Tranquilo: Cordoba

I’m writing this now as I sit on one of Spain’s high-speed rail trains. At the moment, I believe I could walk faster, even in my boot and possibly even on crutches. Given that it seems my trip will take quite a while and I am sick at looking at Olive trees, I’ve put on some Dave and will recount what Saimah and I have termed our “trophy wife” day yesterday. We arrived in Cordoba from Granada on Tuesday night and so had the whole day yesterday to explore the city, which I believe we adequately did in one day. We started early in the morning by making our way to the infamous Mezquita. When learning about this hybrid mosque/cathedral in various history and Spanish classes, I was fascinated and hoped that I could one day make it there. I think Saimah felt the same way, maybe more due to the importance of its Muslim history. However, we both got there and were a little disappointed. Rather than being a “Mezquita” it really was just a church, the only remnants of a mosque being the grand brick red and white archways fitted throughout the building. Other than the arches, the rest of the building was designed like a stereotypical catholic church, making it just a weird, cacophonous mixture of architecture, which was strongly reinforced by the numerous Christian paintings of Virgin Mary and baby Jesus juxtaposed against obviously Muslim designed walls. I felt it was kinda like mixing Mango and cheddar cheese together (this was an aweful tapa I had the other day), some things just shouldn’t be mixed. And although I found the Mezquita worthwhile to see—albeit disappointing—I felt bad because I think Saimah was even more disappointed by the overwhelming prevalence of Christian faith.

After coming to Cordoba mainly for the Mezquita, waking up extremely early (really like 8 am), and making it through there it roughly 30 minutes, we decided that shopping was the next logical option to consume time. Even though we knew all the shops around the Mezquita were overpriced and geared purely towards tourists, we decided to start here first, eventually making out way into the Juderia (Jewish quartes of city). After accumulating portions of the gifts I plan to give to my family back home—Dad you are going to laugh so hard—it was time to maybe to a bit more site seeing. The alacazar was really the only other site that we wanted see in the city. After trying unsuccessfully to find it, I went up to a tourist stand and in very slow poor Spanish explained to them that I was a dumb tourist and couldn’t find the alcazar. They nodded in agreement, confirming that I was a clueless tourist, and told me to turn around for I was standing right in front of the alcazar. So I turned around and imagine that, I was right in front of a huge stone palace that was obviously the alcazar, for it spanned the length of my entire street back home. I turned back around and thanked the woman at the desk who was looking at me like I was retarded. As I turned to walk away, I caught her roll her eyes and say something to her co-worker. I chuckled at my cluelessness and for the old couple I saw wearing ponchos with a huge map obscuring their faces making their way to the tourism booth. I bet they were looking for the alcazar too.

The alcazar was beautiful, though not quite as grand nor as confusing as Seville’s. Though it did have 2 very large ponds that I thought could be turned into some very nice swimming pools with 4 or 5 lanes. I think Saimah thought I was a bit ridiculous and crazy when I mentioned this to Saimah. I think most people must see these pools as relaxing places to sit by and feed the fist rather than future swimming pools. But they could have made one Olympic size if they would have just knocked out the concrete divider between the two pools! After spending a bit longer in the alcazar we left. It was now a little before noon and we had already seen all of the city that we really wanted to see. So, we decided to go to an Arab bath. Arab baths were commonly used throughout Muslim history as places of relaxation and can be seen in many alcazars and at the Alhambra in Granada. We wanted to go a modern one here since I don’t really think they exist in the state at all. Turns out it was the best 26 euros I have spent so far and was one of the best and most relaxing experiences I have had in a very long time. I liken the Arab baths to a water-based type of spa. The pictures we saw of them showed naked people lounging in huge pools. The huge pools caught my attention. I told Saimah I was going to swim in them. She laughed and shook her head, I think hoping that I wasn’t series. On our way, I secretly stored my goggles in my purse, just in case. After we paid and that sort of stuff we were instructed to change into a bathing suit, flip flops, and given a towel. After making our way through the tiny changing room and locking all our stuff, we walked through the doors into the spa. The first room was instantly calming. The walls were a mixture of dark stone and white painted drywall that met a beautifully carved wooden ceiling. The room was composed of two beautifully tiled baths filled with ice-cold water. Each bath was lined with rows of candles, creating a vibe of pure relaxation. An open archway led to the second room. This room was much bigger with one larger pool—though not enough to really swim laps—filled with lukewarm water. On one side of the pool was a bench on which to place towels and to sit with teapots and cups placed nearby. On the adjacent side were two message tables and two neatly tailored masseuses, wearing white gear that I imagine workers at insane asylums would wear. Off to the right of the main room was a smaller, darker room that contained two smaller hot baths that looked very similar to the cold baths. Each bath had fresh water constantly following into the mix. The recommended progression between baths was from warm to hot to cold for it somehow mirrored the natural pattern of blood flow. So we started with this pattern, though no one except for me stayed in the cold baths very long. For a while I couldn’t figure out how they managed to get the water so cold because it was far colder than the coldest setting on any faucet I had every felt, but then I discovered hard chunks of something floating around, which I realized were bits of ice. Ahh so that’s how they did it. I kept jumping back and forth between the extremely hot and the extremely cold baths, for I found the transition between temperature somewhat exhilarating and pretty much just awesome. Though by the end of the time in the bath house, I was spending significantly more time in the cold bath than either of the other 2 baths. In addition to spending time in the baths, Saimah and I also had a 12 minute massage. Usually I am not a big fan of massages because I generally don’t like other people touching me unless I am dating them. However, I was able to relax enough to somewhat enjoy this massage, which shows huge progress for me because I used to not even like hugging other people.

