Zuheros - In which I feel like Bilbo and wander around a fairytale

Today we took a trip to Zuheros in Spain, a lovely little "pueblo blanco" whose claim to fame is its goat cheese, olive oil, and nearby "Cueva de Murciélagos" or "Cave of Bats." It was in the cave that we started our journey after a very windy trip through hairpin turns up a mountain in a bus that left more than a few people feeling a bit queasy. The fresh air at the top of the mountain was marvelous before climbing 350 stairs down into the cave and 350 stairs back up into the blinding sunlight.

This cave, which once house thousands of bats, now has very few to speak of. It is large and cavernous, with a beautiful mixture of stalactites and stalagmites working their way into columns. One particular section, called "órgano," looks like the pipes of an organ in a cathedral. Walking down into the depths of the cave made me think of the scenes in "The Hobbit" where Bilbo is lost within the Goblin Caves, playing the riddle game with Golum. However, unlike Bilbo who was wandering around in the dark, the cave was beautifully lit with flood lights, highlighting the unearthly beauty of the rocks.

 

After climbing up 350 stairs to get out of the cave, I was feeling pretty alive, if a little bit sore. We took the bus back down the mountain to the village and had a couple of hours to wander around. Unlike all the other places that I have visited in Spain, Zuheros does not have a thriving tourist industry. With the exception of a few restaurants and a small museum, the majority of the buildings were private residences. This gave the village a totally new feeling. Instead of tourists, you walked with locals. Instead of shops overflowing with postcards and jewelry, you would find the occasional bakery selling... actual bread, not fancy pastries and coffee. Despite this, the town did not disappoint because there was, as there so often is, a castle.

 When my host mother saw this photo, she laughed, saying this was the typical older Andalusian man, sitting in the sun with his cane.

 The plaza in the center of town by the castle was filled with locals, primarily older men, resting in the sun, listening to the fountain, and enjoying a slower pace of life.

 There were several "miradores," or viewing points, throughout the tone that showed off the natural beauty of the surrounding area.

 One surprise: the abundance of land rovers and range rovers. Almost every car was like this, most likely due to the surrounding farms.

 The fortress was built by the Arabs and named essentially "impenetrable fortress" because it is built on the side of a cliff with complete views or the entire area.

 In order to enter the castle, the guide had to use an enormous key that looked like it came from a fairytale. With views like this, it is not really a surprise.

In which I am like Lizzie Bennet - fond of walking

So I have been doing a ton of walking... walking to school, walking to bars, wandering through the Jewish Quarter, walking to the park. Basically whenever I get any spare time I go out walking because the weather here is gorgeous, I'm trying to learn my way around, and there are just so many beautiful things to see. I went on a long walk with a couple of friends the other day to find a bar that had been recommended to me by previous Preshquitas, Bicicleta. They don't just make drinks, they make fresh drinks. This is a piña colada where I literally watched them juice the coconut and pineapple in front of me. With drinks like this, you get to feel healthy while unwinding at the end of the day.

I have gotten a lot of city time in, but I have found myself missing the countryside just a little bit. Thankfully, one of the Preshquitas host mothers invited a bunch of us to go hiking in the Sierra this Sunday. Yes, not only is Córdoba beautiful and historic, it is surrounded by mountains. You can't fake the excitement on my face.

 In true Córdoba style, you will walk across occasional roman ruins while hiking.

 And if the history and waterfall doesn't do it for you, the scenery will. At times, it reminded me of an LL Bean advertisement.

 Afterwards, we drove back to Córdoba through the windy mountain roads, stopping at a couple viewing points of the city. This one is called mirador de las niñas.

 You can also stop at a monastery where a few monks still live to get a great view of the city and visit the large statue of San Rafael, watching over the city and protecting it from plague.

 As much as I love my natural excursion, sometimes my walks through the city of Córdoba prove to be just as spectacular. With all of this, I have found myself frequently sounding like Lizzie Bennet from Pride and Prejudice as I explain "I'm very fond of walking." But with such sights, who wouldn't be?

In which I develop a taste for coffee and have an Alice in Wonderland moment

Before coming to Spain, I would occasionally partake of a fancy Starbucks coffee that doesn't even taste like coffee anymore. That was how I liked it. I was happy that way. Since coming to Spain, I've begun to experience a change. After my first class with the native students in the University, after focusing so hard on understanding the rapid fire of Spanish from native speakers for an hour and a half, in an impulsive moment I walked up to the first cafe I could find and ordered cafe con leche. Thus has begun my love affair with coffee... kind of.

