Pomegranate

So apparently, the Spanish word for pomegranate is "granada." There are indeed many pomegranate trees in Granada. But did the chicken come first or the egg? Or is it more similar to one of my dad's favorite jokes: Where was the man when he jumped off the bridge?


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Location:Paseo de Sancha,Malaga,Spain

La Alhambra

Funny name with the double-the. Sort of like Table Mesa in Boulder. Every new culture seems to forget what the words of the previous language of that area mean, or else they do it on purpose. Anyway, the correct name for this place was, at least generically, al-Qal'at al-Hamra, which simply means "the red fortress."

In any case, I had no idea that MC Escher was very influenced by the Mezquita and this place too, but it isn't hard to figure out, once you know. As below with a few tile and wall details:




























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Location:Calle de Antequeruela Baja,Granada,Spain

Salmorejo

I hope to try other variations of this dish here. A Cordoban specialty. Thick and cold tomato cream, ham, egg.




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Location:Calle de Tomás Conde,Cordova,Spain

Synagogue

A few pics from one of only three synagogues to survive the Reconquista and the subsequent Inquisition. Córdoba.
























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Location:Calle de Tomás Conde,Cordova,Spain

Mezquita

It's hard to understand the tremendous architectural power of the Mezquita in Córdoba at first glance. Outside, it's an unassuming, unremarkable, restructured Christian cathedral. Until you enter the orange grove outside the exterior walls and then into the actual structure. This is no simple building. This is the work of truly inspired desert dwellers living in a far-off land trying to get closer again to their god. See the palm trees in the columns and the dappled sunlight in the arches, hear the desert wind wash the floor with red sand, feel the space and aloneness and isolation yet also tranquility allowing the believer to be closer and unclothed and open and quiet and naked. This is no Christian space.




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Erosion

Of a culture, of the soil, of a relationship, of the mind, etc. No matter which, it can come in many forms and styles for each. And it can come slowly, or it can come fast.

In the case of the Muslim presence in Andalusian Spain, no doubt they saw it coming. The reconquista had already been in progress for centuries to the north. Then came the fall of Córdoba, then Sevilla, then Granada. And finally the expulsion of their people from all of Spain.

As a side-note, it's remarkable to me that in the last gasp of a culture, some of its greatest work is produced, such as the Alhambra palace in Granada (to be seen later on this trip) - like the city of Mystra in the Peloponnese peninsula, in which took place, inside the closing fist of the burgeoning Ottoman Empire, the last flourishing of exquisite Byzantine architecture and some of its best philosophical writings and teachings in centuries. Perhaps it is extreme cultural stress that, despite centuries of previous malaise, at last produces greatness again.

In any case, the Jews who had done so well during the Muslims' Sol y Sombra fared no better when the Christians finally came. At first they thought all 'twas well, but it was a trick of population. The Christians couldn't do anything because they had no other friends beneath their thin veneer of conquest. Then when the population had begun to finally tilt in the Christians' favor, they got rid of those others unlike them also. An onset of plague and several bad harvests provided another excuse to create a scapegoat. And the expulsions began.

By the same token, the Christians in Spain eventually got back what was coming to them. When you create cultures solely based on external income without expanding infrastructure, technology, and self-sufficiency, you are doomed to fail. And so the Spaniards after robbing the New World blind of silver and gold for centuries and spending it only on wars, palaces, and churches, finally ran out of money, friends, and energy. The industrial revolution caught them flat-footed, just like our American culture is reeling from the ridiculous ponzi schemes of real estate, little qualitative investment in education or health, multiple wars, and credit.

Perhaps our American culture will create something great at the end too, and it won't just be Steve Jobs and the resurgence of the Green Bay Packers.

Oh the irony of typing this on an iPad.


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Location:Calle Valdés Leal,Seville,Spain

Alcázar

Visited the Alcázar in the heat of the midday sun. Nice cool rooms and pleasant gardens in a splendid setting. Fantastic mudejar design. Crowded of course but the huge garden grounds dispersed the tourists a bit.

Some photos:



























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