Córdoba, my first internship experience, and the night life!

Hola!

I will start off with my recollection of Córdoba. On Friday, we all met in front of a hotel very close to my house (finally, this is the first-and only-close thing to where I live) at 8:30am. Then we got on a bus for 1:45 to Córdoba! When we arrived and got off the bus... it was FREEZING!!! I definitely regretted not wearing 2 jackets. Before we started the trek to the mosque, we (all 65 of us) went to this coffee shop and attempted to get coffee and toast... It took 20 minutes for me to get my coffee and toast.. but it was amazing!! The Spanish definitely don't have a concept of time and working quickly, but I'll say they don't get that much business all at once to have sufficient practice... The butter for my toast was really strange, it was very yellow- almost orange and had a hint of cheesiness, but it was good!! Anyway, after we left the coffee shop, we walked across the bridge and headed into the old part of the city!

We all stopped in the courtyard of the mosque and Dr. Inglis talked about the history of the mosque for FOREVER, but he always talks for forever, so we were prepared this time. We all spread around and took many many pictures... and then waited to enter the mosque. The first half of the group went in with Dr. Inglis, and the rest of us waited outside to enter with Dr. Stratton (D-Strat as he is commonly referred to now)! We waited outside the doors for about 20 minutes as the guard person let all the other tourist groups in before us because he thought if we were too close to the other American group, we would wreak havok and ruin this place.... Anyway, it was still freezing outside, so we were excited to finally enter for warmth, but HA it was COLDER inside the mosque... so we continued to freeze. The mosque was the most ornate beautiful place I've seen in my life. The floor wasn't decorated because back in the day, people would bring their mats inside to cover the floor while they prayed to Mecca 5 times a day, so it wasn't necessary to cover the floor. When the Christians took over the Arabs, they built a chapel inside the mosque, so there is a random different chapel in the middle of this beautiful mosque. Very strange. After we left the mosque, we had our "bocadillas" from our mamás- my mamá made a really good ham and cheese sandwich with an apple and this HUGE chocolate thing. It was bigger than my sandwich!!! (I think my Mamá is trying as hard as she can to make me gain weight...) After stuffing my face with the entire chocolate thing... we walked around the city and shopped around. Córdoba is known for it's silver, but unfortunately, I didn't find anything that I liked, so I didn't get any. My teacher, Jonathan, for my Spanish Conversation class had an extra credit assignment while in Córdoba.. we read a poem by Gongora in class and we had to take a picture by his tomb in the mosque and search the city for the statue and plaque and take 3 pictures, put them on a word document with one of his poems, and email it to him. I went to the tourist office to ask where the statue of Gongora was... they didn't even KNOW!!! Trying to find that was fun. Apparently Dr. Inglis took a group of people there... I definitely waited for the people at the tourist office to google where the statue was. After walking around for 6 hours we got on the bus and came back home! This is when I got to go with Dr. Inglis to the Center to take care of all the junk for European Union customs. That story is too long to type up.

My first Internship experience:

Now this was an EXPERIENCE. So, I show up to this "Jardin de Infancia", basically it's a daycare/school type thing and I get put in the class of older kids (4-7 years) there are 4 kids and a teacher. The teacher is a 28ish year old guy who is wearing 80's awesomeness. Jeans with rainbow writing on the butt (I thought this was only for girls), a hot pink and purple and blue addidas zip jacket and a lime green trucker hat with sunglasses print on the front. This dude was a trip!! He was so nice- he knew a couple of phrases in English, but not really anything. When I walk in, the first thing the kids say is "Tú eres china" (You are chinese) I definitely corrected them on that one. That is probably my biggest pet peeve- I am NOT Chinese!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, these kids speak better Spanish than I do... but they were good teachers! Spanish people use the preterite perfect tense a LOT "He hecho..." I have done... and we definitely don't learn or practice that much in Spanish class in the US, so it's hard to get used to that, I'm still having to translate that part in my head.

My first Spanish Nightlife experience:

BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE SO FAR!!!!

We started out by meeting Jenny and Torian's tutor by Nervion Plaza (the major mall right next to where we all live) and we took the metro to Calle Betis and went to "BigBen". When we walked in, basically most of the Tech people were in there, so we talked with them for a little while, most of the time I talked to Lena (the tutor) who happens to be AWESOME!! We definitely hit it off- she is from Peru, but has lived in Spain for 5 years. After BigBen we went to "Fundción" for a while... this was my first prolonged "getting hit on" experience. Francisco (or rojo- how we referred to him) was definitely creeping on me. One of my friends here has a Spanish boyfriend and Francisco is his friend. This dude is gross. He has on a red button down and a white tshirt under, but the red shirt halfway unbuttoned, his hair is spiked straight up, and he has bad teeth- sorry buddy but 3 strikes and you're OUT. HAHAH!!!!! Anyway, I let him think I didn't know much Spanish, so he was miming everything to me and attempting to speak English- it was truly hilarious. Then Lena picked up on the fact that we were starting to get noticed and cornered, so we left and went to Buddha- the BEST place EVER!!! Buddha is a 3 story club at Plaza de Armas- it's so weird, it's inside the mall... anyway, we get there and all 3 floors have different music blasting- like I think my ears are still ringing and it was absolutely packed. This was a nice club, you have to be dressed nicely to get in- no zapatitos (tennis shoes) for sure! We danced for hours, it was so much fun! There were a few of us from Tech, so we stayed in a group because these Spanish guys have NO problem coming up to you and pulling you away. So strange- I REALLY need to learn the word "awkward" in Spanish because we use it So much!! Anyway, that night was amazingly fun- and I have another Spanish/Peruvian friend!!

That's basically all for now... I hope you enjoyed reading about this crazy place!!

Love,
Merick :)