Cordoba, Spain - October 18-20

We can be honest about this: you go to Cordoba to see the Mezquita. The Jewish area that surrounds the Mezquita is cool to get lost in, but altogether Cordoba could easily be done in a day. That said, we had two nights, and while we were ready to go at that time, I was also surprised at how much we were able to find to fill in the rest of the time.

Our extremely reasonably priced hotel was located directly across from the big doors that lead into the Mezquita.





The Mezquita itself is awesome, but interior pictures don't really do it justice. It's an extremely odd and interesting building to see. A little secret is that it is also free before 10 everyday because there is a service going on. It's a good deal, but it also meant that by about 10 a.m. we were done with our plans for the day.

We took some time to wander and found a couple of nice plazas and a few interesting turns within the Jewish quarter. We also went to Arab baths to relax in the afternoon.



We came across old men playing a card game with others watching on. Something we didn't see enough of during the trip.



And we decided to continue recreating statue poses.



By the time we left we were more than ready to go, but Cordoba had a few more surprises than I remembered.

Madrid, Spain - October 14-19

Given that Ali and I were spent 3 months spending pretty much every minute of every day together without any personal space, we got along very well. Still, it's sometimes nice to have other people to hang out with to break things up. In Rome, Ali ran into one of her high school friends. In Paris, we visited with one of my high school friends (and had a great dinner). Little things like that gave us a chance to share stories about a trip and find new conversation topics. So we were excited that our friend Martha and her sister Emily were going to meet us in Madrid.

Having other people around changed a few things.

First, we had somebody to take our picture.



And we had people to take pictures with.



And we had an excuse to be goofy.



Emily apparently has a tradition of recreating the pose of statues. Everybody got into this one.



We spent a lot of time hanging around Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor at night, which remains one of my favorite places to just hang out.



One night there was a big rally of the transgender community. I think they were saying their medical condition should be treated like any other medical condition rather than as a mental illness and thus that certain procedures and medication should be part of the medical plan. I'm not really sure. There were a bunch of girls with stick on mustaches and guys dressed in drag.



I said "That's not something you see often." Martha, who lives in San Francisco, said "Actually it is."

Back in San Diego

So we're back home, whatever that may be nowadays. In fact we've been back for nearly a week. We've been fighting off jetlag, but we're almost back to our normal routine from before we left (ie, sleep at 10 and wake up at 7).

Sadly the blog kind of fell apart in the last 3+ weeks of the trip. We went to some awesome places, made a point to stay in some more character-filled hotels, and have some great pictures. We still plan on getting through the remainder of the trip, but can't promise when it will all happen. We also have a few funny stories or funny thoughts we'd like to relay as well as opinions about the places we enjoyed, didn't enjoy, would return to, were surprised by, etc. Bear with us and thanks for reading (if you still are).