Hello and welcome! As promised, I have started a Blog to record certain aspects of my year abroad in Cordoba Spain. I have now been in Spain for a month as of yesterday, and in Cordoba for three weeks as of today. What happened to those other 10 days, you ask? It was a long walk to Cordoba from Madrid.
In reality, the program which I am on took our study abroad group on a 10 day tour of Spain. We started out in Salamanca, where we saw both New and Old Cathedrals, the Universidad of Salamanca with the Frog, and the beautiful Plaza Mayor. For those of you who have not studied Spanish (or have, but have forgotten), there is a frog carved into the edifice of the Universidad de Salamanca. Apparently one of the sculptors had a sense of humor. The legend says if you find the frog on your first visit to the Universidad, you will be successful during your tenure there - I believe it has something to do with the quickness of mind necessary to find the frog transferring to studying academic subjects. I'm not entirely sure how they line up, but if Luis (our tour guide that day) told it was so, then it must be true. Of course, when we arrived at the Universidad, there were already some other tour groups standing in front of it craning their necks....so we joined in. Eventually we found it, perched oh-so-happily on top of a skull, looking a little weather-beaten from the last couple of centuries. But still, I now have wonderful luck in my studies at the Universidad de Salamanca, should I ever attend.
Most unfortunately, our busy schedule only permitted us a couple of days in Salamanca before we moved on to Madrid. En route, however, we stopped in Segovia to visit El Escorial. El Escorial functions as a royal palace, a monastery, school, and mausoleum, and was built in the 1500's by Felipe II of Spain. He was extremely religious (hence the monastery), and was also the kind of person who wanted to approve every single piece of paper that had to do with the running of his country. Literally every document had to pass across his desk and receive his stamp of approval. That means military decisions, government spending, religious decrees, everything. You might say he was just a teensy bit of a control freak. Regardless, El Escorial is incredible! The building itself is a behemoth, and most of it is closed to the public (because they don't allow tours through the Monastery or school for obvious reasons), and the decoration on the inside is actually quite austere, though no less beautiful or impressive for it. The most ornamented room that we saw inside was actually the Mausoleum, where many of the Spanish monarchs are interred. Not all of them, mind you, but quite a few. One of my favorite rooms in El Escorial was the room that contained a couple of El Greco paintings, but you'll hear me rhapsodizing about his work in a bit.
After visiting Segovia, we arrived in Madrid in time for dinner. Our hotel was right on the Puerta del Sol, so we were in the middle of everything, and could here mariachi bands and street performers from our window. The next morning we did a short walking tour of the immediate area including the Plaza Mayor (very lovely, but very expensive to eat there), and wound up at the Palacio Real. Wow. The ornamentation and detail are incredible. Absolutely stunning! The walls and ceilings all have carving on them, mostly of plants and biblical or mythological references (you have to be very well-read in order to fully appreciate what's on the ceilings of this place), and there was one room where the walls and ceiling were entirely covered with porcelain! They really knew how to decorate, that's for sure!
The next day we were actually given the entirety of the day to ourselves....so I dragged some friends to the Prado and the Reina Sofia Museums. The Prado is Spain's major art museum, and it was incredible. I discovered a love of art and museums this summer while working for an art collection, and so I walked through the Prado with my jaw on the ground. One of my favorite paintings in the Museum was "The Execution of Torrijos", by Antonio Gisbert Perez, as well as the several rooms dedicated to El Greco and Velazquez. The Reina Sofia Museum is Spain's Modern Art museum, and as such they have a lot of Picasso and Dali. Did I see Guernica? No. I didn't make it that far before we had to rendezvous. I'll be back to see it, don't worry. But if you are ever interested in a surrealist movie, look up the Chien Andalouse. And please explain what it's about to me.
During our free day in Madrid we also walked to the Temple of Debod - or, rather, we visited half of it. The other half is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. The Temple was a gift to Spain and the US after they helped Egypt rescue some temples that had become flooded after a dam burst. Don't worry, though, it was a young temple, only 5,000 years old. Nothing that they really really wanted to conserve.
From Madrid we did a day-trip to Toledo. I was quite excited about this, because in Junior Year of High School in Ms. Bryant's class, we read a romance (a type of poem) about Rey Rodrigo, the king of Toledo. Rodrigo took a liking to Florinda la Cava though she did not return his feelings. Rodrigo went too far, and so Florinda told her relative the King of the Moors, who promptly invaded Spain as revenge, and so Visigothic Spain fell to the Moors. Very exciting stuff! For some reason, no one else in my group seemed to find this as vitally interesting as I did at 9am. Once in Toledo, we visited the Cathedral as well as the Sinagoga and the site of interment of the Count of Orgaz. You art buffs out there know that perhaps the most famous painting done by El Greco is The Interment of the Conde de Orgaz. Well, not only did we see the grave of the Conde, we saw the painting as well. And it is indeed a masterpiece. I wish we could have had more time to view it, but the tour marched on.
The last stop on our Orientation Tour was Barcelona. Our first day there we went on a tour of the city (yes, there are quite a few tours, aren't there? And by the end of the trip, not everyone in the group was really enjoying them fully, since they were usually earlier in the morning before it got really hot) by bus. We saw the Pedrera building designed by Gaudi, as well as his house/museum. We also stopped for a while in the garden designed by Gaudi, but it was a little too overwhelming to enjoy properly. The architecture would have been too much by itself, but when it was combined with what seemed like the entire rest of the world, I felt like crawling into a little corner where I could have some breathing room. Not the best impression, unfortunately. We did, however, get to see an amazing show while we were in Barcelona; they have a fountain in the Plaza de Espana that has a lights and music show that is synchronized with the water jets - it's like Beauty and the Beast without that trivial story about a Rogaine-addled prince and a glorified bookworm. We also went to the beach in Barcelona, and I never want to swim in the North Atlantic again! The water was warm and crystal clear - even at 20 feet deep you could see every ridge in the sand on the bottom - there were no rocks or shells, and the sand felt like velvet. I wish we could have spent more time there, but as always our Grand Progress marched onwards.
We traveled to Cordoba by AVE (high speed train) and met our host families at the train station. Throughout the ride you could feel the nervous tension in our car building as we decreased the distance between us and our home for the next few months.
To be continued.....
Yes, I could write more right now, but I think this post is quite long enough as it is. I cannot cover a whole month at once, or you all will have stopped reading by the end. So, tune in next time for such exciting topics as "My Host Family", "Choosing Classes", and, of course, "Getting Lost in Cordoba"!
Can I edit it?
ReplyDelete