This week absolutely flew by. It felt like yesterday when we were hiking through the woods admiring the mountainous regions and beautiful waterfalls. This first half of this week was primarily working in our internships, walking about the city and going out for tapas. For El Color De La Granada, we were asked to go about the city to handout flyers to help promote the store. We were given a few specific locations, such as hotels, where we could go to drop off a small pile of flyers. We definitely started to get a better feel for our surroundings and our way around the city more. Not going to lie, having to pass out flyers was a bit stressful and awkward, but we were able to pass out more than we thought we would. It was interesting having to put ourselves out there in a different country where we can only speak a few words of the language, but I think it was a good experience in stepping out of our comfort zone. Before we go to help out with the store, Caleb and I spend about an hour or so sitting in the plaza to work on drawings or any other artwork. It’s nice to sit and take in the culture of the city, to people watch in the process and interact with people interested in what we are working on when they pass by. At one point we got surrounded by a large group of kids who wanted us to draw them. I’ve never had that kind of attention before when drawing in public, it was a bit overwhelming but awesome to see their excitement with what we were working on.
This week when working at the Sacromonte the first day we continue our jobs in helping to clean the damaged paintings. It's such a peaceful time of the day to spend some hours cleaning off the pieces and seeing what's underneath all the dust. I could honestly do that all day. The second day we were there we were asked to do a few different tasks. The first being to help organize their large amount of history books and to move some shelving into one of their spare rooms. I thought it was interesting how they have to use history books to do their research on the art pieces they are either working on or the ones that they have in storage. Up at the Sacromonte there is no wifi or service, so it reminded me of when my mom told me about how she had to use actual books to do all her research because they didn’t have the internet. I don’t remember the last time I used a book for any of my research papers. Throughout this trip, I haven’t had much access to the internet or media and it’s actually been very refreshing. The next task they had us do was to help with making a new backing for one of the large paintings that they were going to be restoring. They explained how the frame and the sides of the painting are not visually pleasing because they are so torn and broken down. We were given a strip of a mesh type fabric where we had to pull apart the strands half way down the fabric. That day we also got to see a bit of how Lola begins the restoration process for paintings. She takes a long wooden pick with cotton on then end dipped in a water-like solution and carefully applies it to the entirety of the painting. You could immediately see the difference it made to the painting, it removed all of the dirt and remaining dust while amplifying vibrancy in color to the painting. This day since we were working on making the backing for the canvas, we all were working in the same room as Lola, Lourdes and the other intern. It was a very relaxed and focused environment, a radio was playing in the background, and everyone was working on their own projects. It was a great couple of hours of much focus and concentration.
This week we continued with our Spanish lessons as well, but ended up having our lessons on Tuesday and Wednesday, instead of Tuesday and Thursday. I actually very much enjoy our lessons, I think it has definitely helped in understanding more and being able to follow conversations. It’s a beginners class so we haven’t really learned how to actually contribute much to conversations, but it’s giving us a good base to the essentials. Our host family likes to ask us what we learned when we get back for dinner, I think it’s funny how excited they get when we use our new vocab.
This weekend on Friday and Saturday, our group took a trip to Nerja and Cordoba. We left Friday morning at around 10, and drove an hour to get to Nerja. We got situated in our hotel, which was absolutely adorable, and headed down to the beach. The beach was so nice ! It felt amazing to chillax and tan in the sun. The water was really cold so I decided not to dive into that, but we took a pleasant stroll along the beach finding nice rocks to bring home. It was really nice getaway from being in the city, to enjoy the sun and the water and to fully take the time to relax. Mike and Cassie brought us to a very popular restaurant that is right on the beach a little way down from where we parked our things. This restaurant was famous for its paella with free refills, although one plate was definitely enough for me. The paella was so good! It had chicken and whole shrimp in it, the shrimp were a bit challenging to take apart but overall the meal was fantastic. We talked for a bit about how we are feeling about this entire trip so far, then decided to go back to the beach for a while. We went back to the hotel to take a quick dip in the pool, then went back to our rooms to take much needed showers. Since I forgot my hair products at the house back in Granada, my hair ended up being a big frizz ball the rest of the night, that was fun to try and manage. For dinner we drove out to Frigiliana. This town was beautiful, with it’s pure white houses lining the the side of the hill, with great scenic views of the mountains in the distance. We were early for our reservation so we took the time to walk up the hill a while to explore some of the town. I very much enjoyed the brightly colored doors and plant decor placed outside in contrast to the white buildings it made the colors pop. We were able to get into our reservation a little early, and had a great view of the city from our outside table. I order the salmon, and oh my goodness that was good, but I wasn’t surprised because all the food in Spain has been fantastic so far. We sat and chatted as the sun set, and could hear music playing from the festival going on down below us. After dinner we headed back to the Nerja where we walked around the town and grabbed some late night gelato, I got pistachio because it’s now officially my new favorite flavor gelato and ice cream flavor. The night was so lively, with music and performers out of the streets, and people our at restaurants for drinks with their friends. We could even hear music playing from our hotel room and stayed up a while to listen. Eventually we had to go to bed because we were going to have a long day ahead of us.
The next day we drove two hours to Cordoba. Our first stop was at the archaeological site of Madinat al-Zahra. Here we took a bit to walk around the fallen palace, even though it is in ruins it was still interesting to see where everything would have been and was still able to see some of the restored details. It didn’t take us too long to walk through the entire place, but we decided that we should move on to make it the restaurant for lunch. It was a nice restaurant, I decided to get the seafood paella, which was a gamble because most of the seafood in it were clam which I don't personally like, but besides that it tasted amazing. Following we got to walk through the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba. The inside of the Mosque-Cathedral seemed endless, there were pillars after pillars with arches connected them throughout the entire building. It was a maze I couldn’t tell where I was once I went inside. There were so many paintings, realistic sculptures, golden objects and walls covered from floor to ceiling with designs. Like the Alhambra its difficult to explain the experience because its a place you need to see and witness for yourself to be able to understand how extravagant it truly is. I also found it very interesting that the reason why it is called a Mosque-Cathedral is because it was originally a mosque, which is where all of the pillars and arches are, but a cathedral was built in the center of the mosque and opens up to a bright open room full of white ceilings and walls. I also learned that the reason why the entire inside of the building is dark and dimly lit except for the cathedral is because it was to represent how god is light.
This mini trip was so nice ! I would have loved to explore cordoba a bit more so hopefully I will be able to go back some day! It took us about 2 hours to get back to Granada, we were all feeling pretty wiped out. Since this coming week is Corpus Christi there were a lot of people already getting started with the festivities. There streets were busy, and while we were walking back to the house, we saw that there was a concert about to start. We decided to head back to the house to say hello and eat some food before going back to the plaza. Come to find out it was a concert for the students at the School of Music in Granada. Sarah and I had a great time dancing and listening to music, they played mostly quite a few rocks songs that Sarah and I could sing along to. It was definitely a great end to the night!
