Monday in Córdoba

I’m not sure why Seville is the more famous city in Andalucía, because Córdoba has it beat hands-down.  Its history is every bit as illustrious as its larger competitor, but it’s clean and smaller, so it has a quaintness about it that eludes Seville.  Pre-urban settlement existed there in the 8th century B.C., then the Romans conquered it in 206 B.C. and made it the Roman capital of the Iberian peninsula.  After the fall of the Roman Empire, it became a Christian city, and in 711 A.D. it was conquered by the Moors who made it their provincial capital city.  It is estimated that in the 10th century and beginning of the 11th century, Córdoba was the most populous city in the world and during these centuries became the intellectual center of Europe.  Córdoba had 3,000 mosques and received what was then the largest library in the world, housing from 400,000 to 1,000,000 volumes.  Who knew??

Cathedral Tower

Bishop's crest mounted over Arabic

During the renaissance Córdoba lost its population and by the early twentieth century only had about 20,000 inhabitants, but it has since grown to about 330,000 people.  Being the smaller city in the shadow of Seville, it has managed to keep its charm.  The narrow, winding streets with potted plants create the photo-image that most people have of the Andalusian region.  And like Seville, it has some of its original medieval city walls and gates.

But the thing for which Córdoba is most famous, and what I was completely in awe over, is the mosque.  Its interior striped arches are possibly the most recognizable image of Spain and for good reason.  They are completely mesmerizing.  During the height of the Moorish rule, the mosque was built on top of the foundations of an earlier Christian church, and over the centuries was added onto to become the enormous mosque complex that it is today.  



Flemish style vaulted ceiling atop Arabic arches





But when the Christian Iberians retook the city, they converted the mosque into a cathedral.  They removed the center of the mosque and put in a taller, soaring section that projects past the roof of the old mosque with clerestory windows all around.  But the mosque, being as enormous as it was, still wraps completely around the Christian section of the building with 856 columns, so the floor plan flows easily between church and mosque.  What remains is a fascinating collision of Arabic and European styles, like I’ve never seen before.  The cathedral in Seville was a similar conversion, but the contrast of styles is not nearly as stark, because the cathedral there is predominantly Gothic.  I was enthralled by the Mezquita-Catedral of Córdoba. 



Chris - Christian ceiling & Arabic walls



Collision of styles



Outside the Mezquita-Catedral, I took a photo of Chris standing next to one of the weather-worn gothic foundations across the street.  Then we had lunch on a sidewalk cafe and enjoyed the beautiful weather. 

While we were there, I snapped some photos of blue painted flower pots hanging from the white-washed walls across the street.   Córdoba is such a charming city.

Inner courtyard (I can't figure out how to rotate this picture!)

The streets of the old city are extremely narrow here, some so narrow that a subcompact car couldn't drive down them.  But the style of Andalucían architecture isn't designed for the exterior, it's designed to focus views inward, so the result are really beautiful inner courtyards in every building.  And while walking down those narrow streets, front doors are often open to reveal the quaint gardens inside.

Sevilla

Cathedral bell tower

We took the bullet train from Madrid on Friday afternoon and arrived 2.5 hours later in Seville.  What a contrast between Madrid and Seville!  Andalucía has a rich, historical culture that is uniquely different from the rest of Spain.  The region was the stronghold of the Moors when they controlled the Iberian peninsula, and the Arabic influence is still very strong in the architecture and music of the region.  Seville is also much dirtier than any city I've been to in Spain!

a view of the ceiling inside the cathedral

The cathedral is MASSIVE.  It is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and third largest church in the world.  The interior is unlike any church I've ever seen.  It is so huge that there isn't one single nave and altar.  It has enormous areas where people just mill around and it has 80 side altars, one of which is a large church unto itself.  The cathedral started as a mosque in the 1100s, was Christianized in the 1200s, was added onto, earthquake damage, dome collapses, blah, blah, blah ... It has evolved over time into a behemoth

Notice how massive the interior column are ins

building that showcased Seville to the world at the height of it's (and Spain's) power, when Spain was shipping back boatloads of gold that they sacked from the Americas.  Port of entry:  Seville.  The city got fat and rich, and it shows.  Unfortunately for Seville however, when Spain lost it's empire, the city slid off into obscurity, never to regain it's former prominence.  

Isla Mágical building at Expo '

Expo '92 was in Seville to coincide with the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.  Spain's first bullet train was built connecting Seville and Madrid.  Seville built a great site for the event on the South bank of the Guadalquivir River, which had once been the docking spot for hundreds of galleons loaded with riches from the new world. 

