Cordoba and Granada- EAP Weekend Excursion

Put 65 university students on a bus and rest assured that they will revert to 13-year-olds (or younger) before anyone can say “are we there yet” or “I have to peeeeeeeee”

Our bus met outside my Dunkin Donuts at 8:15 Friday morning. And although I didn’t go out Thursday night, I was exhausted and had barely slept the night before. Its unfortunate that the other students didn’t share my paranoia. Had they, they would have a)been on time b)had time to grab a dozen donuts and c)snag one of the 2 tables on the 2-story monster of a bus we inhabited for the weekend.

We drove for hours through the seemingly never-ending flatlands and past windmills for hours before our bathroom stop. Being at the front of the bus, we were able to beat everyone to the restrooms and take our time while everyone else danced from foot to foot outside in the line. Bladders happy, it was time to satisfy our bellies. I forgot to ask my family to pack me a lunch and so I watched everyone else open their packs to see what their señoras had sent them. Katie game me part of her sandwich. Emi and Adriana traded juice boxes and then we all had a wonderful dessert of cookies and donuts. By the time we made it Cordoba we were had stored up enough energy to trade assigned roommates so everyone could be with their friend. Unfortunately, I have 2 friends so we had to work around the double room situation a bit. Adriana and Emi were hooked up with a sweet corner room with a closet large enough to make the room suitable as a triple. So we dragged my bedding, towel and mattress through the halls of the hotel so I could set up camp in my room/closet.

The ruins in the stairway under the glass floor were not enough antiquities to view that day so we headed across the street from the hotel to the Great Mosque. I couldn’t stand listening to my tourguide and so opted for my very own self-guided tour. After writing a 12 page paper on the mosque, I felt as though I was qualified to do so. I was like a little kid in a candy store. It just made me so sad to see the catholic capilla in the middle of the forest of columns. And while I tried to ignore it altogether, I was just too excited to see the gothic barrel vaults to look away.

(Megan loves thousand year old columns!)

Later that night we got lost in the tiny streets while looking for a good place to have dinner. We ate pizza and some local specialties and talked to our waiter about absinthe over a glass of wine. Then we saw a flamenco show and went to bad.

If I’ve learned anything form my large group tour experiences, its that you should always go to breakfast early. NO MATTER WHAT!!!! The breakfast spread in Cordoba was amazing and we ended up swiping some fruit and yogurt for the busride to Granada. We comfortably enjoyed our meals while others had to fight pushy tour groups of senior citizens for tables and scrambled eggs.

Granada was much like Cordoba in the fact that everywhere I walked it was like I was walking through a dream. Every corner we turned (in the huge mass of loud Californian students- ugh) sparked some memory. It was like putting together a big puzzle piece by piece without knowing what the overall picture was going to look like. We passed the restaurant where I first tried paella, the discoteca where I discovered just how much Europeans like bad American music and techno, the corner where a gypsies tried to force rosemary in my face. When we finally ditched the group, my feet knew exactly how to get me where I wanted to go.

(me, Emi, Adriana, and Fernando near my replacement saucer store)

We went on a quest through the rain that night to find me a replacement saucer for the one I bought 4 years ago that broke when I got it home. Dashing from awning to awning we made it back to the hotel slightly damp and ready for some champagne, cider (sustainably produced at that) and dinner (provided by the program).

(Here we've discovered kinder eggs and how awesome the toys inside them are. At this point, we've become 5-year-olds)

The tent we had dinner in was identical to the tent on the beach where my high-school prom was held. Complete with the same snotty popularity contests and stupid cliques. Who are you going to sit next to? Who’s going to get stuck next to the teachers (or program directors in our case)? Who’s going to be the loner stuck sitting at a table of complete strangers? Not me. We outsides and non-clique kids stick together. Our table was actually the first to fill up as everyone else was too busy trying to figure out who to sit with.

After dinner we had a drink at the hotel bar and finished off the cider while dying our hair. I tried going out with the Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz kids but grew tired of their banal conversations and went back to watch high fidelity on my computer.

Today was spent wandering around the Alhambra which is still amazing (another part of the dream puzzle) and running franticly through the Arabic district of Granada after tea and kebaps (best I’ve had in Spain so far) to catch the bus back to Madrid. We’re driving through endless fields of olive trees now and the 5-year-old in my head is starting to scream “are we there yet?!” Sorry kid. You’re going to have to hold it for some more time.

adendum- I made it to the bathroom in time. Now I'm back home and it feels rather nice.