Dia 23: Cordoba y Flamenco

OYE chicos!

Today we got up bright and early and hopped on a bus headed for the lovely city of Cordoba. 

After a few hours on a bus we arrived and headed to a La Catedral de Cordoba for a tour. If you haven't noticed, everywhere we visit we get a tour of a cathedral.... literally every city. Thank heavens they are all equally gorgeous and it always gives me the opportunity to take some breathtaking photos! 



 Here are the fun facts that I learned on the tour:
- Cordoba was once the capital of all of Spain when it was ruled by the Moors
- The Cathedral was originally a Mosque
- 75% of the architecture that still exists was originally constructed by the Moors, later the catholic church added new elements to convert it into a cathedral
- This was the first Mosque built with architectural influences from the Romans
- Once it was converted into a cathedral, from the 700s to 1235 they did not allow Muslims to even enter the building
- Every column in the cathedral was constructed by a muslim and is inscribed with the worker's name
- There are 853 columns in the entire Cathedral

Did I say that I thought this cathedral was the tits, because it was. The arches and columns were so sickkkkk! Feast your eyes on my fabulous pics peeps!

 (the seats where  la nobleza y la familia real se sentaban para la misa)

 (the altar for mass)

 (the iconic arches and pillars of the Cathedral of Cordoba)

 (the signature of the man who constructed the pillar)

After our tour of the cathedral, we walked through the LOVELY streets of Cordoba seeing more sights. What is up with all the flowers everywhere? Why is the USA so freaking lame that we don't have all of our buildings adorned with blooming flowers???? I feel like I'm Dorothy walking into the Wizard of Espana after having lived a black and white life in the Estados Unidos. En serio, maybe that sounded lame, but you get the point. Life here is pretty damn beautiful. 

 (maxi skirts, UNITE)

We came upon some very iconic Cordoba locations so naturally we had photoshoots. I always love our big group photos, especially the chomping ones.

 (damn our program is SOO CLASSY)

 (if you aint a gator, YOU'RE GATOR BAIT!)

Then we had a break for lunch and me and some girls went to Plaza Nueva to have Salmorejo and Sangria. Salmorejo es muy parecido a Gazpacho pero este tiene mucho mas pan, no tiene pepino, y tiene jamon y huevos. Fue delicioso!!! 

 
We then hoppped back on the bus and headed to Granada. I've visited this city before so I knew that we were in for a real treat. 

MJ and Quique told us that this city has a lot of juventud because there's a large university in Granada and the city is smaller than Sevilla so the poblacion is more condensed. And let me tell you THEY WERE'NT LYING! Hombres everywhere :)

Another fun fact is that in Granada whenever you order any drink (beer, wine, soda... who the hell would order soda over beer/wine?) you get a free tapa with it! AKA you pay 2 euro and get a beer and a decent sized snack. When we arrived in Granada we had the 2 hours of free time to go get dinner before we had to meet back up to go to a Flamenco show.

Some girls and I went to this cool strip of bars/restaurants right behind our hotel and went into this little whole in the wall for some tapas and drinks. This place was awesome. It was owned by some famous Flamenco singer who is known as Antonio "El Trinidad". The man's name is freaking associated with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit so you know he's gotta be legit. His bar was covered in framed photos of him and other famous Flamenco performers. Super mega guay. 

I ordered a glass of red wine and ordered a margherita pizza to split with Randi. Don't judge me on the pizza, we wanted a little variety in our lives. HOWEVER, remember we get free tapas! We got olives and an ensaladilla. It was delish. We were chatting it up with Antonio and let me tell you HE WAS RUNNING THIS BITCH. His wife also worked at the restaurant and so did 2 of his daughters and he would yell out at them to do everything and they came running all "sir yes sir three bags full". It was pretty funny. He also had no idea how much anything cost on the menu, so jokingly I asked if this was his first day at work and he told us that he only works behind the bar when pretty girls come in and sit down which is rare. Naturally we had to take a photo with the famous man.