Great suspension bridge build for Expo '92 over the Guadalquivir River

Time has not been kind to the campus of Expo '92

However, like Expos around the world it seems, the campus has fallen into disrepair and is a shabby reminder of a great event twenty years ago.  There are a couple of nice modern bridges and at least one cool building remaining.  Expo '29 had also been in Seville, but it's campus has fared better with time.  It has some great old pavilions from all of the countries in the Americas.

Espacio Metropol Parasol

Chris wanted to go see a modern sculpture/building in one of the plazas of the old city called the Espacio Metropol Parasol.  I thought it only seemed mildly interesting by the description, but I humored him.  When I got there, I was blown-away by it.  It is the best modern structure in the city!  It is an enormous organic sculpture that completely fills the plaza and it's juxtaposition against the older facades around it creates an amazing experience. 

 The textures and shape of the sculpture, along with the voids, both in it and in the plaza around it, make it the best-situated modern sculpture I have ever seen anywhere.  And as I was looking at it and walking through it, I didn't realize that it was made out of wood, glued together and sealed with polyurethane.

P.S.  I made a life's discovery this morning in the bathroom of my hotel room:  when 50-something years old, one should never look into a concave mirror. 

Sevilla tomorrow

It's been a week of school drudgery, but tomorrow we're taking the AVE bullet train to Sevilla and Córdoba.  Monday is a national holdiay here:  The feast day of Saint Somethingorother ... , so Chris and I are taking the long weekend to spend two days in Sevilla and one in Córdoba.  Andalucia is the really old part of Spain.  Having been controlled by the Moors for centuries, there is a lot of Arabic influence there, not only in the culture and architecture, but the people themselves are partly of Arabic ancestry.  The Arabs brought education and culture to a rather crude Iberian peninsula, but their tenure here had always been adversarial with the Christian natives.  After fighting back and forth for centuries, Ferdinand and Isabela finally expelled the Moors once and for all and converted their mosques into churches, erasing the Moslem religion from this end of Europe.  Uber Católico as they were, they went on to start the Spanish Inquisition in an attempt to eliminate any non-Catholic elements from Spain.  While Spain thrived as an empire during this period, human rights took an ugly turn for the worse.  The Spanish conquistadors who conquered and settled Latin America, mostly came from Andalucia and hence it was their culture which dictated what the culture of the (Spanish) new world would be.  So we'll see you in Sevilla mañana ....

Valencia's old city

Valencia has always been an important port city for Spain on the Mediterranean Sea.  The Torres de Serranos was completed in 1398 and was one of the old gates to the medieval city.  The walls of the city have long since been lost, but the gate remains not only in tact, it's in excellent condition.  Chris and I were able to tour the whole fortification, climbing it all the way to the top and getting some great pictures.  It was fascinating to see how the gate had redundant securities to fend off invaders.  Trying to charge the gate would have been virtually impossible.

View down the front of the city gate

View from atop the city gate

Walking around the old city was a lot like seeing Madrid's old city, but more intact, because Valencia didn't experience the growth over the centuries that Madrid did.  However, like medieval cities everywhere, all of the less important buildings were torn down and replaced over the years.  What remains are almost exclusively churches and government buildings.  

We toured a couple of churches; one while mass was going on.  Unlike Madrid, the ribbed vaulted ceilings, walls, and gothic columns inside the churches are the original raw stone instead of elaborately decorated plaster.  They're really quite beautiful in their rustic finish.  As with all of these things, a photograph doesn't adequately capture the experience.  In the cathedral, a priest was sitting in an old-fashioned confessional, awaiting a customer.  As we walked by, I contemplated the advantages of confessing to a priest who doesn't speak English.  One could really unload some major stuff ...

Since Valencia invented paella, Chris and I had to have it for dinner at least one night while we were there.  So last night we had our ceremonial, traditional meal of chicken and rabbit paella among the faithful.  Unfortunately, we left the camera's memory card back in the hotel room, still in the laptop ... sigh.  I don't think that I was made for this century ...

Next weekend is Las Fallas in Valencia, which is a Mardi Gras-like festival where neighborhoods in competition with each other, build wood and papier mâché sculptures.  They satire political figures or are simply make cartoon characters, but the design and execution of the sculptures are very good.  In the end, the winner of the competition is named and the rest are heaped into bon fires.  This weekend however, they were busy erecting their caricatures all over town.  As we watched the lengths at which the citizenry was going to put on this production, and all of the food and beer vendors that were setting up in the plazas, Chris and I were glad we weren't going to be there for the event!  The festivities hadn't even started and cherry bombs were going off all over the place ...

