We’re in Abu Dhabi on the sparkling Arabian Gulf, about 100 miles from Dubai. Abu Dhabi is the richest city in the world and it shows. Glittering high rises, extreme theme parks, two giant palaces, and one of the world’s largest and most opulent mosques.
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Yesterday, I took the fast train from Madrid to Cordoba in Spain’s Andalusian south. About 1400 years ago, Muslims arrived here from the Middle East. They made beautiful Cordoba the capital of their western empire and built the Aljama Mosque as a tribute to their religious beliefs and their political power. By 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella (think Christopher Columbus) began the violent expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, as well as members of the well-established Jewish community, which had been in Spain before the birth of Jesus.
Continue readingSPOILER ALERT: This is a long post and kind of a grown up version of “What I Did This Summer.” So skip over the boring parts and I hope Laura or Bill or Meredith do not grade it.
Camino Milagro 