Cordoba

Prayer: my computer is being super lame (aka. having a virus) so I sent it to a computer place and they were going to reboot it and put everything in Spanish, hah. But then the power cord decided it would stop working. So, it´s just a big hassle.

OK, so two weekends ago we made a quick weekend trip to Cordoba. We arrived by train and set off for our hostel. It was the first experience I had stayed in a hostel and it ended up being one of the best nights sleep since I have been here, funny huh?? The first day we visited the Mezquita which is a huge Cathedral that was built by the moors and it is not hard to see the moorish influence. We randomly met up with some of my roommates friends who are also living in Spain. We spent a lot of time touring the city with them. It was a good time just to see the city. It was really pretty. Here´s some photos.

Our amazing hostel! It was so warm and the beds were so comfy. Although there were 7 other people in the room it was such a good night sleep.

La Mezquita

We are using the reflection from the glass windows above.

View from afar of the Mezquita and the city.

El Alcazar...gardins in Cordoba

Mariposa - Butterfly

View from the top of the gardens

MIghty Mouse

Ok, this is kind of dumb but I have to write about it. Since I didn't have work today I decided to go for a run after I woke up. I ran to a tennis club just to check on availibility of lessons and costs. I showed up and walked around the courts but no one was there. So I looked a the information board. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a little tail whip around the corner as a quite large mouse bounced across the grass into a bush nearby. Two minutes later it came out of the bush and started running at me which made me want to run for my life. Anywho, it then ran to a nearby corner of the house. To myself I thought, "oops, your stuck, no where to go." OH, how wrong was I. It took a little leap a started to climb the wall. I seriously could not believe it, it was amazing. It scaled the wall and jumped over the fence into the backyard of the house. It was amazing and a little scary that a mouse is capable of scaling walls. yikes!

This is for you Julie!!

JULIE, you will be excited to hear about this. A friend of mine who just happens to be from Mercer Island (crazy!) and I have had the desire to sing lately. SO, why not join a local choir? This last monday we decided to go sit in on the choir practice which ended up with us actually joining in with the choir. The question is...what am I doing? I have no idea but it´s worth the try, right? Julie, all your voice lessons are popping into my head, I love it. However, I have to point out that the director of the choir dresses in all black and reminds me of someone who is from the Adams Family. He´s so serious and normally looks really pissed at the choir and rolls his eyes. I had to hide my face half of the time because I was dying inside, whew. The choir is mainly people over 45 with a couple of younger peeps here and there. Maybe we´ll get some free meal offers. We´ll see what happens with this but it is fun to try it out.

My First Spanish Date (HAH)

Yea, we are leaning over because the camera wasn´t pointed in the right direction...there´s the explanation, muah.

Hilarious because about 2 weeks ago I was talking with one of the teachers in my school saying I really want to speak more Spanish and get to know more Spanish people. She all of a sudden was like, “OH, really, you want to meet other Spanish people? Perfect, I will introduce you to my son!” (all in spanish, of course, ha). Oh yea…her son just happened to be 29. Anywho, he came to school this last week to meet and have coffee with me…oh, and with his mom and many other teachers. Not awkward at all. Actually, it turned out to be quite fun. On to the date, he picked me up after school and drove me to Cadiz, the capital of our province. He took me to a restaurant and showed me some more typical food, fried fish mostly. Then we walked around Cadiz, as I had my own personal history guide, and climbed to the top of the cathedral, walked to El Castillo de San Sebastian (castle), and talked in Spanish the whole time. It was lots of fun and good to finally to have a full conversation in Spanish. We spoke for at least 4 hours. It will be nice to have a friend to call or do stuff with. Anywho, nice guy and he will be a good FRIEND!

This is at the top of the cathedral.

View from the top...again.

This is the view of El Castillo de San Sebastian in the distance. I guess in this exact place near the water is where Haley Berry climbed out of the water in James Bond in her scandelous swimsuit. I guess everyone was standing right where I was just screaming and yelling when she came out, haha, funny.

Some cute little boats floating in the water...just to the right there were a bunch of cute little boats floating on land because of the tide, ha.

The walkway to San Sebastian.

There is the castle behind me...

La Comida Tipica

This last weekend we got the chance to hang out with one of my roommates students, Manuel…sounds bad, but he is 38 years old. It was really fun because he showed us some really neat places and I finally got to try some typical food. The meat here is SO good. It’s not like the meat in the US, which can be dry and lean (depending…) but it has SO much taste and it was sooooo juicy (sabroso). It was amazing. Actually, every night this last weekend we went out with Manuel and he showed us a new place every time. I love it, but it ended up to be an expensive weekend….can’t do that all the time!

We went to a bar that was basically right on this beach. The beach came right up to the doorway. It was really nice.

Feliz Halloween!

Here's my sweet halloween costume. I am supposed to be a pirate but I'd say I also resemble a lost boy! I just threw together a lot of things I actually would wear and it worked. Except I must point out that this white shirt is not mine! haha. We had a crazy night speaking a lot of spanish so that was REALLY good. However, another late night in Spain. I really do not know how they do it. So weird!