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