 

The truth is that I am more in love with exploring cafes and talking with friends at a nice little table than I am with the coffee, but either way I have ordered cafe con leche maybe 5 times in the last week. I started using the whole packet of sugar. In my pride, I have reduced it to half a packet. By the time I have returned to the US, I might even have a coffee addiction. But the cafes are so cute! Above is a cafe that sits right on the river, overlooking the water and the Roman Bridge. The picture below shows what the tables at another cafe, OMundo, look like. If you write something, or draw a cartoon on a napkin, they will stick it in the table. It leaves you with a wonderful sense of community as you sip your coffee.

 

 Speaking of the Roman Bridge, which I like to consider MY roman bridge, here it is. Absolutely beautiful. It is located near the Arch de Triumph in Córdoba and has a monument of San Rafael on the bridge where you can find locals lighting candles for safety and protection of family. It is always busy, always filled with people, and in some ways feels like the heart of Córdoba to me.

 In other news my school is awesome. In Art History the other day, when learning about Baroque Architecture, I learned that the building where we have class used to be a hospital. The room pictured below is where they used to store the medicine.

 As if that wasn't enough, the Professor got a key to a secret little door that was small enough that I felt I needed to eat some magic food like Alice in Wonderland to pass through. She led us into... another chapel. It's beauty is similar to so many buildings here in Spain. It comes from a mixture of cultures and architecture.

 The woman painted on the right is Saint Victoria, a martyr of Córdoba who was killed during Roman rule. She was killed with arrows, and her brother was decapitated. Seems every historic city in Spain has to have its Roman martyr.

Córdoba at last - In which I settle in a bit and fulfill some high school missions

I arrived in Córdoba a little bit over a week ago and have been spending my time wandering the streets, trying to figure out where I am, testing local bars, wondering at the old architecture, and most of all talking to the people of Córdoba.

I held off on writing this blog entry until I had some pictures of the top sites in Córdoba. Although these sights are not where I will be spending most of my time, I thought it would be a nice way to introduce everyone to the public view of Córdoba. And what better way to do that then to start with the Mezquita. Below you can see one of the beautiful ceilings in this building.

 The Mezquita was built as a mosque first and foremost, which is why the architecture is so Arabic in nature. Grand arches fill this large, open space, only broken up by what is not a Cathedral sitting in the middle of the mosque. Today, this sight is referred to as the Cathedral of Córdoba, but walking inside it was hard for me to experience it as anything other than what it was initially built for.

 Although it is a large space, the layout sometimes makes this holy sight seem infinite, in a way that makes you imagine that you can get lost in the worship that has been performed here as well as the history. I've wanted to visit the Mezquita ever since my first year in Spanish in high school, but I had never really been able to picture myself here. Being here, I still find that it feels a little bit like a dream. I only have the pictures as proof that I haven't imagined the whole thing.

 Below is the cathedral within the mosque. You can see that, although beautiful itself, it has a completely different feel than the surrounding architecture. Within it this building alone you can see the mixture of cultures within this old city.

 Within the Jewish quarter, there are many patios filled with flowers and fountains and side streets that lead you to small little nooks within the old city. This is Calle de las flores. You can only imagine how beautiful this city will be when Spring actually comes.

 We visited the Álcazar, the castle which was home to Ferdinand and Isabella. Though I found the actually castle underwhelming, the gardens are still a delight to walk around.

 From almost everywhere within the older part of the city, you can see the beautiful tower of the Cathedral. I have used this is a landmark to help me navigate, but as I walk through the streets more and more, I'm beginning to feel very at home here. I can't imagine what it will be like after 13 weeks.

Barcelona Part 2 - In which I find the ocean inside a building and wonder at sainthood

So that really cool house by Gaudí on the Block of Discord? It's called Casa Batlló and I visited it the next day. Though the entrance fee was a little bit higher than I'm usually willing to pay, this house was 100% worth it. Gaudí was at his peak artistic power when designing this house. It has ocean influences throughout, stained glass, curvy walls, and a very utilitarian set up.  For example, within the doors and windows there were small shutters that could be open and closed, but they fit in so seamlessly with the interior, looking somewhat like the gills of a fish, that I never even noticed until they were pointed out.

 The beautiful blues and pinks in the stain glass windows livened up the already calming rooms, the architecture feeling like the waves of the ocean.

 In the center of the house was a great open area with light streaming in from a skylight up top. Windows from the rooms in the center connected to it, meaning that natural light would enter even rooms nestled in the center of this enormous house. Windows near the top were smaller, windows near the bottom larger to capture more of the diminishing light. Also, Gaudí put darker tiles closer to the light and lighter ones once again on the lower levels so that the color difference between areas with more light and less would not be so stark.

 Although the inside of the house is absolutely spectacular, my favorite part was definitely the roof. With a spectacular view of the Barcelona city skyline, you are also embraced by Gaudí's whimsical architecture. In addition, that room that the woman is walking into is round, with a fountain and the echo of water encircling you as you stand there.

