A little weekend getaway

What does everyone need after 10 days off for Holy Week and Easter? A 5-day weekend. Well, at least that's how Spaniards see it. So this past weekend was another festival here in Spain called "las cruces" or "the crosses" and so we had Monday and Tuesday (the 2nd and 3rd of May) off of school. We spent part of the weekend in Motril and then headed to Cordoba on Sunday to visit a friend of Tad's who is also teaching English there. I had been to Cordoba when I studied abroad but was eager to see more of the city.
During "Cruces," people build elaborate altars with crosses to celebrate Jesus and his sacrifice to the world. Some of the crosses are really beautiful and have flowers all around them - here are a couple of examples.


It's funny because this is supposedly a "religious" holiday but like most other Spanish festivals, it would not be complete without alcohol. There were many different tents set up with hundreds of people swarming them. A popular tradition is to dress up in Flamenco dresses (for the women) and dance Sevillana. It's really a cool thing. Unfortunately, we were a big group of Americans and so we didn't really experience the authentic "cruces" holiday but there's always another year!
We did some touring around the Jewish quarters of the city and took a walk down this famous street called "calle de las flores" or "flower street."

Sunday night we went out to dinner and then went to a really cool Jazz Cafe for some drinks.
Here I am with our awesome host, Joey.

Joey is a guy with a great sense of humor and shares with me a love of singing, theater and the arts in general. We ended up swing dancing in the middle of the bar (no, no one else was dancing but we didn't care) and it was a blast.
Monday morning was off to do the touristy things. We paid the mosque a visit - it's an impressive Moorish masterpiece with a strategically placed Catholic chapel in the middle (added when the Christians conquered the Moors in Spain). It's famous for it's red and white striped arches throughout.
Here are a few pictures from the mosque.




After that it was off to the palace and gardens. I have an obnoxious amount of pictures of flowers (because I love to take pictures of flowers) but I definitely am not going to post them all.
Joey and I just taking in the gardens

I masterfully placed my camera to self-time a picture of us in this little "cave"

Beautiful flowers and ponds



A view looking out over Cordoba

Tad and I were using each other as back rests....that's what friends are for, right?

Cordoba is known for it's beautiful flowers (as I think you can gather from the many pictures of flowers) but I absolutely loved the balcony on this house!

And last but not least - another one of my self-timed masterpieces :-)

I am down to less than 40 days here in Spain - I can't believe it - but that's all I am going to say about that for now!