This Weekend

Hola,

so life's been pretty good. I've been getting lots of work done for the most part, at least more than lots of people. It is so hard to do work here. You just don't wanna do it!! There are some people in my group that are taking these classes as only PASS/FAIL...I am so jealous. My grades are actually counting towards my GPA, so I have to do at least ok!! Anyway, I am not too worried, the teachers here also realize that we are taking classes in a different language and are also here to have fun, so they understand a little. Anyway, here's how the weekends gone.
Thursday most people just kinda hung out at home and did lots of work because Friday we had to get up early to go on our day trip to Cordoba. That's pretty much what I did, but Carrie's dad was here so I went to meet them for dinner and then we walked around a little bit to show him a bit more of Granada. Friday we got up at 6:30 am to meet our group at 7:30. Cordoba was a good trip but not as fun as some of the other trips IES has taken us on. We first went to the city of Madinat al-Zahra. They are ruins from the Califa Abd al-Raham III city built around 930 and destroyed around 1100. It took only 40 years to build, but then it was destroyed in about 2. It's about 10 miles outside of Cordoba. It was tradition that when you were a Califa, you built your own city to show power and strength, so when Adb al- Rahman III declared himself Califa, he needed to do the same. Abd al-Rahman I came to Cordoba to get away from the Califa family in Baghdad because they had killed his entire family and he didn't want to follow people who assassinated his family. But he was just an Emir (governor kind of) so from Abd al-Rahman I until Abd al-Rahman III they were just Emirs, but independent of the Califa in Baghdad, when finally the III decided he had enough money to declare himself Califa. Ok anyway just a little history for ya. So this was his city. It was only rediscovered in 1911 so until then this city, after it's destruction, was only a myth to many people. And only about 1/10th has been excavated so far. It is a really important archaeological find because since this city was unknown for such a long time, it has no other influences from other cultures disturbing it. It is truly a city from 929! Most of it is in Ruins and being reconstructed but there is plenty of cool things to see. Hopefully that facebook link worked and you can check out the pictures. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2670403&l=42b65&id=9380060
Then we went to see some of the Jewish section of Cordoba. We saw the last Jewish courters left before the Jews were expelled out of Spain. We were suppose to go see the oldest Synagogue, but it was closed. This trip wasn't planned as well as some of the other ones...so we just went to the sephardic/andalusian jewish museum. It was cool we saw this guy perform traditional Andalusian Sephardic Jewish music! I bought some.
After the museum we went to the Great Mosque. It was pretty incredible. All of the classic red and white arches were there and standing strong! haha. It's funny to see how a Cathedral is built RIGHT in the middle of the Mosque. You can totally tell when you go from one area to the next. I took a ton of pictures so I hope that link works.
That was it, that was our day in Cordoba. Oh I forgot to mention that I had a headache the entire time, so the trip for me could have been better. Then we traveled home because we had a Flamenco Show to go see for our Flamenco Class....well we all rushed and ate dinner faster than ever so we could make it to the show. Well turns out it was CANCELED! which i was bummed about because I wanted to see it, but I was also relieved cause I felt like shit to be honest. My head was killing me. so luckily I got to go home and go to bed. Carrie on the other hand went out till 5:30 the next morning!!! They went to the club that I have been dying to go to!!!! I am bummed by head hurt
Anyway, Saturday was a good day, we did lots of homework during the day, but at night IES was having an Open Mic Night as this club/bar called Entresuelo. It was so neat. I loved seeing IES students get up there and do stuff..some people sang, played guitar, read poetry etc. It was cool to see some peoples talents that I hadn't know about before.
After that Carrie and I and some other people went to this club called 380. It's our favorite Tapas bar because the Tapas are sooo good. We hung out there till they closed, like 1ish i think, then went to Hannigans. It's an Irish pub and we met this guys from Malaga and sat with them until 3. It was really fun, we spoke with them mainly in Spanish so that was great. Carrie was really tired so we decided to leave.
Today I have lots of work I still need to get done, but tonight I am meeting my Spanish Intercambio!!! Her name is Ana and she is also 21, but I think she's graduated and doing graduate school. I'll let you all know how it goes later! Wish me luck, I am kinda nervous!
Love Always
Kate