The food in Spain is pretty bland.

This weekend Shayna, Kara, Melissa and I went to Granada and Córdoba. We took an overnight train Thursday night, which was beyond horrible, and arrived in Granada at 8:30 in the morning. Our hotel was really nice and the beds were super comfortable. In Granada we went to La Alhambra, which according to Wiki was the palace and fortress of the muslim rulers back when Andalucia was Al-Andalus. Ya know, back when the muslims rulled Spain. We were really tired but it was still pretty cool.

Later that night we went to this area called El Albaicín which is more of the arabic part of town and the streets are really narrow with tea houses and little shops all around. We went to one of the teterias and drank some pretty good tea and had cous cous for dinner. It was definitely one of the most flavorful things I've had here in Spain. It was a mix of sweet and spicy. Spaniards like to say that things are full of flavor, but to us American's it's actually pretty bland. They are so obsessed with not mixing flavors that it's ridiculuous. My host mom consider's black pepper to be "kicking it up a notch." They also tend to say that the south of Spain is REALLY arabic. That is also kind of an exageration. Yeah, La Alhambra was pretty arabic, but el albacín was one street that was just narrower than the rest and happened to have stores and restaurants and such. It's like saying that the west end is really "hood."
Moving on... the next day we went to Córdoba which had the feeling of a beach town just because of the architechture. Granted it was still really european but I felt that I would turn the next corner and see the ocean ! After seeing La Mezquita, which originally was a church, then when the muslims took over they turned it into a mosque and then in the reconquista they Spaniards turned it back into a catholic church again (see the first picture), we stumbled up on an outdoor festival because apparently it was Andalucia day! It was basically a bunch of hippies singing bout fair trade stuff. I was going to buy this one t shirt but it seemed kind of communist and I didn't want to wear it around Spain and then be ridiculed. But what was worse was this poor dog running around. I don't know where the owners were but it had a green stripe painted down its back and was wearing one of those cone things that dogs wear so they don't lick their stitches.


That night the festivities continued with people dressed up like halloween! But I didn't stay up too late to join in because we had to catch a train back to Valencia.
I would rate this weekend as a definite success. I had more fun than if I had stayed in Valencia! But that is also the last trip inside Spain that I'm going to be taking. I need to save my money for Morocco!

I want to also add that I can't believe it is already March. I remember just getting here and being really home sick and thinking that before I knew it, it would be March and then April etc and here is March all up in our face. These next months are literally going to fly by because after the rest of this week and the next week it's fallas which means no school for about a week. Then a week after fallas I'm going to Germany and then it's April. In April we have two weeks of school and then spring break for 12 days and my trip to Morocco then a week (or maybe two) of school and finals! Then off to London and then back to Richmond to see my beautiful/ handsome friends!

Here's another picture of Cordoba (it was taken from my hostel room)