Cordoba last Sunday

Hey gang. Thought I'd put up some pictures of the last Sunday I spent in Cordoba, Spain. Everything was very interesting but unfortunately our guide was not great for non-spanish speakers. Thus, I can't really tell you a whole lot about the sights, but I'll do my best.
This is the welcome statue that guards the town from evil Arab invaders from Africa. After about 500 years of Arab occupation, I guess they thought the statue would bring them some luck for the next 500.

They have a "Giralda" of their own in Cordoba...and not surprisingly...more oranges.

Here's another view of the tower down one of their little streets. Would be postcard worthy if the sun had been out.

This man allegedly performed the first surgery to remove a cataract.

Here are a bunch of pictures from the Cordoba royal gardens. They were unbelievable, but I must say still pale in comparison to those of Sevilla. But nonetheless they had incredibly nice fountains and groomed trees.

And now we shift attention to their Mosque. Interesting fact: This mosque is under controversy because it is a Catholic mosque. That's right.

The story: Under the Arab rule, an enormous, intricate Mosque of arched columns of marble, granite, limestone, and alabaster was constructed. It's about the size of 2 football fields and at times would have around 40,000 people inside at a given time. The mosque was so well-known in the Iberian Peninsula and northern Africa that when Christians took back Spain and drove the Arabs out (largely into Africa, where they would go on to cause a few problems in numerous regions, most notably Darfur), instead of demolishing the mosque or leaving it as a historical fact, the Christians decided they would rather use it. So they built naves typical of gothic cathedrals at the time, and in the middle, built a grand cathedral for worship. So in the pictures below, the arched columns constitute the majority of the mosque, but the pictures of the cathedral are taken from the very middle of the edifice.

It is absolutely impossible to take a picture of this place that has any sort of size perspective.

This picture above is of note because it is of the choir area where people the choir would sing. They sat when they weren't singing, and the back wall of each chair, so to speak, has a different scene from the life of Jesus Christ. Only the elite could read, and only priests had Bibles at the time this cathedral was constructed, so the pictures served to help the common people understand Jesus' teachings.

The organ.

This last picture demonstrates that europeans can be tacky as well. America may have its share of Renaissance festivals, but pictured below is one that's nearly year-round, and may be the most cleverly devised tourist trap ever. Advice: Don't buy candy at the first booth you get to. Around the corner is a lot more vendors selling much more substance.

I apologize for the probably large number of typo's so far in this blog.