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@ -500,3 +500,53 @@ language and culture. |
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I only spent one full day in Madrid, and afterwards took a bus, continuing |
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south, down to Córdoba. |
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## Córdoba, Spain |
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It was on the bus to Córdoba that I remembered to actually book a place to stay |
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there. I quickly grabbed an AirBnB in town, though as it turned out messed it up |
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so that when it didn't go through. So there was an hour there, waiting at |
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the Córdoba bus station, where I was trully homeless. I spent it booking another |
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AirBnB, properly this time, and eating some bread and cheese from my backpack, |
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and watching some birds fight over a loaf someone else had dropped. |
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This was the first AirBnB I'd gotten in Europe so far, up till this it had been |
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only hostels (and one hotel, in Ravenna). While I'd enjoyed hostel life |
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initially, especially my first taste of it in Milan, it had begun to wear on me. |
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What I'd found is that, first and foremost, hostels were trying to hit a certain |
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feel. _Good vibes_ were words which I saw in many a hostel description and |
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review, though didn't often actually experience. It's in the public |
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consciousness that backpacking through Europe, going from hostel to hostel, is a |
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journey filled with new experiences, new people, and lots of partying. And while |
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that is _true_, a lot of hostels ignore hospitality in favor of playing up to |
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that fantasy, to their own detriment. |
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A hostel's primary goal, like a normal hotel or AirBnB or whatever, shouldn't be |
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to provide you with experiences, or help you meet new people, or enable your |
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drinking and partying. These are certainly secondary goals it might have, if it |
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wants. But the primary goal should be to make you feel comfortable and at home. |
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And while the conceit of a hostel is that you are exchanging some physical |
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comfort for cost, by having shared bunk rooms and common bathrooms and all that, |
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comfort can be established through more than a fluffy bed. Some hostels I stayed |
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at got this, most didn't. |
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If someone feels comfortable in a hostel they'll open up on their own, and |
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naturally want to meet the people around them, go out partying, and have cool |
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experiences. Or not. They'll do whatever the fuck they want to. But if a hostel |
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is too focused on being cool and hip and showing off how good its vibes are it's |
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neglecting the basics, and there is no partying and the vibes aren't good. |
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So I was tired of party hostels, as I began calling them, having just been in |
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one in Barcelona a few days prior, and grabbed instead spent the night in what |
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turned out to be a brutally cold old building which had neither heat, sealed |
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windows, or cooking device with which to make a hot meal. So that's what I get |
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for being a snob, I guess. |
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In the morning I visted the Mosque/Cathedral of Córdoba. This site has had the |
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odd history of having originally been a church, having then been converted to a |
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mosque when the Moors took Spain in the 700s, and then converted back to a |
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christian church in the 1200s when the catholics took Spain back, and has since |
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been designated a cathedral. It retains much of the Moorish architecture, but |
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with a church in the middle, and is an utterly fascinating place which I |
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neglected to take any pictures of. |
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