This is the beautifully had crafted ceiling of the throne room and my friend, Patrick, pretending to be Columbus asking for support to where the Queen and King would have sat.
This is the wall of the throne room and in this picture it may be hard to see just how many intricate designs are etched onto every inch of this enormous wall, but its ridiculous!
So away I'm sorry that I haven't been able to post too regularly on my blog; Granada life has a way of becoming extremely exciting and busy. I have also been feeling a little under the weather lately, but am happy to say that I am back to full strength here today. Anyway, I hope to walk you through some of my adventures the past 2 and a half weeks.
The first and most looked-forward-too tour was that of the Alhambra, which you've already gotten a peak of. We visited it on Monday, May 19th. It is not simply a building, but I walled city on the highest part of Granada. There is so much history within those walls, it is impossible for me to even scratch the surface of it. However, I'll give you a quick run through. It originally built as a military and royal fortress for the Muslim Sultan of Granada when Spain was primarily a muslim country. It was then conquered by the French under Napoleon's rule who used it as a military outpost. Before they left, they build a Catholic Church and destroyed all muslim buildings inside of the walls except for three that were saved: the 3 royal palaces. Long story short, Granada was then again under Muslin rule until the Spanish Catholics won back the country and made the Alhambra back into a more modern royal palace.
These first pictures are from the Gerealife (area right outside the walls) and king's summer home (also outside the walls)
Now we get to go inside the palaces of the Alhambra!
So wrapping up with the Alhambra, it was absolutely breath taking and is a must see for anyone visiting Spain.
On Wednesday the 21st, my class met with a high school english class in Granada. We spend half of the time talking in spanish and half in english. It was a great experience being able to hear from some students where and what some fun things to do in Granada are as well as practice our spanish in a more realistic way than we would in class but possibly better suited to our level of understanding than at home.
This past weekend, we took a weekend trip to Sevilla and Cordoba. These are assorted pictures from Seville where we visited the Cathedral de Sevilla, la Plaza de Espana, and Maria Lusia Park.
In the cathedral de Sevilla, there was the actual tomb of Christopher Columbus with his actual remains in it... CRAZY!
Saturday night we went out to a few different bars and I ate at a place called faceburger... Not because their burgers were looking great or because their restaurant looked particularly clean but because it was called faceburger...
Sunday morning we got up early and traveled to Cordoba where we saw a Mosque that was actually turned into a cathedral. It was a giant mosque called a Mezquita built when the Spain was under Muslin control. It was huge and truly magnificent inside but sadly I do not have any pictures because my camera ran out of batteries (actually I forgot to charge my phone the night before). From the outside the entire building resembled a Mosque. It had very arabic architecture with arabic writing and symbolism everywhere. This continued into the building as well until BAM right in the center of the gigantic room is a Catholic Cathedral. Instead of knocking down the entire Mosque and building a cathedral over top of it, the catholic spaniards simply knocked down the pillars arches and anything else important to islamic practices in the center of the Mosque and put up a church. It looked very strange with the clashing architecture and colors but I guess I have to respect the person who though to save so much history by only replacing what was necessary.
School work and tests and the official reason that I am here are join fine as well. Not much to report on other that my spanish is much better and practicing it all day every day is so helpful.
Until next time! ¡Vamos Azul!
Ian
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