Just blogging: Off to Córdoba!

Hello all!!

Despite the rain.. Spain always manages to shine brighter then the sun. Today we had a field trip to Córdoba, another city in Southern Spain (Anadulcia) about 1 1/2 away from Sevilla!

Roman Bridge we walked over to get to the Mezquita!!

Here we got to visit the "Mezquita," (Mosque) Sinagoga, and the Alcazar! Out of everything we visited, my favorite was the Mezquita and I'll tell you why!

So okay - the reason I fell in LOVE with the Mezquita here in Córdoba was because - well it's not just a Mosque.. there's a Cathedral inside the Mosque. Okay okay, now I know what you're thinking -- WHAAAT! How can you have a mosque and cathedral in one? Well, you can!!!!! Wait, but before we entered we were out by the gardens and there was water falling off from the roof - and since it was raining it was actually "holy water" haha coming from the prayer grounds itself, see what we did there. Too funny (See picture below!!)

La "Mezquita" is HUGE, literally enormous! Imagine how huge a cathedral is.. and now imagine a cathedral inside of a mosque. It was crazy, the first room you walked into was the prayer room of the muslims and there were over 800 red and white double arches that completely took my breath away. We had been learning about it in school and seen photos of it, especially in my art class - but now I got to see it in person for myself.
The floor of the mezquita was made in a special direction - falling parallel to other mosques that were built before this one, and also the aisles in the prayer room were arranged to the direction in which muslims pray! The "mihrab" is the sacred place where they would lead the prayer. This part of the mosque was decorated beautifully with mosaics!

Mosaics in the Mirhab

Red and White Arches!!

Vide of the main prayer room with red and white arches!!

Before I knew, we were walking.. walking.. walking.. and BOOM! BAM! There was the cathedral right there, holy smokes it's was stunning!!!! I don't think words could do the cathedral justice - the architecture of each crevice, the beautiful colors, stained glass windows.. so I'll just post a video so you can take a look for yourself and see what words you come up with! Because I guarantee you'll be speechless too! Fun fact though --the cathedral is still used actively today - it has mass every morning 9:00-10:00 AM! (See picture below!)

After the Meqzuita we went to the Sinagoa, and the Sinagoga here is one of three ancient synagogues existing in Spain.. it was really cool because inside you saw all 3 different distinct religious traces - christians, muslims, and jews (mudejar!) When you walked into the room the first wall was completely Arabic with their intricate designs, to the right there was a menorah from when the jews were there, and then if you turned left there was a cross for when the Christians came and took over! It is now

only used as a museum but it was crazy to literally walk in and see traces of all 3 religions in 1 building that was built in 1315!!!!

Video of the Cathedral in La Mezquita!!

Me in the Cathedral!

The Alcazar here was cool, but different then the one in Sevilla - it wasn't as big, but it did show just the mudejar style of all 3 different religions, it had the huge beautiful gardens as well! I'm finally catching on to it -- the three religions existing in Spain was a a big deal!! Hahaha, go schooling and education.. womp womp ;-)

Anywhos, after we finished all the historical stuff we got to have free time and explore around. It was still rainy, but we made the best of it - Me, Dylan, Maile, Alan, and Mish decided to have a photoshoot with our umbrellas in pretty little ally ways.. hahaha, why not! But, we also walked around into a buncha store and I bought this beautiful pair of silver earrings - a type of silver that is very common and typical found here in Cordoba! So now I'll have a piece of Córdoba here with me forever!

Another picture of Cathedral inside the Mosque!

It was a great day, filled with lots of information, but all interesting and we had a really cool tour guide hahaha, I love when they know english but always have a funny cute little accent, it makes me giggle.. Oh well!

(Right: Me and Dylan inside the gardens of the Alcazar)