At 4:10 P.M., we hopped on the AVE bullet train and headed back to Madrid.  It was a great weekend, but like all weekend excursions, it's always good to get back "home".

Saturday afternoon in Valencia

The flags of Spain, Valencia Province, and the European Union

I've never been to Valencia before, because until about twenty years ago, there wasn't much going on here but heavy shipping and other things of non-interest to tourists.  But with a metro area of about two million people, it is the third largest city in Spain.

















When Spain experienced an economic boom in the 80s and 90s, Valencia made big strides in business development, transportation and communications.  And in the last two years, the bullet train opened between here and Madrid.

 Consistent with their newly found place in the world, they built the City of Arts and Sciences near the mouth of what was the river emptying into the sea.  Now this is the Spanish architecture that I was hoping to find in Madrid!  The campus of the "city" has individual buildings for the arts and sciences, and  Chris and I walked around the outside of the buildings today to experience the "space".  These are photos of what we saw.

Along with a lot of new high and mid-rise buildings, this new centerpiece area gave this frumpy old port city and decidedly new image.  The juxtaposition of the old and new, together with a more relaxed pace, make Valencia a great, livable city!  Tomorrow we're going back to Madrid, but before we go, we're going to see the heart of the old city ....

Friday and Saturday morning in Valenica

Until yesterday, I was a bullet train virgin, but that all ended at 2:10 PM.  Woooosh!  At 300 Km/H (186 MPH) it took 1.5 hours flat yesterday to get to the Mediterranean from Madrid.  For those of you who were thinking something akin to the mile high club, sorry to disappoint; I'm talking about my first bullet train ride.  The tracks are exclusively used for the AVE bullet trains, with very few bends and no stops along the way.  Each car has an speedometer so that the passengers know how fast the train is going, and Chris snapped this photo when it hit 301 Km/H.

Windmills in LaMancha from the AVE bullet train

From the AVE bullet train

Originally a Roman outpost built in 138 B.C., Valencia is a charming old city with some great new modern buildings.  The city was devastated by a flood in 1957, so the river that originally ran through it was diverted around the city, and the riverbed converted into a linear park.  Winding through the old city with old, beautiful bridges crossing what was once a river, the sunken park is a fantastic urban recreational area.  What a great idea!

At the front gate of the "compound"

In homage to Teresa, Mary, and Pat, I dragged poor Chris this morning through a tour of the Lladro factory in a dumpy neighborhood on the outskirts of town.  I've always been very interested in ceramic sculpture, so I was very interested in seeing the process of the great Lladro maestros.  The tour was limited however, and they unfortunately didn't show me anything that I haven't done myself.  We then toured their extensive showroom.  While their "bread and butter" business is the figurines that made them famous, they're also turning out pieces these days that ain't your mama's Lladro.  They are producing pieces from outside artists as well as their own more current designs.  I wasn't interested in buying their traditional pieces, but I did buy a bisque figurine of two fútbol (soccer) players, not because I care so much about the sport, but because the detail of, and the movement in this particular sculpture are so amazing.

We're going to see some modern architecture this afternoon ... more to come.

Going to Valencia

Sorry for not posting any entries of late.  I have really been sick with an intestinal virus, but I think it's okay now.  I missed three days of school though.  Chris and I are going to Valencia tomorrow, so I'll have a lot to post this weekend.

China

Barf.  Last night and today I have felt really sick.  Chris took my temperature and I was 38.5 degrees ... eek!  I'm a reptile!  Then he did the conversion to Fahrenheit and it was 101 degrees.  The fever broke during the night, but I still feel sick.  I'm so tired of getting sick since I've been here ...

The largest single nationality at my school is Chinese.  I partly chose this school because there are very few Americans and Brits, so I wouldn't fall back on English.  But I've found since I've been here that the whole world speaks English.  The method of teaching at Enforex is to not give the translation for a word, but rather to explain what the word means in Spanish and figure it out that way.  But when students in my class just can't get it, they all look at me and ask me for the English word.

Chinese students are markedly different today than when I was in school 30-some years ago.  Thirty years ago, they were very reserved and quiet and it was difficult to relate to them.  Today, they act like Westerners.  They're outgoing, social, and completely up-to-speed on popular culture, economics, and technology.  China is aggressively developing a market for their products in Latin America and Spain, so a lot of Chinese students are learning Spanish.  One of them told me that the ability to speak English is now just expected of college graduates in China and no longer a "feather" on their resume.  So Spanish is the next language opportunity for Chinese students coming out of college.