 After that, we walked to the Sagrada Familia. It is, of course, under construction. The church says that it has the funds to finish Gaudí's original design, but that the construction is so complicated that it has taken years and will take still more to finish. They hope to have it completed by 2026, the 100 year anniversary of Gaudí's death. Gaudí was hit by a tram. He had all of his money invested in this church, so he was wandering the streets, looking a bit like a pauper. Because nobody recognized him, he ended up in a public hospital, instead of one of the private ones someone of his status usually would have been treated at. Some people believe he would have lived had he got to a private hospital, but such was the death of the architectural giant. 

 Though the building is far from finished (2026 seems like a very ambitious deadline) you can see the beauty of Gaudí's vision in parts of the church, where stalactites are worked into the side of the church along with scenes from Christ's birth. The stained glass windows inside provide an even more stunning picture, although I did not go into the church this time.

 The next day we wandered around the Barrio Gótico before leaving for Córdoba. I could not resist trying Barcelona's most famous churros. The chocolate here is darker and less rich.

 We also stumbled onto an art fair at the base of the Cathedral.

 Just around the corner there was a parade, however, commemorating the start of the Festival of Saint Eulalia. She was a Roman who converted to Christianity, but became a martyr when the Romans tortured her. According to the story, they did such terrible things as roll her down in hill in a barrel filled with knives, and when they executed her by cutting off her head, a dove flew out from her neck.

 Perhaps my favorite part of the celebration though was the human pyramids. According to one girl I was with, they can get larger than this, but there is a tiny little child who has to climb to the top of the pyramid wearing nothing more than a helmet. 

Barcelona Part 1 - In which I find a love for all things Gaudí

Upon arriving in Barcelona, I was delighted to discover that for the first time during this trip, I had a room with a balcony with a view of something other than the inside of the hotel. Score. However, after settling down for a siesta, I was awakened by shouting and the sound of many marching feet. I walked out on the balcony only to discover a protest occurring. Since they speak Catalan in Barcelona, not just the Spanish that I have learned, I had a hard time figuring out what they were protesting at first. Within the signs was a picture of Picasso's Guernica, a bunch of rotten apples with worms coming out of them, and a sign that roughly read (again, my Catalan isn't great) everyone in 4F (4th of February) are all indignant prostitutes. So naturally I googled it. It was a protest about police brutality that traced back to February 4th, 2006, when a policeman was hit in the head by a flower pot while breaking up a street party. Though know one knew for sure who did it, 3 people were arrested, and a couple of them were tortured by the police to give testimonies that they later said were false. Another witness later committed suicide in 2011. So a lot of angst. And anger. This is of course an oversimplification of the story, but it gives you an idea of what was going on. The bell hop at the desk said there are rarely protests here. 

 The next day we took a tour of Barcelona. This is the Block of Discord, named because of the three Modernismo houses that each have their own style and compete for your attention. Here is a picture of two of them. The one on the right is Casa Batlló, which I visited later. This one was designed by the famous Gaudí.

 The outside reminds a lot of people of different things. The roof supposedly looks like a dragon, the center of the building possibly like a spine. Everything is in Gaudí's classic curvy over the top style. Though the man is now considered a genius, some people during his time hated his architecture because they believed that it was too much, and that's why we have the word "gaudy." 

 Gaudí didn't just design houses though. If you travel a little further through Barcelona you can find Park Güell (like guay). Here, Gaudí designed bridges and arches from the natural rock in the land, making his creations blend seamlessly into the landscape.

 He also built a plaza filled with seats and a beautiful view of Barcelona that looks out over the Mediterranean. All of the mosaics are made of broken materials, and the theme changes throughout the wall. He also designed three houses that are in the park, one in which he lived, another white one which is a private residence, and then the Casa de Güell, which now serves as a private school. Here you can see the children playing during recess in this famous park. The pink building on the right is their school.

 Gaudí was very utilitarian. If you look at the lions on the top of the columns, you can see that their mouths are open. When it rains, the water that settles into the benches is collected in holes and streams out of their mouths. The columns are also hollow, and water from the ground flows into them. When they are filled, the dragon bellow spews out water.

 Despite the magic of Gaudí's architecture, this is a very restful park where you can find nature in an otherwise very crowded city with very few trees.

 Later we found the best view of the city in town. It was my first time seeing the Mediterranean see. Although it was freezing, the experience did not disappoint.

The internet in Barcelona was very touch and go, so these blogs are coming to you a little late. I have arrived in Córdoba, and am exploring the city. So far it is absolutely breathtaking. I will try to catch you up on everything that has happened when I get a chance.