Granada!

Lindsey and I had our day off alone this week, because Esther had friends visiting and she went with them. Since we no longer had transportation, we had to work something out with the one bus that stops in Huercal Overa.

Originally we were thinking of going back to Mojacar, since we can shop there and also go to the beach. The bus only goes to Mojacar once a day, and in the afternoon, so we couldn't do that. Then we started thinking about taking a longer trip and going farther away, and we decided to go to Granada, which is just under 3 hours away. We talked to Lola about it, and she was super nice and told us if we went to Granada we would have to stay the night because it would be ridiculous not to. As it turned out, there was also a family of huespedes staying with us at the time who are from Granada, and Lola was able to talk them into driving us out there! So in the end, we only had to buy tickets to take the bus back - it was perfect!

We woke up early Monday morning to eat breakfast and pack up for the day. We got tickets to see La Alhambra, and planned to stay the night in a hostel (the father of the family actually knew a girl who runs a hostel in Granada, so we were thinking of working something out to stay there) before catching the bus at 12:30pm the next day. We got in the car around 10ish and set off for Granada.

The family has a little boy named Gonzalo, who is absolutely adorable but also a genius. He goes to a French school, so he is fluent in Spanish and French, and he loves to read - and he's only 3! The entire car ride was spent reading Gonzalo's Mi Primer Diccionario and discussing which animals scare us (nothing scares Gonzalo, apparently, and he thought it was hilarious that we were afraid of anything). Luckily the ride was super fast - we ended up getting to the city before noon.

When we got there, we got coffee and started walking up towards La Alhambra (a gigantic series of palaces and fortresses from the Nasrid family) and the Albaicin (a preserved neighborhood of silk and other markets with tiny streets). Everything we passed was amazing: there was a ton of greenery worked into the city, with rivers and streams running right through the middle of the streets. We got a map from the Oficina de Turistas, and started heading uphill towards La Alhambra.

It took us a while to find the Albaicin (it is very easy to get lost / sidetracked looking at everything), but when we finally got there it was incredible. We walked under an archway and up around a corner and found ourselves on a tiny street filled with teterias and open shops selling clothes, rugs, pareos, and tons of plates, cups, and beautifully decorated tea pots. The Albaicin was filled with streets like this one, winding up and around each other. We walked around and shopped for several hours, and ended the journey in a bar. We got beers and tapas (every drink comes with complimentary tapas! I love Spain.) and then headed off to La Alhambra - we were told we would need at least 4 hours there - so we wanted to get there early.

As we started walking, I decided to fall violently ill and could not move. My stomach was dying and I thought I was going to get food poisoning. We stopped for a while and I contemplated how perfect my timing was: I would get food poisoning the one day I come to Granada. I WOULD. I was not happy.

I decided we needed to keep going anyway. We got on a bus to go up to La Alhambra (I was not about to walk up the mountain in 100+ degree weather when I was on the verge of death), and arrived about 7 minutes later. We exchanged our tickets, and headed in to look at the gardens.

The gardens of La Alhambra are what I imagine the Garden of Eden would look like. We walked out onto a path lined with massively tall cypress trees, filled with fountains and flowers and delicious smells. I can't even describe how painfully beautiful it was, but I felt much better about five minutes after arriving. It was actually magical.

We walked through several gardens like this one, passing through archways constructed entirely out of plants and flowers, posing with 5-foot-tall roses, and dipping our feet in exposed rivulets of water that ran between the fountains. We went into palaces, baths, and studies, marveling at the intricate engravings that covered nearly every square inch of the walls and ceilings. We even picked fruit off of the trees (a Granada from Granada, of course)! --but pomegranates are not quite in season yet so it was too green to eat :(

Eventually we got to the Nasrid Palaces (the main attraction of La Alhambra). We had to wait outside for a few minutes before we could go in. The view of Granada from this height was breathtaking (you could see the entire city from this palace), but it was too hot to breathe. Lindsey and I stood dripping in sweat, feeling our backs and legs burning to a crisp. Coming from this position of discomfort made walking into the palaces even more amazing: when we got past the gates, we were welcomed by cool shade from the towering cypress trees, and more delicious fruity smells from the orange trees and roses around us. The palaces we saw were filled with massive and beautiful rooms with intricate carvings all over the walls and windows: carvings of shapes, words, and stories. I wish I spoke Arabic so I could understand what they said, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Several hours and a ridiculous amount of pictures later, we completed our tour of La Alhambra. We shopped a little more in the Albaicin, and then stopped for some wine and tapas. While sitting on the terrace of a bar in the Plaza Nueva district (a popular spot for college students), we saw the father from the family of huespedes walk by on the street below us! He stopped to talk to us, telling us he had just finished his yoga class and was now heading over to meet his friend Paco for drinks. We paid for our drinks (and not the tapas because they are free! woo!) and headed off with Cuamo.

