Córdoba

After a fabulous day in Madrid it was time to go to my real destination, Córdoba. Córdoba is a smaller, but much older, city in the south of Spain. It is in an area called Andalucía. Andalucía is what you would picture Spain to be. Here they have siestas and bullfighting. The city of Córdoba is the second oldest city in Europe, after Bologna. It was the Capital when the Romans where here and also when the Muslims were here. The historical part of town in beautiful and has tiny medieval roads and architecture. There’s also a famous, beautiful mosque turned cathedral here that we will visit later on the field trip.

There are two options to get to Córdoba from Madrid, take an expensive, quick train or a cheap, slow bus. We chose to take the bus. We looked up directions to El Estacion Sur (the Madrid bus station) and it estimated it would take 30 minutes, so we planned on leaving the hostel 70 minutes before our bus left. It's a good thing too cause of course we got off on the wrong stop. Of course we got lost. Of course a kind Spanish lady stopped to give us directions in Spanish. And of course, when we finally figured out where we were going, we had 25 minutes to make a 30 minute walk with at least 70lbs of luggage each. Needless to say I was really tired when we finally got there. We were taking the 10:00 bus and we got there at 9:55. However, in typical Spanish fashion, the bus didn't even leave until 10:20 anyways. I have never napped so well on a bus. 

As soon as we got off the bus we met up with 4 more EAP'ers and headed to the Hotel. Once we got settled and checked in with our families we went to the medieval festival. The festival was huge and crazy busy. There were a ton of little stands and people everywhere. People selling food, drinks, candy, and other types of things. The best analogy is that it kind of had the feel of the fair, with food and crowds, but it was way cool and a lot more cultural. Some of the vendors were dressed in medieval gear and it was kind of set up as if it were a medieval fiesta/fair of some kind. There was this one crazy guy who was straight up dressed like a centaur/faun. He had a really intense outfit and had fake ears and horns that were on his head. They were so well done they looked real! He was playing the bagpipes and a couple other medieval dressed people were playing some drums. The centaur was dancing around and everyone was watching him. 

All in all. I loved Madrid but I also love Córdoba. The Spanish people in general are so nice here. I am really excited to spend 4 months here.