Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Trips to Córdoba and Granada and Milan

So I'm definitely ashamed as I look at the last posting date on my blog: over a month without a post! I apologize, and resort to the same old excuse: I've been really busy!

First, a brief run-down on my trip to Cordoba and Granada.  During a long weekend at the beginning of November, my roommates, Greg, Jordan, and I took a 3-day trip to southern Spain to the cities of Cordoba and Granada.  My main interest in visiting both cities was to see the remnants of the Muslim era of rule in Spain, as both were centers of Moorish power in the middle ages. Our trip started in Cordoba.  We arrived in the city after dark, and after asking directions from a very helpful Spanish man (who wanted to know if Greg liked to ride horses because he was from California...), arrived at our hostel.  The hostel was gorgeous - including an Arab-style courtyard with Arabic calligraphy all over the walls.  The next day, we explored the city, spending most of our time at the famous Mezquita.  The Mezquita was gorgeous, if a bit strange.  It's an old mosque that was turned into a Catholic cathedral when the Catholic monarchs Isabel and Ferdinand re-conquered Spain, and still serves as a Cathedral today.  So on one side, you've got the mithrab, which indicated the direction to Mecca, and then a few hundred feet away, you've got a Baroque altar, crucifix and all. Bizarre, but beautiful.  After the Mezquita, we wandered around the old part of the city a bit, saw one of the three Synagogues remaining from Spain's middle ages, and stopped off at an authentic Arab tea shop, where I enjoyed mint tea and Arab pastries! Yum!  That night, we caught a bus to Granada.

We arrived in Granada, and started the long trek to our hostel.  Greg had already been to Granada, and had recommended this hostel, saying that it had an amazing view of the Alhambra and the city.  So after catching two buses, and walking up a steep hill, Greg was trying to pacify us, saying it would be worth it.  It definitely was.  This place was a steal at 15 euro a night, with a view that was easily worth more. It was also run by the biggest hippies I've ever met, and the guests were cut from the same cloth.  Most people seemed to be sort of passing through, with no particular destination or schedule..."yeah man...like, I was only going to stay in Granada for a few days...but like, I've been here for a couple weeks now.  I might be headed to Croatia next...not really sure, you know."  Turns out Granada is a bit of a hippie town - which was a nice break from the faster-paced life in Madrid.  The next day, we got up and had a relaxed breakfast on a terraza situated in the shadow of the Alhambra.  Then, it was off to see the Alhambra! Words really can't describe how incredible this place is.  Built in the mid-14th century by the Moorish rulers of southern Spain, it's an elaborately decorated palace complex.  The main palace was breathtaking - Arabic calligraphy and geometric tile designs covered every wall.  One of the rooms (where Ferdinand and Isabel signed the treaty that effectively turned Granada and the rest of Andalucia over to their power, AND where Columbus allegedly met with the Spanish monarchs while planning his trip to America) had a ceiling that depicted the seven Islamic heavens.  After several hours exploring the Alhambra, we headed over to the Albaicin, or Arab quarter of Granada. We wandered around and shopped a bit, and I spoke Arabic with some of the shopkeepers (most of whom were from Morocco and Tunisia)! Most of them were pretty impressed/surprised that I could speak Arabic, and I even got a one euro discount on some earrings for Katie.  That night, we went out for tapas.  Granada is well-known in Spain for the healthy portions of tapas that you get free with every drink you order! We bar-hopped, filling up on cerveza, tinto del verano, and free tapas!  The free tapas weren't necessarily the best Spanish food I've ever had, but we had dinner and drinks for around 8 euro a piece.  Not bad.  The next day we did a little more walking around the city, and stopped off at the Capilla Real (Royal Chapel), which is the final resting place of los Reyes Católicos, Ferdinand and Isabel.  We had a nice lunch before catching our bus back to Madrid.  It was tough to return to the reality of teaching at 8:30 the next morning, especially after such a magical trip.

My next trip was this past weekend, to Milan, Italy! After a 3-hour delay getting out of the Madrid airport, we finally arrived in the Bergamo airport (about an hour outside of Milan) around 11:30.  We hopped the shuttle bus to Milan, and then took the city bus to our hostel.  We were greeted at the hostel by a very friendly woman who had waited up for us, and then we went out in search of food.  We were starving after sitting on the plane waiting to take off for 3 hours and then the 2-hour flight and one-hour bus ride.  So we walked down the street to this bar where they said they would still serve us food.  After eating our ham and cheese paninis and wine, we went back to the hostel and crashed.  The next morning, we got up fairly early and took a train to Como.  Como was absolutely beautiful - a glassy lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains (the Alps - we were right on the border with Switzerland). We walked down to the lake, and took some photos.  Katie's tour guide had suggested taking the "funiculare" up the side of the hill, so we hopped on that.  It was a small half-train, half-cable car that took you from the town up the surrounding hillside and dropped you in a small town about halfway up the mountain.  From there, we decided to walk to a lighthouse at the top of the mountain.  It was pretty cold, and it had obviously snowed the night before, as there was still some left on the ground.  It was weird seeing snow, since it hasn't been cold enough yet in Madrid!  The walk was nice, but long, and we were pretty cold by the time we reached the top.  Luckily, there was a tiny town at the top of the hill, and there were a few restaurants up there.  We decided to eat lunch at a cute polenteria.  The place was really cozy, and we all split a polenta with goat cheese (delicious!), and I got gnocchi with sausage and some sort of yellow sauce.  It was very tasty, and we had a much-needed rest and chance to warm up.  After lunch, we climbed the last few feet to the lighthouse, where we had a spectacular view of the lake and Alps. We walked back down in time to walk around the town of Como a little bit, see the main cathedral, and grab a hot chocolate.  Then we caught our train back to Milan. We had dinner at a pizza restaurant right near our hostel.  I got a pizza with prosciutto, arugula, tomato, and cheese.  It was really big, and the crust was thin and delicious.  We also shared a carafe of wine, and then split some desserts - tiramisu, torrocino, panacotta.  YUM.  By then we were all pretty tired, and decided to head back to the hostel for the night.

