Day 82 - Córdoba - October 6

Day 82 - Córdoba - October 6

Woke up this morning at 8:15am and decided I needed café before I dare attempt to do anything else. So I stumbled out to the courtyard and asked the guy sitting there if he had seen any café. He said he was looking for it but hadn't seen any and he couldn't get the wifi to work. I was thinking the wifi probably needed café too. So I stumbled further to the front desk and asked the old man if there was any café. He said yes and went and opened the little breakfast room. 

Oh, thank God, I thought I was going to have to stumble out the front door and down the street. I'm sure I looked a fright. I have a daughter who won't leave her bedroom without hair done and full make up and a granddaughter who won't talk to me on FaceTime unless she brushes her hair first. I've never understood what mutation of the gene pool created these aberrations. But I digress. So the old man gets the café going. I explain to the other man that the wifi is working on my phone so maybe he should try turning his iPod off and on again. He does and it works. I get two cups of café in me and some tostada and I'm feeling human again. Things are a little clearer. 

I go to take a shower, but the nozzle is missing the part that makes the spray, so the shower is just like having the tap up high and concentrated. I look down and notice the bath tub. It is some where between the size of those little plastic tubs we bathe newborns in and a modest size normal tub. I thinking maybe the purchased it from a specialty shop for small people. I never liked baths or understood how you were better off soaking in the dirt you just washed off. But I figured what the heck, I'll try it. I got in and my knees were under my chin. I am not a tall person. I could tell there was no way I was washing my hair. I'd probably drown myself in the process. So I got out, dried off, dressed and stretched. 

The bears and I left the hotel about 11:30am. We went to the tourist office and then across the narrow road to the Cathedral. They had guards at the door and you couldn't go in unless you were going to mass and you had to stay the full hour. So I decided to go to mass. The guard said I couldn't go in a tank top, so I threw on my long sleeve shirt and gained admission. It is spectacular! I was mesmerized. There were TV screens televising the mass to people in chairs on the sides. All the seats in front in the middle were reserved. I thought this was a little weird, but found a seat facing the altar in the section where the choir was. 

When mass finally started a bishop came out and there was a professional photographer taking pictures, so it was  special event of some sort. Though this Cathedral or this Bishop really liked the incense. He went all the way around the altar with it at the beginning of the mass and several times during the mass. Then one of the priests doing a read gave a few shakes over the book he was reading from. I was beginning to think they thought the attendees smelled bad or were fumigating the place. I was wheezing slightly about half way through the mass. I swear between first and second hand cigarette smoke and the incense, I'm surprised all the Spaniards aren't in hospital for breathing treatments. 

Then despite my respiratory distress the Bishop went on for about a half an hour with the lecture, I mean sermon. Lord, I was asking God for Intercession with man. Anyway, I managed to take a few pictures when mass was over. I really do try to be respectful. I'll go back tomorrow for a proper tour and photos. The building is really extraordinary. It was a mosque. Then became a cathedral after the Spanish drove the Moors out of Spain.  The Spanish did this with a lot of mosques. Some of them just got razed and then a church or cathedral was built

on top of them, like the cathedral in Seville. But this mosque was left standing and converted into a church. You can see some areas where the Christian part of the edifice were just put in front of or laid over the Mosque. I'll try to show some of this in the photos tomorrow. Outside both the cathedral in Seville and in Córdoba there is a outside area with orange trees. I forget what it is called, I'll try to throw it in if I remember. 

After mass I took two different Hop On Hop Off buses. One was a. Smaller bus that could go through the older quarters and one was a larger bus that went mostly around the perimeter. Córdoba has had different names but has been

here for a long, long time. They have found ruins that date back to 800 years before Christ.  That's some really old stuff. In the US we designate things historic if they were built before 1950. :)

They have a Ciudade de los Niños (Children's City) that has like fifty different play grounds with all kinds of different stuff, including what looked like a cross between a bouncy house and a trampoline. They also have professionals who plan activities for the kids. And, the bus driver said, "a kiosk where the parents can get a beverage." lol

In between buses the bears and I stopped for an Aquarius naranja. 

By this time, I was ready to call it a day. So walking back to my hostal, I saw an organic tapas place that looked interesting. So I went in and had three different tapas and some cold water. One

of the tapas was a gazpacho that was more like creamy tomato soup with a hard boiled egg cut up in it and jamon iberica floating on it. It won some award for best tapas last year. It was ok, but the other two were better. One was a pear and chicken salad with mint and the other was shrimp which looked like they had been wrapped in very thin strings of dough and then baked sitting in a sunny side up fried egg. Both of these were super yummy. 

Back at the hostal I talked to the guy at the front desk and he is booking me into two flamenco shows. One is tomorrow night at 10:30pm. He is making reservations for a restaurant he recommends near the flamenco show. And he is making reservations for Tuesday night at a place I found on Trip Advisor. None of them are open tonight, it is Sunday in Spain. 

I rested for a while then went out for café and helado. Oh, did I mention it was 34C/93F here today. I love it. I hardly ate any helado the last half of the Camino because it wasn't hot. Last year I ate some every day. When I got back to the hostal I realized I left my key at the bar. I was just going out to go back to the bar to look for it when the waiter came through the door with it. People are so nice.