Last week in class, we were practicing the imperative use of verbs and the teacher used the example of a genie with a lamp for us to practice commands.  So we went around the room, pretending that we were Alladin, telling the genie what we wanted.  The first student out was Chinese and said that she wanted money.  As we went around the room, the Western students were asking for things like happiness, health, and peace.  But without exception, the three Chinese students blurted out that they wanted money.  The exercise was becoming a bit awkward, but the Chinese students seemed to be unaware of that.  And I realized that it just reflected where China is today;  they're running headlong toward materialism, but with an unevolved mentality.

I've been both fascinated and afraid of China for a few years now.  Napoleon Bonaparte said of China:  "There, is a sleeping giant. Let him sleep! If he awakes, he will shake the world.".  The Chinese are eager and hungry to make their mark in the world, and now they have the means to make it happen.  While attitudes in the West are evolving away from excess, their minds seem to be in a place of unabashed ambition.  Naked aggression in an unevolved, but powerful society is a scary thing.  And I, for one, am afraid of where this may be going.

Happy Birthday to me!

Argh!  I got sick again last night from something I ate and have been in bed most of the day today.  Yesterday was my birthday and Chris and I went out exploring the city.  Thanks to everyone for the happy birthday wishes!  We stopped in for supper and there was a table of Brits next to us, also celebrating someone's birthday.  After they sang "Happy Birthday", a light bulb went on and I looked up at Chris and said: "that was English!".  So we started chatting with them and they offered me a piece of the enormous cake that they had gotten ... I think that's what made me sick, because Chris didn't have a piece and he didn't get sick.

So instead of reading about our trip to Segovia and Ávila, you´re reading about yet another bout of sickness for me.  This makes four different times that I have gotten sick here.  One time I was in bed for three days with a cold.  But enough levity!

I am copy-catting Chris' blog and posting a photo that we took yesterday at his favorite pub.  He's on a first-name basis with everyone there now, and as you might guess, that has it's rewards.  So here's a photo of Chris and I with one of the bartenders, Patricia.  There are a lot of latinos in Madrid and she's from Ecuador.  She teaches Chris some Spanish and he teaches her some English.  The other day he taught her what "a taste" of something means.  Then yesterday, a British man walked in to the bar and asked if he could have "a taste" of the draft beer.  At first she didn't understand, then she remembered what Chris had taught her and she gave him a small sample.  And that folks, is how you learn a language:  bit-by-bit.

As I sit here, something's going on in the Puerta del Sol.  I can see the edge of the plaza from the balcony, but can't make out what it is.  The police vans are lined up again and they're out in force, so it must be a protest of some sort.  I don't feel well, so I'm not going down there to see what it is  The other day, Syrians were protesting there, demanding that Spain expel Syria's ambassador from the country.  They were very passionate, and it was sad to see them desperately doing whatever they could for their fellow countrymen, while for everyone else the events in Syria are just a news item on the evening news.

Oh!  And by the way, I topped 1,000 views on blog yesterday!  It's so much fun to have a "public"!

Plaza Mayor, Pork Rinds, and other things ...

I'm so tired of being sick ... I just got over another bout of sickness today.  I've been working hard at school, but have seemed to reach a real valley.  Hopefully, my progress will pick up again soon.  The weather has been quite warm of late, and Chris and I have been going to the Plaza Mayor to sit in the sun and do our homework.  It's amazing how fluent (and funny) we are after a couple of drinks! 

While we were out this week, we noted a few more differences between the U.S. and Spain.  We went to an Italian restaurant and realized how familiar Americans are with Italian dishes when we looked at the menu and it had photos of the different types of pasta to explain what the dishes are!  This is tortellini, and this is fusilli, and this linguine ....

Bread that we call Wonder bread is called Bimbo bread here and the natives that I've spoken to don't understand why that's funny ... guess some humor just doesn't translate.  And Héctor has a bottle of dish soap on the counter whose name wouldn't have made it past the first cut with an American marketing company ...

Yesterday in class the teacher wrote a word on the board and asked if anyone knew what it meant.  No one did, and so she said in English: "redneck".  90% of the class speaks English, but I'm the only native English speaker and I think that I may be the only who really got it.  When Chris and I were in the pissy bar with the four over-sized sconces on the wall, they served us a bowl of deep fried pork rinds.      S-o-o-e-y!   How apropos that the teacher told us just the following week how to say "redneck".

And lastly, I haven't seen spray painted Jesus in a couple of weeks.  I've worked up a whole story in my mind about him, being on vacation on the beaches of Málaga, but I decided that nothing could be more bizzare than the actual photos that I have posted of him.  So while our latter day saint takes his respite, I'm posting a new arrival to the Puerta del Sol:  a tree.  Was this a left over costume at the wardrobe department or something?  I mean, what is that about?