Cordoba

Friday night before Seville - After a needed nap Phil, Amy, Micah and myself went to Cien Montanditos (or something like that) for really cheap tapas and drinks. Tapas are as cheap as 60 centimos. We spent about two hours there and left at about 12:30ish. It was a place where they call your name when your order is up, SUPER difficult to understand. We kept going up to be safe and it was never our order. Also, I had a tapa which was melted white chocolate inside bread. Yum!

Cordoba - pretty cool, not spectacular. I think I have hit the limit as to how impressed I can be with the architecture of an Andalucian city after Seville and Granada. We started the day by crossing over this huge Roman bridge over muddy water. We had a guided tour through a Mosque-converted Christian Church for the majority of the day, finishing with two hours of free time.

Sad story: So we saw many women on the streets sitting or approaching us and asking for money. This by itself is not very unusual. EVERY SINGLE ONE was carrying a child. Now, I found this to be a very odd coincidence because in Seville, Granada, wherever, I have NEVER seen a poor woman accompanied by a child. A friend of mine heard that in Cordoba and sometimes other cities someone actually loans out their child for the day for a fee. The beggar gets more money because people feel bad that she has a child. A win-win for them, if you can call it that.

During the two free hours I fought off ice cream temptation and we wondered around the city. We found a pretty cool plaza where it was full of Spaniards enjoying the warm sun and having a drink. It was the place to be.

Finally: A blessing from God. The bus ride there was 1 hour, 50 minutes. We left Cordoba for Seville at 4:45 and arrived in Seville at 8:50. Yeah. There were two buses, and the one I wasn't in broke down. We had to wait with it, apparently. BUT, I had roughly a four-hour spiritual conversation with Jackie, but primarily Andre, one-on-one. Andre is very much like Micah with his open-mind and eagerness to learn about religion. He is well-versed in the Bible actually. Near the end of the conversation he called me empathetic, which I appreciated. Anyways, he really wants to sit down and continue to discuss where our conversation left off. God gave me 4 hours, not just under 2. :)

Once again, an early morning tomorrow. We have a 9-5 hike (man I have it rough in Spain - working on weekends). However, this is the first trip that actually filled up, and very quickly. Photos to come tomorrow. Buenas noches!