When we arrived back at the hostel, there were a couple of guys working there instead of the woman from the night before.  I realized they were speaking Arabic, and so after a couple of minutes, I asked them where they were from (in Arabic).  The guy just stared at me for a second, and then goes, "you speak Arabic?!" So it turns out the owners of the hostel were a couple - the husband from Lebanon, and the wife from Egypt.  And the other guy there was the woman's cousin, and also from Egypt.  So I chatted them up for a while.  It was great to hear the Egyptian dialect again!  And they were all pretty amused that I spoke Arabic, and especially some Egyptian dialect.  The real compliment was when Sara, the owner of the hostel, was really surprised that I didn't have any Arab parents, because my pronunciation sounded natural.

So back to Milan! We had been thinking about doing another day trip to Cinque Terre or Bologna, but Cinque Terre was too far to do in a day, and we thought that we'd be better off sleeping in a bit and just exploring Milan for two days.  So the next day we woke up a little later, and set off to see the Sforzesco Castle and the Duomo.  We hit up the Duomo first.  The Duomo was pretty impressive - it's the third-largest Cathedral in the world, after St. Peter's in the Vatican and St. Paul's in London.  And the architecture is beautiful - the outside is all white marble and looks almost like a drip-sand castle, as Katie put it.  After that, we walked through the area with all of the high-fashion shops.  We stopped in at Prada, where we received a nasty look from the woman there after we told her we were just looking around, and then we swung by Gucci as well.  Beautiful stuff, but insanely expensive. Oh well.  Then we ran across this free museum exhibit of Leondardo DaVinci's painting of St. John the Baptist.  So we waited in line a bit, got in to see that, and then headed over to La Scala theater.  La Scala is apparently one of the most famous opera houses in the world.  Since Greg, who was traveling with us, is an opera singer, he decided to pay for the tour of the theater and museum.  The rest of us opted for some gelato.  This was probably the best gelato I've ever had - the cafe participates in the slow food movement, and so all of the ingredients were fresh.  I got chocolate and baci flavored, and they were both amazing - the chocolate was intense.  After that, we had lunch at this panini place that had been recommended by Katie's travel guide.  We ordered a side of french fries, which were so delicious we immediately ordered another.    I think the secret was frying them in olive oil.  My panini was also very good - it had prosciutto, brie, arugula, and truffle oil.  After lunch, we headed toward the castle, but were sidetracked by a huge open market, selling everything from Christmas decorations and jewelery to cheese and cannoli.  The food looked out of this world, and I was cursing baggage restrictions and Ryanair.  It's probably a good thing I only had a carry-on - I could have easily spent my month's paycheck on parmigiana cheese, cannoli, wine, and olive oil.  I took some good pictures, and bought a cannolo from a place called "El padrino" (The Godfather).  Delicious. We continued on, hurrying a bit now, because we realized we were cutting it close to make it to the castle before the museum closed.  Unfortunately, we didn't make it, and it was closed the next day, so we didn't get to see the museum.  But we still could walk around the castle grounds.  The castle was all decked out for Christmas, and we spent some time hanging out in front, watching the Christmas light show.  We then noticed that there was another huge market going on around the castle, and so we wandered around there for a while, and I bought some earrings.  Katie and I also split a warm, fresh-from-the-oven macaroon. We started to get really cold, so we headed back towards the Duomo and ducked into a cafe for a coffee.  Then, we walked around a bit longer, and stopped off for dinner before heading back to the hostel.  This dinner was also great - we split a bruschetta of tomatoes, fresh basil, and garlic.  I ordered risotto milanese, which was good, but was a lot of rice (I probably should have ordered that plus something else to share with someone...oh well.) But Greg let me have a bite of his beef dish, which was delicious.  And I had bites of Katie's pasta and other Katie's pizza, both of which were amazing as well. (If you hadn't noticed by now, food was one of the highlights of the trip, and also what I probably spent the most money on while there.)

The next day we devoted mainly to outlet shopping.  We walked down the Corsica de Buenos Aires, which is known in Milan for the discount and outlet shops.  I didn't buy anything, but Greg bought a very chic sweater. We grabbed lunch, and headed back towards the center of the city.  We walked to the Basilica di San Ambrogio, which dates back to the Byzantine empire, and still has some of the original tile mosaics.  It was beautiful, and the tiling was gorgeous - I think I even remember talking about it in humanities with Mr. Day.  By then, it was raining, freezing cold, and I had a pretty bad stomach ache, so unfortunately, I wasn't enjoying our last few hours there.  After seeing the church, we walked around a bit, got one last gelato, did a little souvenir shopping, and headed back to the hostel to grab our stuff.  Then we made the same long trip back to the airport, where we had yet another delay.  We arrived back in Madrid around 1am, caught the last metro home, and crashed.

So there you have it: my travels from the last month or so!  Overall, two great trips.  Somewhere in between the two and my last blog post, I celebrated my birthday and Thanksgiving, but I'll save that stuff for another blog.  Hopefully it won't be another month before then.  But for now, buenas noches.

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