C'ordeaux Ba.

Hey there. I think it's probably time for me to post again. So here goes nothing. By the way, this was written (will be written, is being written, depending on what Mark is talking at this point) over the course of an afternoon/evening and various comings and goings, so the timeframe might be a little confusing. I'll extend that statement over the whole of my blog posts. They never really seem to get written in one sitting. So now, on to Mark of the past (several hours ago past).

Today, I was biking to here (I really wanted to say that -- also, by "here," I mean Café de Indias) and while I was riding down Calle Something, I collided with a leaf falling from a tree. If I was artsier, I'd say something along the lines of "the fluttering leaf, in the midst of its downward transcendence towards the cobblestones, gently embraced the basket of my crimson bicycle, before drifting to its friends on the ground several moments later." But no, I collided with a leaf. Chocar, if you will. Or would it be atropellar? Hmmmm. There's another question for Carmen (she's our grammar teacher). Anyhow, I really like biking through the city in the afternoon. It's relaxing.

Also during my bike ride, I drafted a tram for about half a second. It was pretty cool.

Well, I figure I'll show you some pictures of our trip last week, and then if you're still interested, you can keep reading the rest of my scattered thoughts después.

Córdoba. The name originates from the French expression "c'ordeaux ba," which means "city of good repute." Okay, maybe not, but it was worth a try. Last Friday (hey, exactly a week ago!) todo el mundo (that means everyone, mom) went on a day trip to Córdoba, about two hours from Sevilla.



And thus begins our trip. This was our bus, and on the left, our pitstop along the way. I got leche manchada, which translates literally to stained milk. But that's how you order coffee when you want a lot of milk in it. We learned that in grammar class. How convenient.



We saw this during our drive. Probably one of the coolest engineery kind of things I've seen here yet. According to the one and only Caleb Hamstra, the mirrors you see on the ground are all parabolic mirrors and focus the sun's light on the tower. Inside the tower is a reservoir of water that gets heated with the mirrors, and then the steam produced makes electricity. AWESOME.



Ah, here we are! Córdoba.



Here are some outside details of the cathedral/mosque I told you about near the end of the last post.



Okay, I know I had a fountain picture in the last post, but I'm having a lot of fun with these. Bear with me.



Some details inside the mosque part of the building.



Now for the cathedral part.



Writing. Glad it's not written in Papyrus ;)



After the cathedral, we headed over to a Jewish museum (our Tres Culturas class deals with Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, so we got to see a bit of all three). These are some views along the walk towards the museum. Note the juxtaposition of complementary colors. Art teachers, hope you're proud!





This was one of my favorite parts of the day. At the end of our tour through the museum, we were able to listen to this guy play and sing a couple of Jewish songs. It was really beautiful (and I don't use that word often). It remind me a lot of some more folksy-genre songs I've heard before. If anyone knows what this instrument is called, let me know!



This, if I understood correctly, is the only Jewish temple that wasn't destroyed during the Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula. Correct me if I'm wrong, SIS people, because for some reason that fact doesn't seem right to me.



Ventana, hoja. Ventoja.



That wall behind us is older than Kane's age and my age multiplied. Actually, I don't know that.





Fido.







Some of the bros.







Picture time over.

Now I'm at Starbucks. Café de Indias didn't have power outlets, and my battery was dying a tragic not-too-slow death. Just saw a guy walk by outside with the lowest V-neck I've seen in ages. Well, it was a really wide one too. Maybe it was a women's shirt. Who knows.

Let me start that part over.

Now I'm at Starbucks. If I look right above my laptop, I'm looking at Europe's largest cathedral in the afternoon sun. That sounds better than talking about salmon-colored V-neck shirts. Also, if I look right below my laptop, I see a table.

Today after class, Caprice and I went to the Russian store and bought chocolate-covered halva (a typical Russian sweet [the noun, not the adjective]); I think it's crushed sunflower seeds and sugar). They were good.

The other day I learned (by virtue of Wikipedia, whilst researching for one of my grammar class compositions) that much of southern and central California's landscape (a lot of what you see when first heading north of SB) is what they call oak savannah. Lived in Santa Barbara all my life, yet I never knew that. What a shame.

Speaking of research, Michelle, Claire, and I had to give a presentation on Shiite Islam on yesterday. A fifty minute presentation, at that. I don't think I've ever given a fifty minute presentation in English.

I have a bit of bad news, and a bit of good news. We'll start with the bad news. In the beginning of the week I lost one of my gloves. I had it in my jacket pocket after getting to my destination (somewhere in the city, I'm not sure where I was because I don't know when I lost it) and I guess it fell out. Or a left-handed one-handed (in this scenario, the hand that would be gone would be the right hand) pickpocket picked my pocket (say that five times fast) with his previously-ungloved left-hand. In any case, my hands have been about 20 degrees colder than usual whilst (that word reminds me of Zaunius's class in high school when we had a New Zealandish [New Zealish?] exchange student in our class) biking to school this week. This morning was substantially colder than the other mornings this week, and when I got off my bike, I could hardly feel my hands.

Now for the good news. Today, Maricarmen gave me a late birthday present! She bought me gloves!!! What an awesome host mom. We also made pizza together tonight. Except when I got the oregano out, she had this disgusted look on her face. I am convinced that Maricarmen doesn't like any with flavor :) I tried to find if we had basil, but instead quickly found out that the Spanish word for basil isn't "basilico." I looked it up on WordReference so I could ask Maricarmen, and saw that it was "albahaca." However, I accidentally said "albajaca." Turns out, a "jaca" is a pony, and "alba" (like my host sister's name) means white. So I asked if we have any white pony to put on the pizza. Suprisingly, we didn't. And we didn't have basil either.

I went all the way to the top of my building a few days back to see if I could get on the roof. The door at the top was locked of course and the only one of my keys that fit wouldn't open it, but I asked Maricarmen if you can get on the roof and she said yeah! Stayed tuned for 10th-story discoveries in one of the next couple blog posts.

Couple of pretty staggering facts about Christianity in Spain. Según (according to) Marcos (the youth pastor at Iglesia Bautista), only 0.018% of Spain is evangelical Christian. There are over 7,000 cities in Spain that don't have a single person in them who knows the hope that Christ offers. Like I said, pretty staggering… keep Spain and the Christian ministries here in your prayers!

Well, I need to get some sleep. Miss all you guys back home and hope all is well! Panch, Carson, others: do a waffle countdown to some helpless freshman in my honor.

Tsa luego!