Cordoba!

What I wrote my first weekend here:

Finally here! We arrived at 7am and went straight to the dorm with Ramya, Emmalie, and Shannon. I thought we would be in a big dorm building but we are actually in an apartment in an apartment building. Our building is…okay. The apartment is old but what it lacks in décor it makes up for in charm. There are four bedrooms. Emmalie and Shannon are sharing one. One is a single for a Spanish girl. The three of them share a bathroom. Then there is a small kitchen with a fridge, toaster, and a washing machine. Then a dining room and living room area with a small table, two sofas, a coffee table, shelf, and television. I have a room that I will share with a Spanish girl who I have yet to meet. Ramya also has a room with a Spanish roommate. The four of us will share a bathroom.

It’s nice. I feel spoiled. We have a clean apartment and a really clean bathroom. We have someone who cooks for us. Even though we have a curfew, there’s no one checking up on us. Will take pictures soon.

Yesterday after lunch we went exploring and accidentally wandered into the sketchy area of town. We walked in silence over an hour. The whole time I was thinking “Oh, god. What did I get myself into? It’s a ghost town. The streets are dirty. The stores look gross and useless. There is nothing around here. The mall is trashy. I feel so deceived. Why didn’t anyone say anything? Kate’s facebook pictures look so nice. Bo and Kate made Cordoba sound amazing. WTF?!?!?!?!?” Then we found the nice area of town and were all relieved. Finally Shannon said something and we all admitted that we had been silently panicking. Looking back, it’s hilarious. We joke about it a lot now. The center of town we found had a big statue in the center and nice buildings surrounding it. It’s not the plaza but it’s clearly a central area. We saw an H&M, a claire’s, and a barclay’s bank. There were stores I recognize from Barcelona, Madrid, and Salamanca like Desigual, Zara, Mango, Café y te, el corte ingles (obviamente), and some underwear stores. That’s one thing I really like about Spain: lots of lingerie selection that is moderately priced. Sometimes it seems like all there is in the U.S. is Victoria’s Secret, department stores (which are usually a snore), or the rare small business. I have also noticed that there are ice cream stores everywhere. So many! And candy stores! My favorite is called Tutti Frutti (adorable).

Today we met up with Esteban (the program’s director) for lunch. After lunch he showed us around. We saw the largest hotel in Cordoba which is rather hideous and is apparently made fun of a lot. He said his friend called it King Kong’s cage because it appears to have a brown casing that looks like a cage. We saw the university which is in the old city, The old city has white-washed walls and narrow, cobblestone streets. There are lots of flowers on the walls. I will take pictures soon. Even though that area of town is really touristy, I like it. It’s charming. We saw the outside of La Mezquita as well as the ruins of a roman temple. We walked across bridge that’s hundreds of years old and saw the water of the river Guadalquivir. Near the bridge there’s an area of trees where pigeons and doves gather which looks really beautiful.

Now that I’m settled in to a permanent place, the eating schedule is easier to abide by. We eat breakfast around what I would consider late to mid morning. Then we had lunch around 2-3:30ish. Dinner is around 9 to 10. During the trip, it was difficult to adjust because we had heavy dinners right before bed. Even now, I’m not really that tired close to midnight. I think that will change when classes start.