We had never been to Spain. You’re probably wondering why we waited so long and to tell you the truth, I really don’t know. Well we decided to correct that though… First we flew into Madrid, then took a train to Cordoba and then a train to Seville, and then back to Madrid, and flew back home. Then the very next weekend we flew to Barcelona and back. Consider Spain DONE! Four cities in 2 back-to-back weekends.
Barcelona will be covered in an upcoming blog entry but for now lets cover Cordoba and Seville. We began our Saturday early (10am) and headed out on a train from Madrid to Cordoba. Spain has a goal that every major one of its cities can be reached from Madrid in under 5 hours by high-speed train. Therefore, while Cordoba is 247 miles away and 4 hours by car, it only takes 1 3/4 hours by train.
We only spent about 2 hours in Cordoba but what we saw was really cool. There is an old (784 AD) Mosque called La Mezquita that was absolutely amazing. It’s the largest Mosque in Spain and is still in use, but the strangest part of it all is that Christians took it over during the Reconquest and created a cathedral nave smack in the middle of the thing. While this creates quite the spectacle, it protected it during the Spanish Inquisition (nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!). There were a couple more things we saw in Cordoba but all-in-all we pretty much covered it in a couple hours. The city was small, nice, and relaxing… but we had more to see.
Our next train stop was Seville, pretty south in Spain and quite a large city. It had a lot to offer but we tried to hit the major points. We walked around the Real Alcázar, a palace with gardens, and tried to get into the Cathedral o
f Seville. Unfortunately for us it was closed by the time we got there (4pm or so) but it looked really cool from the outside. It was built after the Reconquest and on the very spot of the former Mosque… nice! It’s the third largest church in the world after Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s in London but some argue that the Cathedral of Seville is the largest by volume. The coolest thing by far was the Plaza de España as it was composed of a large courtyard, huge fountain in the middle, and a long magnificent building surrounding it all. The building had many pieces of ceramic tile covering it and its bridges that were for a dried-up moat-sorta thing. The perimeter of the courtyard along the building had strange shrines almost like little sitting areas for each city in Spain. It was definitely the neatest part of Seville and I just found out that it was the filming location of the Planet of Naboo in the second Star Wars film.
At about 8pm we jumped on a train back to Madrid, had a siesta after our long day, and arrived at about 10:30pm. Perfect time for dinner! See, in Spain they eat late — REAL late. We thought the Italians ate pretty late with their 8:00-9:30 meals but in Spain it’s anywhere from 9:00-1:00am! I’m not kidding, when we were leaving a restaurant at 12:30 one night several groups were just sitting down to order… we were shocked. How do they last so long without eating? Supposedly they eat tapas (small plates similar to appetizers) in between meals although we normally ate them for our meal. Another thing about the Spanish culture is that they eat really sloooow. You can leisurely enjoy your meal, take your time, and spread it out for several hours. We’re cool with that normally, but this also means the service is really sloooow. If you want some water, another beer, or another tapa you may have to wait 10-15 min before you are able to flag someone (they don’t just stop by). The places we went to had about 30 tables or so, with only 2-3 servers running every which way for them. Don’t go to Spain if you have little patience 
Saturday night — the same day we went to Cordoba and Seville — we decided it was time to put an end to the myth about the Spanish partying till the morning hours. Add to that the fact that Stacey and I have never been out partying past 3 or so, and before we got too old we had to give it a shot. We finished our meal at about 11:30 and headed to a cafe/bar for warm-up drinks. We did a bit of people watching and discovered that anyone aged from 14 to 80 is out after midnight strolling the streets, and a group of 60-year-olds even sat down in the cafe and had some coffee at 1:3
0am. This was truly a culture for the night owls. At about 2:00 we headed for the club and with some swift negotiating we were in (actually, we have no idea how we got past the guards… since we weren’t on the list and everyone else seemed to be denied). To make sure we made it all night, we promptly started on the Red Bull & Vodka. Yet another thing shocked us about Spain… the bartender poured us a triple-shot of vodka to fill the glass and topped it with a sprinkle of Red Bull. The drinks were 12 Euro though… but still. We started dancing and getting into everything and the club was quite good. It was fairly full at 2 when we arrived, but the party really started at about 3 when the lights started going crazy, another couple bars opened, and some professional dancers came out. That’s right, the club was just getting started at 3am (after all clubs in the U.S., Britain, and the rest of the world close). We partied and partied and partied… and the hours flew by… 3:30am… 4am… 4:30am… 5am… 5:30am… and we decided that 6am was our cut-off point. As the song goes, “Partying till 6 in the mornin!” We walked out the door at 6:10am shocked that the club was just as full as it w
as at 2am when we arrived. It closes at 7am and I think they were going to have to start kicking people out! What did we do at 6am you ask? Stop by the churros and chocolate place next door, of course! They stay open till 7am for people like us, and it was PACKED. There was a 10-minute wait with a line out the door. We were so proud of ourselves for making it the whole night, and we can confirm first hand… the Spanish LOVE to party!
We weren’t sure exactly how to see Madrid, so we basically wandered around to various sites like the central park (where we saw a counterfeit Pooh and Mickey Mouse) and large buildings that looked famous. We even found an area that supposedly resembles Times Square… without any of the really tall buildings… without a clock… and without the flashy lights… (yeah we’re not sure why it’s called that either). By far, the most memorable thing about Madrid was the bullfight — but this requires another blog entry on its own.
Sorry for the really long blog entry… but anyone that knows me probably also knows how long my stories go on for… so I tend to write quite a bit for my blogs (and hence hate writing them!). There was a lot to cover though — Cordoba, Seville, Madrid, Partying, Spanish culture — so hopefully future ones won’t be this bad.
Pictures are now live: http://pictures.joeyeager.com/main.php?g2_itemId=77439
