The Raven and the Writing Desk

Exceeded Expectations
- the Mezquita. It looks exactly the pictures make it look, but they don't do it justice.



- the gardens of the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos.



Good
- touring through the old Jewish quarter and getting my picture taken with Averroes and Maimonides
- lots of great street views of twisted old pre-automobile-era roads (that cars drive on anyway) with semi-dilapidated buildings, yet way less crowded with tourists than comparable cities in Italy
- people watching on Easter Sunday - everybody out dressed in their Sunday best and strolling around the streets. They put the little tiny kidlets in the parish confraternities at an early age so they might have a chance to carry the floats later in life, but as small children they seem to get drums which their parents let them carry around afterwards. Most of them have pretty good rhythm.
- all of the food places the Three Ravens chose on our own were pretty tasty.

Bad
- most of the first day for the walking tour was rainy :(
- did not get to see the Semana Santa processions

Ugly
- N/A

Interesting
- the reconstructed pillars of a Roman temple stood near our hotel, and, predictably enough there were a bunch of feral cats living in the temple area. This group of cats included five really cute fuzzy little kittens, and we have a cat lover in our group who collected all of our scraps from dinner and took them out to feed the kitties.



- the Semana Santa processions (which we did not get to see) feature these immense and elaborate floats that beggar description. Mary is life sized and she weeps tears of jewels. She is covered in silver ornaments and heavily embroidered clothing and surrounded by gigantic candles. The Jesus floats are even more elaborate and feature life sized scenes from the stations of the cross. The ones we saw were displayed in a crowded little area where everyone was jamming in to see them, and somebody's nonna was singing a traditional Andalucian lament. We were told that some people go to see them out of authentic religious feeling, and others just to see the spectacle.



- the main agricultural industry in this part of Spain is olives, and the countryside was completely covered with patchwork olive groves from Granada to Cordoba.

- our local tour guide in Cordoba was from Liverpool, which I'm sure will appeal to philomenaobence

On Saturday I was privileged to be able to join one of the hikes put on by the Burgess Shale Foundation up to the Mount Stephen trilobite beds. This important deposit of fossil trilobites is included on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and is part of the Burgess Shale formation, which is perhaps more famous for the Walcott Quarry creatures, a collection of very strange looking prehistoric organisms on display at about 20 times life size in a memorable exhibit at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. I got a few good pictures, which you can check out on my Flickr profile here.

I have posted several new pictures to Flickr - some from a couple of hikes that I took with my parents, some from San Diego and a few obligatory locks.