So it's been forEVER since I blogged last. Por eso hay muchas cosas that I haven't told you about yet. Muchas muchas cosas! So I will devote this post to a bunch of highlights of all the things I've been doing instead of detailed accounts of a few things.

First on the list: Cordoba. I went there long long ago, at the end of October actually. We visited lots of beautiful monuments, like the Cathedral which used to be a mosque and is one of the largest in the world. You walk in and there's a veritable forest of columns topped by the famous striped double arches, and if you look diagonally at the right angle you see paths everywhere. I felt, once again, like I was in an art history book. We also visited an old castle with large gardens all around, and walking along the battlements made me want to be a princess ... or at least really rich so I could buy a castle and pretend to be one on the weekends or something. There was one neighborhood, the old Jewish quarter, that they called the Juderia, which really amused me. I will tell you why. When you add the suffix -eria to a noun, it means a place where they sell that thing. A "fruteria" is where they sell "frutas," a "cafeteria" is where they sell "cafe," and a "juderia" is where they sell "judios," no? That's at least how it struck me. Very pretty city, all in all.

Next up: the Alhambra. Also very pretty, and kind of the reason I chose Granada. Or, at least, related to the reason, that being the unique and wonderful Moorish history here. You can see this history all around you in the Alhambra, from the ancient and beautiful Arabic tracery on the walls to the huge Renaissance square the Christian king Charles V dumped in the middle. There are fountains running through the whole palace, powered by none other than our simple friend gravity. The builders of the Alhambra were so genius that they connected all the fountains and pools to one another, organizing it so that the water naturally flows gracefully from one patio into the next without any outside help. The most famous patio, the Patio de los Leones, was under construction while I was there, and I was disappointed by it anyway, and I would have been had it been functional. It was so much smaller than I expected! But other than that small disappointment I loved the place.

The weekend after that I went to Barcelona, which I've already told you about, so I will skip that here.

After that came my roommate Julianne's 21st birthday! Her mom was in town for the week, and she actually came out with us to celebrate. She acted more like a friend than a mom, or rather a great mix of the two. We went to a couple bars, and although we didn't expect her to Julie's mom even went with us to the discoteca! A good time was had by all.

Then there was Thanksgiving, Spanish style. Our group directors gave us a dinner in a restaurant, where we would presumably have typical Thanksgiving food. It was a very nice gesture ... but the food was a sincere disappointment. We had some very tasty appetizers (tomatoes with some sort of sauce), but then a very salty soup, and then it was time for the main course. They brought out the plates, and I wouldn't have known the meat was turkey had I not been expecting it. It was more like turkey loaf cut in the shape of a steak, and whatever gravy they had covered it in was odd. The potatoes that came with it were some sort of weird cheesy puree, not bad exactly, but certainly not right. Last we got some pumpkin pie covered in powdered sugar with cream on the side, and that was the best part of the meal. It was delicious and tasted right. The only problem with the pie was that there wasn't enough of it. Nor was there enough food in general, to my way of thinking; I was only normally full, not so stuffed I could barely move like you're "supposed" to be after Thanksgiving dinner. It was a fun dinner, though; I just wish the food had been better.

The next day we left for Sevilla, whence I have just returned yesterday. We wandered over a fair amount of the city, through parks and castles, and learned about Sevilla's history with World Expos and sailing schools. We toured the Cathedral, which was beautiful and very very Gothic and contained some of the remains of Christopher Columbus (the rest might be in the Caribbean, but it hasn't been verified). There were large lovely stained-glass windows, pointed arch groin vaults, and flying buttresses and all that jazz. While we were there a rehearsal of a children's choir was in progress, and they were doing dances that have remained the same since the 15th century. Very cute. We went up the tower via 37 ramps -- ramps because the king who had it built wanted to ride his horse all the way to the top instead of walking. There were some breathtaking views of the city from the top, and lots of big bells staring down at me. Saturday night some friends and I went to a bar to see a great flamenco show: Sevilla being more or less the flamenco capital, we thought it was appropriate, and it was quite good. The last place we saw was the Plaza d'Espanya, a big plaza and buildings built for the 1929 World Expo, which was a disaster (think about October of that year), but the building was lovely. Around the arms of the monument are ceramic representations of each important city in the country, each with something special to that city and a map showing where it is. Needless to say, the Granada one was very popular with our group.

So that's a summary of the past several weeks, or at least the excursions contained therein. Hope you enjoyed it! I'll be home in two and a half weeks .... I honestly don't know what to think about that.

Besitos!