on to berlin!

7/8: cordoba
this morning we woke up early (though im pretty sure i could have slept all day. traveling always gets exhausting after a while... i will have to take a rest day soon) and went to the mezquita, the main point of interest in cordoba. originally there was a church on the site, but after the muslim occupation it was confiscated and turned into a mosque. over the course of 200 years it was expanded until it became the second-largest mosque in the world. then after the Spanish Reconquista, it was transformed back into a church, with a cathedral right at in the middle of the huge muslim edifice.
so obviously there is a very mixed and interesting history to this building. and i have to say, after being in muslim north africa last summer and visiting countless mosques (including the renowned mosque of kairouan) this was the most spectacular, largest, and interesting religious building i have ever seen.
afterwards, we walked around a bit but there wasnt much else to do in cordoba, so we made our trek back to madrid. i had emailed our hostel to see if we could come one night earlier, but i had yet to hear back from them. we decided to take our chances and head there. so after taking the metro to the nearest stop, and caitlin lugging her entire life up 19 flights of stairs (i think she might regret having packed so much at this point) we arrived to find out all the rooms were full. bummer.... but they directed us to a different hostal, a mere 5 minutes walk away (or thats what they claimed anyway.... in reality more like 15) with all of our luggage (my back is about to break at this point). when we got there we walked by the hostel without noticing it (it was not marked at all) 3 times before we had to stop and take a breather... and a jarra of sangria, of course. then i made one last effort to find it and succeeded, and they had 2 beds open! excellent. and the hostel was even referenced in my guide book, so it couldnt be that bad right?...wrong.
a four hour lockout in the middle of the day, bad breakfast, uncomfortable room - hot, smellllllyy (almost unbearably), cost for internet and expensive laundry, not very nice staff, early check out, cost for luggage storage, not very fun - no social activities. the worst hostel of this trip for sure. and i cant think of any off hand that i have ever stayed at that i disliked more.

7/9: toledo
we took the half hour train ride out to toledo, a UNESCO world heritage site. we only had a few hours there, but we had heard that it would be plenty. it was reallly hot but we wandered through the medieval streets of old toledo to the cathedral, stopping for drinks and to shop a bit.

back in madrid we planned our final night of spain! i didnt want to be out too late, since i had to leave for the airport by 8:30am. we decided to go for tapas and then to see more flamenco! the show was longer and way more formal and elaborate than what we had seen in sevilla. i am so happy we got to have both experiences- the show ended up being amazing, the perfect to end our spanish experience (in total i had spent 16 days in spain, far more than i will be spending in any other place).

7/10: moving on...
off to the airport for my first EasyJet experience. not so easy, i found out... as check-in took about an hour. good thing i had left early.

we arrived in berlin on time and i navigated my way via bus and the U-bahn to the hostel, Meininger Hostel. it was cold and rainy and i was happy to arrive. aaand good news: they had made a mistake and overbooked so i had been upgraded to 6-person dorm instead of 9-person, at the same price, aannnd i found out that because i have a eurail pass i get 10% off the cost! sweet! aaand all my roomies are nice (two girls from texas, two boys from england, one guy from mexico)!

at night i hung out with will and robbie (the english guys) and molly (a new austrailian friend) around the hostel until about 12:30. then we decided to take bikes out to a cool area recommended by molly's friend who lives in berlin. this was a good idea except we only had two bikes, which meant i was on the back of robbie's (who was already pretty drunk... not the safest bike to be on) and will was on the back of molly's. and molly and will were both bigger than robbie and myself... so they had a bit of difficulty. but the situation made for a hysterical and frightening ride out to the bars. (though on the way home, we opted for a cab)
we ended up (in one piece, luckily) at a very nice bar ! great conversation and ambiance and german beers! we got back around 4am i think...