Cordoba. Where the streets are lined with oranges

Sounds romantic, but they taste foul. I thought id try one in case they turned out to be a cost effective snack. In Cordoba, the cobble streets are narrow, but that doesnt stop cars driving down them, dodging and weaving pedestrians. The streets are like a maze! Luckily our accomodation is very close to the Mezquita. The Mezquita is a cathedral literally inside a mosque. The site was orginally a cathedral in 600AD, then bulldozed by Moslems in 700AD, who built a mosque. Preserved inside, their are rows upon row of arches, which are red and white. When the sit was capure by christians again later- a cathedral was constructed in the middle of the mosque.

It was a pretty drizzly day when we arrived, but our room is great! Private, linen, spacious, central.. nice guys downstairs who keep filling up the thermos!! I paid them for their kind service with a little clip on koala i picked up in ewoo before i went. Our first day in Cordoba, we had lunch at a cafe. Tortilla, Paella, Bread and Flan.. very español. Mum and i did make a bit of a blooper regarding food.. We decided to get a quick snack from burgerking (they are absolutly everwhere.) What we thought was calamari, turned out to be onion rings. We thought it was just really stingy calamari though.. and mum was going to snap one open and ask Donde es el calamari?! to the man at the counter. Luckily i remembered that cebolla is onion before she complained.

Coroba was beautiful, but very touristy. We will catch a high speed train to Granada tomorrow!

 photos will be uploaded soon.. theres no usb port

love!!

xxxxxxxxxxx

TOLEDO

I’m typing this on a high speed train, because we are leaving Madrid to go to Cordoba. The trip should take two hours, so I thought i’d make the most of this spare time! I’m listening to some funky Spanish jazz musicJ I have no idea what the lyrics are saying, but it’s not bad!

Yesterday we day-tripped to a beautiful old town called Toledo. It was absolutely gorgeous! It was situated on a hill, encircled by a steep  and dramatic ravine. Walking around the narrow pavement streets shared by cars and pedestrians, it felt like I had been transported into a Disney movie (Lara if you’re reading this.. that comment was directed at you!)

The narrow streets were full of cafes, touristy shops, and clothes shops. There were medieval shops everywhere that sold suit of armours, knives and swords. They so reminded me of you Tim! Sorry man.. a suit of armour would be too heavy to bring back. I think it might tip bag over the maximum weight;P

We caught a little tourist train, around the town. The ‘zondotren’ took us around to look at the Cathedrals, and other main sites.  There was a commentary in Spanish and English on the train which was helpful. Toledo has a very rich history full of famous authors and poets  (like Brecht), and artists (think Goya).

W ended up eating lunch in a vibey but smoky restaurant. The waiter was a bit grumpy, but the food was amazing! After taking ages to work out what everything was on the menu.. we ordered sautéed vegetables and rice, and lasaña. This lasagne was layers of cheese, bacon, olives and other veggies. There was seriously half a pig on my plate! Spanish people seem to love their bacon and ham.. It’s everywhere. oh and rabbit seems to be a hit aswell:) Amazing Tiramisu for dessert finished off the meal well!

We then returned to our clean cosy hovel, and asked the lady for some hot water for coffee/tea. She said they didnt have any, and after persisting- she put two mugs of water in the microwave and heated them. We then headed to the Prado to check out some amazing but very old school art. It was impressive- but statuate and not very beautiful.. Looking forward to the art in Barcelona:)

Godbless xx

Highlights and Lowlights in Madrid

Highlights-

• Eating coffee with Chorros (deep-fried toast in a tube!) and being successful in ordering in Spanish!
• Going to Madrid’s Christmas markets- a whole market dedicated to selling christmas decorations. Beautiful christmas lights.
• Getting lost in the streets lined with small shops to explore. Bought a scarf, bracelet and phone mock which says ‘Espana!’
• Passsing a young Spanish guy belting out the Australian Anthem. I was so surpised i stopped him and told him I was Australian. He was with a group of teens, and they practised their english with us. When asked why he was singing the anthem, he said “Australia is one of my favourite countries!’
• Our tiny, but clean hostal in ‘Puerta del Sol’ (gate of the sun.) This square is literally the centre of Madrid and Spain. Easy access to everything!
• Visiting the “Palacio Real” (Royal Palace.) Beautiful.
• Spanish hot chocolate. Its like hot custard. tastes rich, but so good!

