately, my only run in with them, but it was a good experience. A few things make a city feel more like home, and one obvious one is routine. We have found a club, finally, that is not super touristy, but touristy enough that we are allowed in, unlike Mae West, Principe, and a couple others. It is one of the coolest places i've been to, let alone clubs, so we go there all the time. It is sort of a bummer that it has become a little cliche because it is so incredible, but shit happens. It is called camborio, it looks out over the Alhambra from up in the hills of the Albayzin. During the night with the lights shining, the city on the ground beneath it, and a couple drinks in you, It is worth checking out. Our program, IES, has organized a few events to sort of help get us together and intigrate a little into the community. One was open mic night where people just got up and sang or read a piece. While this was supposed to be multicultural it was almost all people from our program, and everyone but one performer spoke/sang in english. It was still fun though.

Our classes also consistantly focus on specifically Granada, their culture, history, and how the city itself ties into the class. One of my classes is specifically about art and architecture in Andalusia, and we take a field trip every week. This picture is sort of a lame one, but the place was very cool. It was a room used to store water, and from there the water was distributed to the city. In all of my classes it is repeatedly stressed how important water was for Muslims in their culture, and Granada was a Muslim city until 1492, the last Muslim kingdom before the Expulsion.

I have learned a lot about the city, its history, and its buildings. I could probably be a tour guide.

Parada de la Virgen

I know it has been too long since i updated this blog, especially since some followers do not have facebook. I'll put up some pictures, and try to tell about the last month, even though so much has happened this seems like an insurmountable task. A lot has happened in Granada and I have become a worldly traveler...actually. This is a picture of a parade in Granada where they celebrate the virgin of Granada by carrying her down the street and around the town before placing her back in her place in the church. Tons of people watched from balconies, the streets, etc. It was really interesting if not that much fun. They also had a special cake called the Torta de la Virgen (virgin's cake) that they only make 2 days out of the year. It was really not that good, we got it all excited, but then we realized, if it was good enough to make all year round, they probably would.