Andalucia Weekend

This past weekend I went to three cities in Andalucia; Cordoba, Seville, and Granada. All three cities were amazing and gorgeous. It was a nice change of scenery and weather from Madrid. There was palm trees and flower boxes hanging off of every balcony, and orange trees everywhere and Andalucia has a heavy Arabic influence, being so close to the Moroccan border. Especially Granada. I absolutely loved it. I've decided I have to go to Morocco before I leave Madrid.

We had just a couple hours in Cordoba, enough time to get lunch, I had a chickpea soup, and visit the Mosque of Cordoba which was incredible. You just get lost looking at all the red and white arches inside and the intricate details on the ceilings. I have been getting quite sick of looking at cathedrals, until I saw this one. I was just in awe of it. Then we were off to Seville.

We had the night free to explore Seville and we spent it wine and tapa tasting! They have excellent tapas in Seville. Salmon bocadillos, spinach, walnuts, and raisin dish, and lots more. I just can't say it enough, I love the concept of tapas! haha. While we were in Seville, the Feria de Abril (April Fair) was going on. After visiting the cathedral, climbing up the Giralda tower to see an amazing view of Seville, and a enjoying a pricey but well worth it, traditional Andalucian dinner of lamb in honey sauce stuffed with spinach and pine nuts (how I'm not 300 pounds I have no idea), we headed to the feria. It was so much fun! During the day they had horse parades and carriages. The streets were lined with casetas, which are beautifully decorated marquee tents, and women were dressed in gorgeous flamenco dresses and men were all in suits. All the women were dancing flamenco, everyone was drinking, music was playing everywhere. Most of the houses were private family parties but we were able to go to a couple of public casetas! We drank lots of Manzanilla wine and attempted dancing flamenco, on stage (haha), it was great. There was also a fair ground with rides and of course chocolate con churro stands. It was like the orange county fair. The best ride ever, completely worth the 3 euros, was the totem pole. It was basically like riding a bull but on a log that fit 10 people. I have a hilarious video of it. Good times! The streets were crowded with people and the casetas played music well into the next morning. We didn't leave the feria until 5am and it was still a party! The next morning it was off to Granada.

Oh how I loved Granada. It was breath taking. I was enamored with Granada. I had a crazy adventure and experienced an amazing culture. We went to an Arabic tea house and just relaxed with our apple hookah and tea. Had the most amazing lunch at an Arabic restaurant. I love how all these places were decorated, they all had lavish decor, throw pillows on the couches, soothing scents, dark intimate lighting, gorgeous tapestries. I had the most amazing tea, Pakistani tea with milk, vanilla, and cinnamon. oh I was in love. I also had chicken couscous with walnuts and raisins. I'm going to Casablanca, end of story. The best part of Granada was seeing the Flamenco show. We went to the Albaicin quarter to see the flamenco show in a cave in the hills. First of all, this area is so picturesque, we had an amazing view of the Alhambra lit up at night. I just kept thinking, how could you not fall in love in Granada. It was ridiculously romantic. I am getting butterflies just thinking about it, I can't even describe how this place looks. The flamenco show was incredible. The women had such emotion and intensity in their faces, the spanish guitar was beautiful, the rhythmic feet stomping, hand clapping and singing, I was just in an indescribable state watching the flamenco. The cave was so cool, there were bronze pots hanging from the ceiling and fantastic photography on the walls. I'll never forget the experience.

Granada has the best tapa culture in Spain, it blows Madrid out of the water! We spent the rest of our evening in Granada bar hopping, drinking lots of Tinto de Verano (red wine and lemonade), getting massive portions of FREE tapas, ended up at a pub inspired by London where we had an incredible honey flavored rum, then ended up at a reggae bar, gazed and pondered at an erotic statue of a naked man pulling the horns of a goat (don't ask, I don't know) and climbed up a rather high gate to explore an abandoned church (I'm going to hell). I still have bruises and scrapes. The church was beautiful though, it had no roof, stairs that led to nowhere and there was a complete forest growing inside. It was incredible.

The next day we went to the Alhambra. Oh man, it was so fascinating and gorgeous. I could picture all the lavish rugs, pillows, curtains covering the palace, the walls were just incredible with intricate designs and Arabic writing, and the garden was an Eden. Again, no words can describe. There was this tree, I think it was the cyprus tree, that had a great story behind it. If a guy liked a girl, he would take the leaves from the tree and throw them at the girl he loved or admired. I thought it was cute, like something you would do in grade school.

So, Andalucia is amazing. You can really see the difference in culture from other parts of Spain. As an ending note, I would just like to mention one more time how much I love Madrid in the spring. I have the window open and all these little white flowers are blowing into my room from the trees outside my window. I will be sad to leave in two weeks. Well can't think about that now! Time to go to Retiro park and bask in the sun in a paddle boat on the lake, and then to the Prado to see some art.