Lowlights

• The combination of our lock being changed accidently on mums suitcase with all our valuables inside. six hundred and something combinations later we managed to crack the code. I was worried  would have to try and communicate in Spanish we needed a hacksaw.
• Another weirdo on the plane. He started telling Mum and I all about his dirvorce, and child custody problems.. akward.
• Language barrier with the lady who owns the hostal. Issues negotiating price. Turned out alright in the end. No kitchen in our hostal (even though the website says their is), so we cant make a cuppa.
• Amsterdam. Our plane needed to refuel. The Dutch security wouldnt let us walk around the airport. We had to sit in a waiting room. There was a scary woman with amywine house eyes and hair working in security. I was so devo i couldnt look at anything, i went up to the very Dutch looking security guards and asked for a photo. I said “Since I cant get a taste of Holland, you guys are as good as it gets.. can i have your photo?!’  They said no. What a letdown.

The pain of sitting next to a loudly snoring man on a long plane trip…

well actually he did provide some entertainment for mum and I on our nine hour flight to Seoul. This old Asian guy with a decent pot belly on him, kept asking for peanuts and spirits- resulting in urgent needs to dash to the bathroom and akwardly squish past us.. When he conked out, he snored REALLY LOUDLY.

We had our own televisions so we could turn them up really loudly to cover over the noise. I ended up watching movies and sleeping because I was feeling dopey. I watched Harry Potter and the half blood prince, Up!, 500 days of Summer, an episode of House and My Sisters Keeper. I feel like the guy from the Castle who keeps putting emphasis on flight movies:) Korean Airlines has turned out to be great! The Korean flight attendants are really sweet, and Nath.. the food was pretty ace for plane food.

Once we arrived in Korea, we arrived at our hotel 5mins away from the airport. We went for a short walk to stretch our legs. There wasn’t much around- (in fact it looked pretty much like a backstreet of Eastwood- but cleaner.) Mum got the shock of her life when she pressed the button of the traffic light.. and the light started talking in korean. crazy stuff. We didnt venture much furthur because it started to get lonely.. so we walked back to the hotel. We had some typically korean dinner with miso soup and six unidentified little bowls of something. I asked a man what it was- and he said it was fried, shredded fish. Eughhh.

Well I’m about to head to bed, fred. Im exhausted, and its an early flight tomorrow. I apologise for any poor grammar- my brain is fried even though i didnt do all that much today.

Goodnight and Godbless.

p.s THANKS Dad, Tim and Nath for dropping us off at the airport so early in the morning… champions!

Hola;;

Well, I want to start by saying  that I feel flattered that you’ve taken the effort to read my blog! Thankyou whoever you are! I set up ‘Spanish Shenanigans’  so that I could keep a journal of my seven weeks in Spain and my four days in London. My adventure begins in just four days, as i’m sure you no doubt know because I’m finding myself bring it up into conversation a heck of a lot. IM GOING TO SPAIN!!

And I’m wondering if you’ve picked up I’m rather stoked?

For those who have miraculously managed to dodge me and missed my spill- allow me to fill you in! Heres my trip in a nutshell-

28th Nov- depart 0900 from Sydney. Adventure begins! Arrive in Seoul at 1740

Sun 29 Nov- depart 0840 from Seoul. Arrive 1625 Madrid!

30Nov-2Dec- Explore Madrid

2Dec-3Dec-  In Cordoba

4Dec-5Dec Arrive in Granada

6Dec- 7Dec- Sevilla

8Dec-9Dec- Barcelona!

10 Dec- Arrive in Gijon, Oviedo! This is where my family friends live

16 Dec- Mum flys home

14 Jan- Depart Oviedo 1120

15-18 Jan- London!

18 Jan- depart at 2005

20 Jan- Back in Sydney!

 

So why am I going to Spain?

I’d say the biggest reason is that I love people and I love different cultures. I love how chilled Spanish people are, but on the flip how they love to fiesta (NYE in Spain should be interesting.) I also need to get a lot of spanish speaking practise in before my HSC next year (shout out to all my spanish chicas!!) 

I’m going to be spending most of my time in Spain with lovely Aussie family friends who are missionaries over in Gijon running a language school cafe. ‘Idiomas Immersion’ is the name of the cafe/language school they have just planted and are using to try and connect people with Jesus. I’m keen as to get over there and just love and serve these guys any way that i can. I don’t know if this involves helping out at the cafe, practising english with people or even looking after their four awesome kids.. I guess I’ll find out when I get there!

I pray that God would use this trip as an eyeopener- that the world is MUCH bigger than me, MUCH bigger than North Epping and MUCH bigger then Australia! I feel so blessed to be able to go. I also pray that this time for me would help me make some important decisons about my future.

It’s  getting late so I’m going to go- but I want to leave you with this epic photo of a man wearing a sombrero.. I know its kind of irrelevent to my post- but i thought he was cool;)

LOVE!

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