After our lovely spa time, we went out to eat (thank God not at a Spanish restaurant), then planned out our trip to our next city, Cadiz. This consumed most of the next few hours, until dinnertime. I offered to use what little ingredients we had to try and make a decent meal. This is when the day became a little less relaxing. The kitchen in our hostel was quite deceiving in that at a first glance lit ooked like a cute, functional little place. It absolutely was not. All I was trying to make was a nice fruit salad and a tomato & cheese open-faced baguette sandwich. I thought this seemed easy enough, haha not quite. My plan of attack was to first conquer the fruit salad and then move onto the tomato sandwich. The fruit salad went easy enough, for my only challenge was fighting with dull out-dated weapons.

Task number two: sandwich. This posed a little bit more of a challenge.

Step 1: Toast the baguette. Weapon of choice: Oven.

Oops, oven doesn’t work. Hmm, well maybe a toaster.

Oh wait, no toaster. Ok, maybe toast using gas stove top.

Apparently there are no matches in whole building.

New goal: Find lighter. Uh oh. Goal achieved: found crappy lighter that barely works.

All right, so now I am trying to light the burner with a lighter, which means, given the angle, that I kept burning the back of my fingers. Ouch, ouch! I think this is also a good time to say how I am secretly terrified of fire. I hate it whenever anyone asks me to start campfires because often I’m the only one that knows how to. I try to leave the living room, pretending to get some water or something, whenever my dad is tending the fireplace because I know that inevitably I will be enlisted for help. I don’t even like lighting birthday cake candles. Essentially I try to avoid engaging in any fire related activities unless absolutely necessary. I deemed toasted bread and absolute necessity. Therefore, this was quite an unpleasant experience for me. After trying unsuccessfully to light the burner for a few minutes, another kitchen noticed my plight and probably also my shaking hands and the sweat beading down my face. She came over to help me. After a few clicks, 12 inch flames shot up from the stove top. We both screamed, jumped back, the lighter flung against the back wall of the kitchen. Not only was one dysfunctional burner lit, but two were! One was ridiculously bad because only half of it was lit and the flames were large enough to light the window curtain on fire. We quickly jumped to turn of the really bad one and in panic accidentally turned off the half-way decent one. The other girl, having had enough of helping me, quickly left. I was on my own for this one. I tried to turn the burner down. Just my luck, knob doesn’t work. I moved everything away that could catch on fire, opened all the windows because I think we were all close to being asphyxiated by the smoke. After watching the flames for a few, I turned the good burner back on. It sparked, and almost lit because the flames from the other burner were almost big enough to light it as well. I decided that part of the baguette bag was going to be my next match. Wow, that paper lit fast. After a couple tries I managed to light the other burner and turn off the deadly one. Ahh Success. And only after a few burnt fingers and almost burning the hostel down, not too shabby. The rest of the meal went pretty smoothly and the bread was deliciously toasted

After dinner, still shaken up, I went for a walk around the city while Saimah stayed on her computer. I talked to the guy down at the reception desk about good, safe places to walk. He told me he thought I would love “La calle de las flores” a.k.a “The street of flowers”. So I began my quest to find the street of flowers. After about 30 minutes of wandering through the narrow, windy, cobblestone streets, I found it. It was the smallest road that I had come across so far, barely enough to even bike through, which makes me think that this guy was maybe sending me so some sketchy place where tourists were kidnapped. Guess, I’ll find out. So I rounded the corner and ducked through the low archway. Wow. Pots of flowers lined walls, winding as ivory winds around old buildings. I slowly walked down the gorgeous street, which opened up into a small, secluded courtyard with a fountain a tree and each wall covered with climbing clematis and hanging pots of flowers. I was the only person in the courtyard and so sat on the edge of the fountain, just chilling for a few and listening to the water fall. After calming down enough from dinner, I made my way back, did some planning, and went to sleep. Overall: awesome day.