Day 25-Las bellas de la jardín

Today we were going on a trip to Córdoba!  I was so tired when I woke up this morning, so once I got on the bus, it was thankfully pretty easy to go right to sleep.  We had about an hour and a half drive, and then we got to the city.  There were some beautiful buildings, like always!  We split into tour groups and we went with Ángel again because he uses Spanglish and is such a good guide!  We went into the Mesquite, which is really unique because it is the only mosque that has a cathedral right in the center of it: kind of ironic.  The architecture was beautiful; the muslim buildings used many arcs, which were fascinating, and there was so much detail on a lot of the catholic parts.  It always seems to impress me!

 There was a skull though by some of the art pieces, so I asked what that was for and my guide said, "It represents eternal life, which is bull..."  Ugh, that just broke my heart to hear, and another one said the same thing about the church, definitely keep praying for these people!  After our tour through all of this, we went to see a neighborhood and a Jewish synagogue.  Then finally we went to one of my favorite places,

the Alcazar, which is the royal palace with the most beautiful gardens!  I do not know how I can keep being amazed, but I constantly am.  There were so many flowers, so much detail, and
beautiful fountains and water.  I just loved being able to spend time there.  A few of us stayed there and ate our bocadillos and then Alice and I walked around to make sure we could take it all in (as well as have a little photo shoot).  Then we walked around to try to find some of the others, but we did not have much luck, so we just found a nice little bench to sit on and talked.  She got to tell me about China and some of the cultural differences and just more about her own life, which I loved hearing about!  Then we finally

found some of the others and just all went and talked until it was time to leave.  I got to sleep again the whole way back, and then it felt good to finally just get home.  Then I got to skype with my mom, sis, and grandma, which was an unexpected surprise!  Afterwards, I had dinner with the two Italian girls, which was like the first time I actually
talked with them some.  We had some chicken and fries, basically soaked in oil, but soo tasty!  Then I just relaxed some and caught up on my blog and met up with some girls to try to figure out some more details for our free weekend trip.  Olivia and I grabbed some llaollao frozen yogurt, which was delicious and then headed home.  Got in some reading, and now I am hoping for a good night's sleeeeep!!!!