so lately i have been up to some fun!! First off, I have been super uber busy since the last post. La semana pasada I went to the Alhambra, the last moorish stronghold in Spain after the Catholic Monarchs decided to kill everything and everyone that wasn't Catholic...luckily they have changed a bit. The story goes something like this: so in the year 711 the Muslims came into the iberian peninsula and took over from the visigodos who were having internal power struggles and super duper high taxes. because of all the strife going on in the inside the Muslims had it pretty easy. It was a conquista super rapido and sin sangre (bloodless) here is why: They had horses because they are just badass like that and so they pretty much won if there was any fighting, which there was not much of because the Muslims were like hey you guys, you can totally worship whoever/whatever the heck you want, doesn't bother us...we are just going to tax you (which was lower than the super high taxes that the visigodos taxed anyway so it didnt really matter). however, if you are politheistic/ not people of some type of book we will have to kill you. and so it went everyone just chilling for a while...that is of course until the catholic monarchs decided that it was not cool to chill with people who are different because that is bad or something so they started killing people left and right who were not catholic...this went on for a while and in 1491 they got to the Alhambra ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnd the made a deal with the nazrid peeps on the inside and were like, hey man we wont kill you if you just surrender to our rule, and so they were like yeah sure that sounds pretty good to me, and the fernando and isabel were like majajaja we lied die!!!!! ok so maybe thats not EXACTLY how it went but its close!! so here are some sweet pics:
I also went to Generalife (the gardens and summer residence of the nazrid rulers, attached to the alhambra)so here are some pictures of that and a cat that i saw there that i have since named Gris...it is grey in spanish, not creative i know but when it is super hot and you are food/water deprived in seems like a good name.
after the alhambra and generalife i went to the beach called almunecar on the costa del sol...it was pretty so here is a picture of that too...just kidding...blogger is being slow beyond reason, so just imagine a rocky beach with water so clear you can see through it and a sun so bright that everyone went home either a crispy brown color or red as a lobster (i, however, found a happy medium)
This past weekend I went on an excursion to sevilla and cordoba que bonito!! in sevilla we went to visit a cathedral that was previously a mosque (kinda like all the cathedrals in spain) and this is a picture from the giralda (which means weather vane) but it is a catholic belltower that was added on top of the call to worship tower thing that is almost all that is left of the mosque...it is incredible on the inside...the alterpiece is about two tons of gold, making it the most expensive altar piece ever...the only bad thing about it is that it was made from gold that was earned during the inquisition...anyway i promise to put pictures of that up soon but they are still on my camera and the cable has disappeared...
next i went to cordoba. the cathedral here was once a mosque, although much much more of it is left than the one in sevilla. it is pretty much a church placed where they knocked down a bunch of the arcs in the mosque. one of the kings of spain came to visit when they were building it and he said "we are knocking down something very unusual in this world to build something that we can see every day." power to you man, but i do have to say that it is a very cool idea to have a church and a mosque in the same building. maybe there is hope for us yet...the artwork on both sides was amazingly beautiful, so for your entertainment, i will soon post pictures of that as well.
and that brings us to today. Tonight I have my first intercambio aka i meet with spanish students studying english and we all help each other with the language we want to learn...i will write more about it after the fact!
here is the newest member of my sheepie family. he has yet to be named, so give me your suggestions!! also, some pigs... XD
hasta pronto,
mj
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