Cordoba

The mosque was cool to see, it was awesome being in a thousand year old building. Everything is so old that it was all hand carved, nothing off the shelf about it, so the amount of time people invested in the workman ship. It really makes you think about the quality of what we produce today with more tools available compared to what they made hundreds of years ago with limited technology. The choir area was pretty impressive, it was my favorite part of the cathedrals, it was made of solid mahogany and the detail in the carvings was really cool to look at, crazy details. Sara got an audio guide and was explaining to me how the building is a hodgepodge of different religions and architecture. It was cool to go from the dark area with the Arabic arches and details and then you walked through a door way and suddenly where the arabic arches seemed high before, they now seem small because you're in this crazy big room with the open white with gold leaf details and the ceilings are ridiculously, I mean ridiculously, high. The contrast was crazy but when you think about how many years people have been adding on to the building and trying to make it better or more like they want it, it all sort of makes sense.

We had lunch at Subway which was my choice because I thought Sara needed vegetables and it was nice to have a taste of what is normal for me. They had these gourmet Lays chips that tasted good and the bag was interesting. There were beggars everywhere, Sara said they were gypsies. At lunch a woman with a baby stood inches from Sara while she was eating trying to get money from her. They were everywhere, not my favorite thing.

The palace in Cordoba was alright, but weird, the gardens however were great, I liked them a lot. The best part was the water. There were fountains and all of these little pools around. There was an irrigation system that connected the pools of water with these little square trenches that were blocked off in some places with this little tiny metal sliding doors that allowed them to control where the water went. It was a really smart way to get water to the entire garden way back in the day before they had hoses that could easily be moved. The water was nice and cool, it was really nice to sit with our feet in it relaxing for a bit. Since Mom loves nature I was definitely thinking of her while we were there.