As it turns out, Paco lives in the Albaicin. His building, like all of the buildings of the neighborhood, is preserved from several centuries ago. In addition to being located in the greatest neighborhood ever, the building also has a garden and a patio in the middle. As obsessed as I am with Yale housing, I have to say this might be a teensy bit better.

Paco showed us around the Albaicin some more, taking us through the residential parts we had not yet seen, and leading us to a spectacular viewpoint from which we could see the Alhambra, which is illuminated and even more beautiful at night. This spot isn't well known, so there weren't any tourists, which was nice. After looking at the Alhambra for a little while and hearing more about the history and current situation in Granada, Paco took us out to his favorite tapas bar. We sat and drank and ate delicious food, watching a live flamenco performance and talking about Granada and our lives. Paco and Cuamo are paleontologists and professors at the University of Granada, so we had a really interesting discussion about our experiences with museums (I worked in the American Museum of History during high school and am now working at the Yale Peabody Museum). I had noticed on the drive out that the ground in this part of Spain is surprisingly white (usually indicating a high presence of calcium carbonate, which preserves fossils well) so we talked about that for a while too. Overall a very nerdy, but very intriguing conversation.

Several drinks and complementary tapas later, we walked Paco back to his apartment, spotting an abnormally large number of salamanders on the way (they are all over the walls of the buildings). After leaving Paco and Cuamo, we discussed housing options. In the end, we decided it was probably best to stay out all night and not worry about housing, so we could "really experience Granada." And thus we headed out to find a discoteca.

We had a really hard time finding anything that was open, since it was a Monday night and the middle of the summer. We ran into two British girls, and they offered to show us to a discoteca they had found. They kept warning us to prepare ourselves, but I still could not believe it when we walked into a dance club that was COMPLETELY EMPTY. The two girls ran out to the dance floor and started dancing; Lindsey and I decided we wanted to keep looking.

After asking several groups of people on the street that seemed to be our age for recommendations on where to go, we ended up at a discoteca near the river. It was pretty empty, but the music was good and we were enjoying ourselves. The bartender told us more people would be coming, but it was already 2:30am so we didn't really believe him.

Surprisingly enough, a ton of more people did come, and after making a request for Lady Gaga we started to have a lot of fun. We met some really interesting people, and some not as interesting people. Overall it was a great time though, because before we knew it it was 6:30am and the bar was closing. We ended up leaving with an odd group of kids we had met (a brother and sister, her girlfriend, and some other people somehow involved with all of them - it was difficult to keep track of the details). They kept telling us they lived really close to the center of Granada, so we left with them to sleep for a little bit.

I'm pretty sure we slept for about 10 minutes, because we woke up and left the house before 7:30am. We were completely disoriented and not prepared to be awake and functioning for the day, reeking of smoke and alcohol and general discoteca smelliness, but we left anyway to get breakfast. We stopped at the first open diner-type place we found, and had coffee with bread drenched in olive oil. We set off to walk back to the city after getting directions. We were actually 8km away from the city (nbd), but we decided the walk would be nice since we could see cool things on the way, and we both love walking.

We ended up walking to the bus stop, and decided it would be better if we took the bus. The other man waiting for the bus told us it would be no more than 30 minutes. Three times. Eventually we left and decided to just take a cab.

When we got back into Granada, we were ready for another breakfast. This time we decided we needed to have eggs and a milkshake. Apparently nobody has eggs for breakfast here, because we had to go to at least 4 restaurants before finding one that served eggs. By the time we finished eating, stores were beginning to open up, so we did some last minute shopping in and around Alcaiceria (a small street filled with more tea shops). After lots of sweaty speed-shopping, we left to go meet the bus.

On the way to the bus stop we found some more necessary shopping, so we lost track of time a little bit and ended up rushing to get a cab 15 minutes before the bus was supposed to depart. Luckily we made it just in time. We both passed out for several hours on the bus, completely exhausted from the trip. We woke up about 3 hours later, still not in Huercal Overa, and began to worry that we missed our stop. We didn't - the bus ride just ended up being 4+ hours long. It wasn't too bad though, because we got to sleep a little bit.

When we arrived in Huercal Overa, we called Lola to have her pick us up. She told us she wasn't coming into town for another hour, so we could wait there or take a cab back. We decided to take a cab, because we were smelly and disgusting and tired. We got in the cab and realized we didn't have an address to give the driver. GREAT.

We told him we were working on a farm staying with Lola at Casa Rural Huercal Overa. I overestimated the size of this place yet again, as he immediately knew where to take us (everyone knows everyone, even though the farm is 6km away from the town). When we got back, we jumped in the pool, ate, and slept for 4 hours. We ended up not having to work that day (!) and just slept straight through until dinner. We showered (finally eliminating the lovely smells we had absorbed) and went to bed. We were super exhausted, and I'm still tired now, but it was so worth it. Granada was amazing!