Time for an adventure!: ¡Los baños árabes son increíbles!

Our program took a day trip to Córdoba on the 7th to see the sights, but we really had two main objectives in mind: see the famous mezqita/catedral (mosque/cathedral), and visit los baños árabes. Of course, we got to have some free time as well to wander around and see what interested us, but we didn't have very much time for that so we weren't able to see very much. The group that I was with found some ancient Roman ruins that were kind of cool, but they were completely gated off so you couldn't enter. We also stumbled upon this hidden church that was really pretty. Since we didn't really have any idea what we should go see in the little time we had, we stuck with Jim, the visiting professor from PLU who is traveling with our group this semester and teaching a class for our program. This was lucky for us because he knew Córdoba a lot better than we did, so he brought us to a few important places: la Plaza Corredera, which is similar to Plaza Mayor in Madrid but on a much smaller scale, and la Plaza Potro, which gained fame when Miguel Cervantes had his famous characters Don Quijote y Sancho Panza visit the small plaza and stay in the accommodations there. For the last part of our free time we headed to see the ancient Roman bridge that was the original gateway to the old city. We ate our bocadillos (sandwiches) in a little park there, and then headed to los baños árabes!

The way the the Arabic baths work is that there are four main rooms with pools: la sala fría (cold), la sala templada (temperate/warm), la sala caliente (hot), y la sala de vapor (steam). You start with the cold pool (SO COLD!!!) and move to the warm, hot, vapor, etc. Then you just do it all over again! It is pretty great because you can stay in any of the areas as long as you like, you just move at your own pace and enjoy the silence and relaxation. Also included was a short massage... so awesome! It was definitely a fantastic experience, and my friends and I are planning on visiting the baths in Granada after our finals as a kind of end-of-program gift to ourselves! Sadly, no pics of the baths... I really didn't want to end up with a soggy camera!

Our last stop of the day was the old Islamic mosque, which was later converted into a cathedral. This was a pretty cool visit not only because it is such a famous and beautiful place, but also because I am taking a class about Islamic culture in Spain, so I have been learning a lot about the history and aspects of the Muslim culture that were explained to us on our tour. There is nothing as great as getting to actually use the knowledge that you learn in the classroom in the real world!