This past week has been pretty hectic. We’ve had a speaker, a meeting, or some kind of trip almost everyday. I know it’s been a while since my last post but I’ll try and recap everything that’s been going on for that past week.
This past Friday we took a trip to Cordoba, to visit the Great Mosque of Cordoba. This was a very ironic trip for me, as this past semester I took a class on Islamic Art and Architecture and actually learned about many of the monuments that I have been able to visit while in abroad. One of the things that I really hated about our professor was that at least once a class she would say something along the lines of “If you ever find yourself in New Zealand or France you should definitely check out this monument that we just talked about in class.” And every time that she would say something like that I would just roll my eyes and mutter something angsty under my breath like “Yeah cuz if I ever find myself in New Zealand or France, the first thing I’m going to do is go visit a monument that learned about in my BS art history that I took to get rid of general education requirements. Like that would happen right?”
Welp, I’m eating my words now because that exactly what I’ve been doing since I’ve been in Spain. As of now, I think I’ve probably visited about 3-4 monuments that I had discussed in that class. And as weird as it sounds its actually really interesting to have learned a lot about something in class and then actually have the chance to see it person. When we were taking our tour of the Mosque of Cordoba, I can honestly say that I probably knew more about the monument than our tour guide.
Like I would just be walking along and drop random facts like,
“Oh yeah, the Great Mosque of Cordoba, created in 784, under the Cordoban Umayyad dynasty. The initial patron was Abd’ al-Rahman I but later additions were made by Abd’ al-Rahman III and Al-Hakam II.”
“See those arches? Those are called polylobed arches because they are arches within arches.”
“You see that red and white pattern? Well that style is called voussoir. The white represents stone and the red is baked brick. This style was also used in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. “
If you haven’t caught on yet, the moral of the story is that I know way more than I will ever want to know about Islamic art and architecture.
Anyway that visit was beautiful and I got a ton of great pictures from there.
This past Sunday we had a double-header and we got to visit historic Italica and Matalascañas (aka Da BEACHHHHHH).
The visit to Italica was nice and everything but it was basically just a bunch of rocks.
Exciting stuff……..
Thankfully, the bulk of the day was dedicated to the beach, which was great. The weather was perfect. The only downside was that the water was colder that Mr. Scrooge’s heart at the beginning of A Christmas Carol. Most of the day I just laid on the beach with my friends but toward the end I said I wanted to at least go in the water for a little bit.
And by a little bit I mean 3 seconds. No exaggeration.
I literally started walking toward the water, my foot touched the water, I spun on my heel and made my way back to my towel.
It was really cold.
But after that we all got ice cream and prepared for the bus ride back to Sevilla. All in all, one could say it was a solid weekend.
Tomorrow a big group of us is going to Morocco for the weekend so it should definitely be a fun week. Most of the following weekends will be a lot of trips and stuff. I plan to go to Portugal (Lagos and Lisbon) and Barcelona with friends and I think the program also takes us to Granada (where we’ll get to visit the Alhambra, which I also learned about in art history).
Get excited! Lots of good stuff to come!
UNC Study Abroad -- Sevilla, Spain 
Awesome abt Cordoba art deserved yr grade