Cordoba

We went into a burger king in Cordoba last night (they don´t have a vegeburger so it was no use to us) and there´s a burger called the Frances. I think that´s because it´s meant to be French style. My name means French in Spain.

We arrived in Spain the night before last, at midnight, in the rain. We´d spent the day in the Jardin de Tiuleries minding bags after we checked out of our hotel, and ate sugar crepes.

We finally got to sleep at 1.30am, in a big ugly hotel in Madrid near the airport. In the morning we were relieved to find it cold and rainy, because the heat in Paris had frankly been too much for us. We didn´t end up seeing much more of Madrid than the inside of railway stations and trains, but what wonderful railway stations and trains they were! So much for the stereotype of Spaniards being inefficient. We liked it in Spain. Everyone is beautiful and happy, the kids are cool, and it seems to be a very prosperous and happy place. The train journey to Cordoba was very beautiful, I got tears in my eyes looking out the window at all the rolling mountains and rolling clouds and little buildings that looked like castles and towns with statues looking over them. Kristian claimed it was just like California.

And so we got to Cordoba in the middle of the afternoon yesterday, and by the time we arrived it was sunshiney and hot again. Cordoba seems like a place that belongs in the sun, it is all the right colours for a bright day, all mosaic blues and grey white patterned cobblestones and yellows and red flowers. Even the pigeons/doves are white and grey and bright. People are very talkative here, which is wonderful except that we don´t understand them. At least French I could vaguely understand even if I couldn´t speak it very well. Spanish is a mystery to me.

I have been taking a lot of photographs of Cordoba, it´s the kind of place where you can´t put away your camera or you´ll just have to take it out again. It´s got a lot of very quaint little alleyways, but the bits that interest me the most are the broken bits, the crumbling walls and windows through which you can see the sky.