Emma and I are not just here in Spain to teach English. We're also here to "conocer Espana y Europa" or travel around and visit as many places in Spain and Europe as possible!! We spent most of October and November adjusting and wandering around all of Sevilla, but we found some extra time to take a few day trips on the weekend!! We're saving our "BIG" trips for next semester!
Carmona is a nice little "pueblo blanco" right outside of Sevilla. This was the first day trip we took after about a week or two in Spain. It was extremely windy and cold when we arrived that morning and couldn't see anything! We stopped inside a cafe for about an hour and had breakfast and waited out the fog so we could see more sights. Shortly after starting our little excursion, we met some tourists from Barcelona and Pais Vasco, other parts of Spain. We listened to them speak Catalan and Euskara (Basque) which are 2 other distinct languages spoken apart from Spanish. We also spoke perfect English for them and they were in awe at our English skills. We continued on to see the rest of the city which took only about 2 hours and went to the edge of town where there are ancient Roman ruins, a necroplis and an amphitheater.
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| Cloudy view from the Parador which is now just a luxury hotel. |
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| ruins. |
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| "pueblo blanco" or white town. |
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| The tomb was pitch black without a flash from the camera. |
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| I took a random picture inside the tomb and found this cute bum in there. |
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| being a tourist. |
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| It warmed up about 20 degrees right before we left. |
CÓRDOBA
The first weekend in November, Emma and I decided to make a trip to Córdoba. Between Carmona and Córdoba (the only 2 places we visited) we like Córdoba the best despite an unlucky situation we found ourselves in on the way home. Córdoba is a UNESCO world heritage site and because it has been conquered and reconquered so many times it also has sooo much culture that I could write and would love to write a gazillion pages about its history and what not....but that's boringggggggggggggggggggg. So I'll just talk about our trip.
We took a 1-hour train ride to Cordoba from Sevilla to begin our journey. Before we arrived in Cordoba, we had only heard about the Great Mosque from our Spanish classes so it was the first thing we went to see!!! You can't go to Cordoba and not see the Mosque. We explored the outer walls before going in and were even bothered by flocks of "gypsies" waiting outside to read the palms of poor and easily persuaded tourists. They insist on giving you a twig of rosemary and if you accept it they expect you to give them money... We even witnessed a gypsy chase another man down until he threw money at her and ran away. Emma and I are pros here in Spain and avoided them by saying we already have love, peace, and happiness and ducked inside the Mosque courtyard. In short, the Mosque/Cathedral started in about 600 a.d. as a "Christian" church, then was conquered by moors, converted into a mosque, then they built a bigger mosque around it, then it was reconquered by Spain and became a cathedral... I had to describe the mosque even though I said the history part was boringgggggg. After the cathedral/mosque, we crossed the bridge and had a nice PB&J sandwich that we made from home with a nice city view. After lunch we farted around town like two bums in love. That evening before coming home we ate at a famous tapas bar called Casa Santos where they have awesomely huge ginormous plates of "tortilla Española"¡¡¡ After filling ourselves with enough carbs to poop out whole loaves of bread and pasta we finally decided to head on home...........we TRIED to head on home.....
The first weekend in November, Emma and I decided to make a trip to Córdoba. Between Carmona and Córdoba (the only 2 places we visited) we like Córdoba the best despite an unlucky situation we found ourselves in on the way home. Córdoba is a UNESCO world heritage site and because it has been conquered and reconquered so many times it also has sooo much culture that I could write and would love to write a gazillion pages about its history and what not....but that's boringggggggggggggggggggg. So I'll just talk about our trip.
We took a 1-hour train ride to Cordoba from Sevilla to begin our journey. Before we arrived in Cordoba, we had only heard about the Great Mosque from our Spanish classes so it was the first thing we went to see!!! You can't go to Cordoba and not see the Mosque. We explored the outer walls before going in and were even bothered by flocks of "gypsies" waiting outside to read the palms of poor and easily persuaded tourists. They insist on giving you a twig of rosemary and if you accept it they expect you to give them money... We even witnessed a gypsy chase another man down until he threw money at her and ran away. Emma and I are pros here in Spain and avoided them by saying we already have love, peace, and happiness and ducked inside the Mosque courtyard. In short, the Mosque/Cathedral started in about 600 a.d. as a "Christian" church, then was conquered by moors, converted into a mosque, then they built a bigger mosque around it, then it was reconquered by Spain and became a cathedral... I had to describe the mosque even though I said the history part was boringgggggg. After the cathedral/mosque, we crossed the bridge and had a nice PB&J sandwich that we made from home with a nice city view. After lunch we farted around town like two bums in love. That evening before coming home we ate at a famous tapas bar called Casa Santos where they have awesomely huge ginormous plates of "tortilla Española"¡¡¡ After filling ourselves with enough carbs to poop out whole loaves of bread and pasta we finally decided to head on home...........we TRIED to head on home.....
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| tons and tons of painted archways. "The prayer hall" |
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| Outside hanging with gypsies. |
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| touristing. |
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| lunch time by el rio. |
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| Córdoba, we likey. |
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| tortilla and a bald guy. |
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| Emma likey. |
Now, the fun starts.......
We began our trip with 70 Euros which should have been more than enough to get by and make it home.
Two 1-way train tickets to Cordoba: €32
Tortilla Espanola: €1.50
Candy/Water: €3
Magnet: €2
2 tickets to enter the Mosque: €16..... (this is where it all went wrong)
We were currently at €15.50.... and train tickets home were €22........ It's 2 hours by car and 1 day and 4 hours walking.
First we did not buy round-trip train tickets because we weren't sure when we wanted to come back... there were many options. We (or I rather) made a key decision to pay for the tickets to get into the mosque because you wouldn't go to Cordoba and not go to the mosque!!! It would be like going to the bathroom and leaving before you even went to the bathroom. You just don't do that or else things go wrong. We both agreed it was a "smart" decision and if it came down to it, we could pay for the train tickets with our debit cards. Then Wells Fargo messed it all up from there. We got to the train station to pay for our tickets and Emma's card didn't work. Then, we went to withdraw money from an ATM using both of our cards. It didn't work. I ran 10 minutes down the road to withdraw money from another ATM with both of our cards and it didn't work. It was 6:15 and our train was leaving at 6:30 or we had to wait 2 more hours.
We tried calling our friends and they said they'd rent a car and pick us up but it was unnecessary to go through all that trouble. We tried looking for an internet cafe to call the bank. There wasn't one. We tried using an international pay phone, but I couldn't figure out how to work it........
Poor, desperate, and short on time, I finally just asked 2 old ladies if we could borrow €7. I mumbled terribly in Spanish because we were distraught and didn't want to appear like bums wanting beer or drug money..or gypsies trying to read her future. She gave us €5 and we begged the ticket salesman to loan us a Euro.... He didn't, but he told us a cheaper way to get home by taking 2 trains which would have been useful the first time we tried to buy them.....
Thanks old lady, Dios te bendiga. Senior citizens, although slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose.
In all, it took us 4 1/2 hours to get home instead of the 1 hour it should have. We got off the first train to wait another hour and a half for another train at a station that was only 15 minutes outside of Sevilla.... Looking back it wasn't that bad, but in the moment it seemed so terrible.
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| Waiting on the empty train. |
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| Back home, por fin! |
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