Granada

Granada was probably my favorite city I have visited so far. Here a pretty good picture of the city. This was the last Muslim city that fell during the Reconquest and it has loads of history. The first thing that we visited is the Alhambra. It is up there with Chichen Itza in Mexico and the Colosseum in Rome. It is so sweet that it is set to replace the Hanging Gardens of Babylon as a wonder of the modern world. Here is the Gate of Justice of the Alhambra.


You can see the arch I was talking about yesterday. The shells on the side were put there by the Christians because they are symbolic of Santiago. Above the door is a key, this is symbolic for the Muslim dynasty that built the Alhambra. I'll explain it a little later. Way up top is a statue of the Virgin Mary, obviously put there by the Christians.


This is super famous part of the Alhambra. The building straight ahead is home to the throne room of the Sultan. This room had lots of cool optical effects that mad the Sultan and his throne appear to be hovering. His shape would be reflected in the pool.


After a long visit at the Alhambra we relaxed with our teachers and Diane and I went exploring in the town. There are tons of stray dogs and cats in Spain. However unlike other countries I have visited they are well fed. This is a stray cat Diane found that was ready to drive away on this motorcycle.

That night we took a wild bus ride through the streets of Granada. It was like a Disney ride with last second turns, people jumping out the way (maybe not like a Disney ride), and sudden stops. We arrived at the Gypsy caves and saw a sick Flamenco show.

It was inside their house so they were inches away from us going nuts with the Flamenco skills. Neighbors and family members would come in and just rock out with the dancers and musicians.

Yeah, that is me dancing in the end. The picture isn't that good quality because my dance moves were amazing no one could stand still. Just kidding. Kind of. I'll post more manana.

Azahar

Welcome to Tim's Blog in Spain. My Spanish Journey started over two weeks ago when my parents and I drove to the Airport in New York City. After a simple check in we waited around for Diane to come. While we waited we played travel scrabble together. Some British dude with a THICK accent and a small stutter explained to me that Madrid is freezing and that I will be cold the entire time. After the game we took some pictures and said goodbye.We landed in Madrid and after getting our bags we greeted by the site of the bombed parking garage the ETA terrorists had destroyed. It was pretty scary and a weird way to arrive. But fear not, everything was awesome after leaving the airport. Here is a picture of the garage.




After a long bus ride we arrived in our first location:Cordoba. We checked into our Hotel and learned about our two week traveling class or seminar. It was called Azahar. Azahar is the Arabic world for a certain type of white flower. The focus of the seminar would be the reconquest or when the Christians conquered Spain back from the Muslims. Cordoba was a pretty cool city. The big attraction there and the coolest thing we saw was the Great Mosque of Cordoba. It was this really old Mosque that was build there. This is the tower or minaret


When the Christians took the country back they left the Mosque standing but build this HUGE cathedral in the middle. It was kind of their way of saying, we could have torn this place down, but we'd rather build this huge cathedral in the middle. Check out this ancient Muslim arch.


I never knew this but the reason the arch is shaped like this is because it is the shape of a palm tree. Since Islam developed in the desert, the oasis was the only place of life. Palm trees grew there and hence became wicked important.

I will try to post tomorrow with more pictures from my two week pre-Madrid seminar