Crashing Córdoba

Instead having regular class on Friday, the group took a day trip to Córdoba, a city about two hours northeast of Sevilla.

When we first arrived at the city, the professor gave us headphones and a headset linked to her microphone so we could hear her talking about what we were seeing if we were too far away. If anyone had any doubt about whether or not we were tourists, it was gone after we put these on. 

To begin, we stepped into a strange combination of a building- a mosque with a cathedral in the middle of it. The mosque was built during the Islamic conquest of the area. When the Spanish reclaimed it, they decided to build the cathedral in the middle of it instead of tear it down. This was definitely a good decision because the mosque was breathtaking. 

When we first entered the mosque, it was hard to know where to look first. The room was dimly lit with large red and white striped arches everywhere. There were also designs lining the walls and paintings that had different scenes from the Koran. Our professor told us about all the history behind the beautiful room before we moved on to the cathedral in the middle. 

The arches in the mosque

The cathedral was  well-lit in contrast to the darker mosque. Gold lined the area where the priest spoke and  huge pipes for the organ came out of both sides. Paintings the size of garage doors were in the back, hung up all the way up the enormous wall. There were too many hand-crafted designs to count, especially on the ceiling. There were seats for the clergy that were crafted out of wood along with pews for the congregation to sit. 

After our time in the cathedral/mosque we went to ancient worship center of yet another religion, a Jewish synagogue. Here, we had a very animated tour guide. He said we could ask him any question we wanted as long as it was not about politics. He then added that he only talked about politics if he had a cerveza (beer). 

The guide showed us around both the synagogue and the ancient house that surrounded it. It was not fancy, but it was still great to hear the history behind it. I was able to understand a lot more of this tour because there was not as much background noise and therefore I did not get distracted while translating in my head. This tour ended with the guide playing an old Jewish song on the drum while another man played the violin.