Cordoba!

I'm back!! Awesome. I suppose you'll want to hear all about Cordoba. So I'm gonna make you wait :P. Aren't I cruel? Haha...

Last week was a lot of fun. At the Italian Dinner, we were told about 9 or 9:30 (I have already mentioned this penchant for eating late) so we turned up at 10, just because that's what you do here. So at ten we were sitting round drinking red wine on an empty stomach, waiting for (I thought) my other flatmate and her boyfriend to turn up. Then these two italian guys came along and we had five italians, so that was cool, then this other guy turned up, turned out he was italian too, so we had six, then two more turned up, before (finally!) Emilie and Alberto (my flatmate/her boyfriend). One thing I discovered that night was how much italians LOVE to talk. And sing! But talk... oh my god. They spoke italian to each other for the whole night, and I didn't really mind because it's such a beautiful language but far out they talk fast and loudly! Then they pulled up some italian songs on youtube and sang along. It was entertaining. And the food! Aaaahhhhh....I am SO going to Italy. We had spaghetti bolognaise, except it was like nothing I've ever had before, then a fish course (served about midnight) with the best sauce and mushrooms. Yum.
Then we went out to a nightclub.

Ok, Cordoba. Amanda and I had class at 9:30 on friday morning so after that we went home to pack, eat, and turned up at the train station about 2 to buy tickets, only to be told that there was no room on the trains til 10pm, unless we wanted to go first class in which case we could go at 6:30. Gutted...we had looked at the website and there were two trains every hour to Cordoba and we thought that in winter, combined with the spanish laissez-faire attitude (or whatever the equivalent is) we'd be fine. But no. So we ended up paying about 20 euro more for first class tickets as we didn't want to turn up at 11 and find no busses and that it was too late to check into out hostal; we had a very comfortable journey. It was like an aeroplane, they even gave us food.

Once we got there we took a bus to the hostal (thankyou mum and dad for the travel guide, which perchance mentioned the street and bus route of it!) and wow it was so cool. Old architecture and made for summer so very airy, I'll chuck some photos up on facebook when we get around to sharing them. It was dark when we got there so Amanda and I went for a short walk, then to bed as we were tired from the night before and we wanted to see a lot the next day. We had breakfast at a cafe-like place, there's no real equivalent in NZ, met Giulia at the train station (we walked this time), stopped at some shops, dumped her bags at the room, and went and tried the best egg-potato thing in town. It was very nice, but the ice-cream after it was my favourite. We were at the cafes by the Mosque-Cathedral, an eighth-century mosque with a sixteenth-century cathedral suck in the middle of it. It's the place with all the red-and-white striped arches. It was well worth the 8 euro entrance fee, just gorgeous, there was even a place where you could see some of the original mosaic floor from the visigothic cathedral that was there before the mosque. Incredible.

We went for a walk and ended up at the castle of the catholic kings, which was kinda cool and had beautiful gardens. It's had a bit of excitement too, with the reconquest of granada planned there (15th century) and the spanish inquisition headquarters for a few hundred years. I made friends with a resident cat and I can't think of a better home for one, I wish my cat could live in a place like that. It was just made for them!

From there we wandered around, visited one of only three synagogues left in spain which was nice but tiny, went back past some shops, I bought some pyjamas and boots as I'd forgotten pyjamas and wanted some boots, and went back to the hostal. Then we went out for dinner! I finally had Paella and Sangria! Oh it was good! There was a power cut in the middle of our meal, it was quite exciting. Then this morning we walked around, I bought a silver bracelet as Cordoba is known for it's silver jewellery, walked around some more, and went to the train station for our (cheaper) train home. Lots of walking! Cordoba is really nice, the modern parts are clean and beautifully lit, I had an awesome time. Photos are coming I promise!

I'm gonna go have dinner now, at breakfast Giulia had butter on toast for the first time and when we asked her what she normally puts butter on she said 'pasta'. Should've known :S. So I think I'll try that tonight. Hasta luego, miss you all!

One more thing. Walking back to the hostal on Sat night, we passed these guys in some kind of military uniform, and I didn't think much of it until I noticed they had cornets attached to their belts. I miss music! I might find out if there's a brass band here....