Córdoba II - again

Stupid Internet connection died as I was posting, and one little flaw of the app I'm using to post is that, in that situation, it doesn't realize that the connection has failed, so it says the post was successful and erases it from the iPad. I end up with no post and the draft gone. So I'll try again.

First, though, the important things: here's one of the first pictures we saw of Clara, taken just after she'd arrived at her home in Berlin, 3 days old:



Is she just the most beautiful baby ever? We certainly think so.

Okay, back to more mundane things - travel. We are staying in a 4-star hotel here in Córdoba and I really dislike the place. I believe the difference between an okay hotel and a great one is the little stuff, and this place (NH Hoteles Amistad Córdoba) has missed on a bunch of little things.

The safe in the room is broken. Not a big thing, but the reaction of the hotel was, "It's broken and we can't fix it." No, "Sorry" or anything like that. When I asked at the front desk if they could have it fixed the next day, the response was, "You mean, call a repairman?" I can guarantee that safe is not going to fixed in my lifetime.

You can buy Internet for a bunch of Euros each day at the hotel, or get 30 minutes free. But the first day the free wasn't working and the staff said it was my iPad that was the problem. No, the iPad has worked with every other wireless network it's ever been on, as does my iPhone, which also does not work here. Staff suggestion: pay for a day. Sure, without any idea of whether it works. After two days, I finally get the free wireless here to work. Well, kinda. I have to stand in the lobby and it is so slow that it takes half of my free 30 minutes to download four 250k pictures. Then it dies again.

It's interesting that the lower-priced hotels and hotel chains are, more and more, offering free Internet access and the more expensive places continue to charge for it. The cost to this hotel to provide access is probably less than $100/month, and asking me to pay $15/day when I can get it free at 20 places within a 5-minute walk is just nuts.

The room has a thing to heat water so I can have instant coffee in the morning. Instant freakin' coffee in a 4-star hotel.

Breakfast is 14€ a day ($18), but I have to go find the waiter to get more coffee. At least it isn't instant coffee in the dining room.

Just a bunch of irritants, but taken together makes me long for our hotel (2-star) in Vejer, which was half the price and hit all the little things on the nose.

But this morning we again visited "la Mezquita," - the Grand Mosque - which is, in my humble opinion, the most beautiful building in the world. Pictures don't even come close, but here is one:

The Mosque opens at 10 each morning, with a 10 euro entry, but we learned several visits ago that a couple doors open at 8:30 and you can enter for free and ahead of the crowds. For 45 minutes or so, the mosque is quiet and peaceful and you can feel all the people who came here to worship for two thousand years. We have been at that door almost every day we've ever been in Córdoba - probably 10 days in all.