 (the one and only: EL TRINIDAD)

Then, the rest of the girls went off to do their own thing and Randi and I stayed on the strip and went to two more places for drinks and free tapas. The next place was cool because the bartender was playing loud music and dancing and singing and just being silly. He then gave us suggestions on different bars and clubs to go to that night. Here we had tuna sandwiches as our free tapa and at the last bar we had patatas fritas con champillones. Everything was delicious and filling.

 (the only two soldiers standing during our baby bar crawl)

 (shrooms and fries)

We met up with everyone and walked through the city and up a hill as the sun was setting to get a great view of the city at dusk. It was very lovely. 

 (sunset in Granada)

Then we headed into las cuevas (caves) for a Flamenco show. It was very impressive!!!! I had been to a Flamenco performance before, but this one was way better. It was much more intimate with only 25 spectators in each little cave and 5 performers. It's basically the spanish version of tap dancing only minus the cheesy music and plus some very passionate spaniards that make all these stank faces when they are twirling around and stomping. I loved it.

When this was over, me and large group of people went back to that strip of bars behind the hotel. It was popping off with people. We went into the same bar that had the bartender who had suggested different bars and clubs to go into and this time there was a live band performing. I decided to take pictures of them and the lead singer saw me doing this so then he came up and started chatting with me. SHOCKINGLY, even though he wasn't very handsome, his name was NOT Angelino. We chatted up for a while. He told me that he had just done a gig at a different location and was singing here just for fun because he got free drinks wherever he performed since it drew bigger crowds for the bars. Everyone but Cara and I had left the bar at this time in search of the younger bar/club scene.

When Cara and I finally headed out together we had figured we would never find the rest of the group again considering we had NO IDEA where they went. However, no pasa nada. As we were walking to the main plaza where MJ had told us there were good bars, these 2 spanish guys stopped to talk to Cara and I. We basically made small talk and then they asked if they could join us at the next bar. We half-heartedly agreed. Cara said she was 20 and I told them I was 21. They were both 24. I wasn't really digging them so I started walking ahead of the group hoping they'd get the hint that they should go on their merry way. Eventually they did and Cara and I headed to a bar that had a knights and dungeon theme. It was pretty legit.

(my temporary boyfriend in Granada, one might say he's my knight in shining armor) 

After we enjoyed a beer and MORE FREE OLIVES (#winning) we asked the bartender where we should go next and he recommended a bar nearby called Tantra. We walked in and who did we find? OUR GROUP!! Wahoo!!! One of the girls in my group had met a promoter for a club so we got free tickets to get into Granada Diez (a discoteca). We stayed at Tranta for probably an hour or so. At this point it was 230am. 

  (CARE BEAR!)


 (CASS A FRASS)

Then we headed to Granada Diez to shake our groove thangs. This club was AWESOME!!!!! Very very very very guay. It is an old theater converted into a club so it had super high ceilings and it was full of people. Holy heavens. Every boy in that club was guapo. I couldn't believe it. Usually every group of boys has maybe 1 guapo. 8 boys would walk by and it was just BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM guapo dot com. Also, the ratio of guys to girls was 10:2. If you're asking if this discoteca was a little slice of heaven, the answer is AWW HELLL YEA!

We weaseled onto the dance floor and saw there was a bar top on the side where there was currently no bartender working so we all hopped onto the bar and started dancing. It was great. 


 (rocking it on top of the bar with Deonna and Courtney)

We danced with various handsome Spaniards until 5am. My personal fave was a guy named José. O__O

I did not want to leave at 5am. The place was still packed. However, the rest of my group was ready to roll out and I'm not trying to stay in clubs alone.

 
We walked back to the hotel and were asleep by 530am. EPIC SUCCESS!

Tomorrow, we tour El Alhambra y El Generalife.

Hasta Luego,
Raquel