Spring Breaking Part II: Cordoba and Sevilla

After an exciting and exhausting week in Rome, we hopped on a plane to Sevilla, Spain and I split off from Mike and Ryan to go visit my friend Margaret in Cordoba, only about an hour away from Sevilla. She met me at the train station and it was so nice to see someone from home I was almost in tears! Her parents were there for that week so we went out with them for some really good tapas, strolled around the city, and went to Marge’s favorite little bar “La Bicicleta”, or The Bicycle in English. It was pretty strange being in a city where very few people spoke English, so I was very happy to have Marge around! Obviously I don’t speak Italian either, but since Rome is so touristy, almost everyone spoke English and I didn’t feel as incompetent not knowing the native language as I did in Cordoba.

The first night there both Marge and I stayed in the extra beds in her parents hostel room, but they left the next day so we had to find me a new place to stay. Since Margaret is living with a host family, they were hesitant to host another guest, so I ended up staying with two guys in her program who live in an apartment in the city. I got there right during peak tourist time, so it was nice not to pay the high hostel rates (and save money which I was already blowing through like crazy…).

The cute little streets in Cordoba

After doing so many activities in Rome, I was happy to just relax most of my time in Cordoba, which is exactly what we did. Literally everyday we walked around in the beautiful weather and ate gelato and tapas and drank coffee and canas (little beers). While Marge was in school, I wandered around the winding little streets and visited a couple big tourist sites. The most famous was the giant Mosque, a very old church that has been changed and added to at least three times because of the changing population and takeovers of the city. It was really good to see an old friend and catch up, and also so funny that we are both in Europe at the same time and able to meet up so casually.

Enjoying a cana in the mushroom-thing overlooking Sevilla

I left Marge and Cordoba on a Wednesday in order to head to Sevilla and catch the overnight bus to Lisbon. After getting slightly lost in Sevilla, I met up with a friend from UM who is also studying in Spain and had some really good tapas for lunch. Side note: Spaniards eat on such a strange schedule! They have a big lunch at 3 or 4, then eat dinner around 9 or 10 at night… I suppose it’s not super strange, but took me a little while to get used to! Anyways, after our 4 o’clock lunch, we walked around the city for a while and I saw a lot of the famous buildings in Sevilla. He went off to eat dinner with his host family and I went to this really cool mushroom-looking thing that gave a great view of the entire city before catching the bus to head to Portugal.