Grateful for Granada

Mes Amigos! Qué tal?

Well I am officially halfway through my stay at Spain. When I told this to my host dad, Pablo, last night I gave him the sad puppy-lip and he simply goes, “Yes—time to look for your replacement.” Haha. I was like, “Will miss you, too!”

The weeks continually go faster, especially because of my daily routine to class and the gym—takes up a lot of my day—and then driving and tutoring my girls. And the weekends are certainly not any slower with travel!

This past week has been eventful and enjoyable. Thursday some of my girlfriends and I ventured out into the Madrid noches in order to experience the typical “all-nighter”—a common practice among the Spanish, where one begins drinking/bar-hopping around midnight, clubbing around 3 A.M., and sleeping from 7 A.M. until late afternoon. Sounded wholly unappealing to me. My SMCM friends know my tendency to start drinking fairly early and ending my night around midnight, not beginning my night then! But I did it and it truly did not feel like the “chore” I had anticipated. We enjoyed free drinks all night until we entered “Club Joy” in Sol. 12 € entrance fee, and then spent another 9 € on ONE drink, but it was so fun! There are no clubs in Frederick, (and I would never change that), so it was truly a different drinking experience for me. Everyone just…dances. The whole night. My body never stopped moving!

We left the club around 5:30 A.M. to find a snack—sometimes Sbarro pizza tastes better than all the patisserie treats in the whole world. After that, I lapsed into food/sleep-deprived coma and luckily wandered onto the right metro, which had just opened. The metro was busier at this time than times I’ve seen it during the day! As I’ve mentioned before…the city never sleeps. All in all, success! Will I ever do it again? No.

This past weekend I spent in Granada, with Laura, Kirstin, Kristen, and Rachel. Granada was a warm little city, split among hills and mountains. Of all the cities I have seen so far, it was the “hippiest.” The atmosphere reminded me a lot of SMCM, which was refreshing. We arrived around 1 P.M. on Saturday, ravenous as usual. I ate the most satisfying lunch of a kebab and a falafel wrap—others were not so impressed, (as usual), so we spent much of Saturday intermittedly finding snacks for the hungry. There was no agenda on Saturday because we had already planned on Sunday being our major sight-seeing day, so we did a lot of walking and shopping, enjoying the 60 degree weather and happy sunshine. I spent the most money on souvenirs here, because the shops had such different stuff from typical Spanish souvenirs. Because of La Alhambra, which I’ll describe later, the city takes on much of an Arabian theme, and so the shopping felt like walking through an Arabian fishing village market or something. Loved it. It was Kirstin’s bday, so we planned on a night out involving tapas. All the tapas in Granada come with your drinks, so it’s very cheap eating. Because of this, all the tapas bars are incredibly crowded on weekend nights—but that made it more fun!  A lot of ham sandwiches, and a lot of yummy sangria. However, instead of stimulating us, this feast made us sleepy so a lot of us went off to the hostel to seek sleep.

The hostel was amazing. From its deck we had a view of La Alhambra, and the room itself was quaint with an amazing shower. It was tucked away in a little side street, owned by Luis and his girlfriend who had just opened the establishment in October—made me want to own a hostel! And, best of all, they had CEREAL for breakfast! Oh how happy that made me. I miss my cereal.

Sunday was spent at La Alhambra and Hamman, the Arabian baths. La Alhambra is known as the single most important Arabic architecture in Spain, as well as the most beautiful and interesting. Beautiful it was! It rests on the top of a hill that splits the city in two, making the views the most incredible I have seen thus far. Granada rests at the bottom of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and so from La Alhambra viewpoint, you get a clear view of the snowy mountain caps. Like the Alacazar of Seville, there are many gardens, military walls, and interior that speak to the absolute mastery the Moors had over design and decoration. The history of the building is really interesting—I recommend Wikipedia, (aka this post is long enough already, so if you are actually interested, DO THE WORK YOURSELF!!!).

Hamman. When I say it out loud I stutter a little bit at those m’s because THAT is how good the baths and my massage felt. I decided to go all out and buy the most expensive treatment, which included a foam massage and a relaxing, oil massage, (I picked essence of amber as my oil), as well as a two-hour session in the baths. So, basically, the Arabian baths are these underground cave-like structures that royalty used in order to relax. No pictures were allowed, but you can look them up also—the architecture was awesome. There was a “cold room” with a cold pool of water and cold seats, a tea room with the yummiest tea, and one was allowed an unlimited amount of tea, (I had 12 cups), a hot room with a hot pool of water and hot seats, a warm room with a warm pool of water, a steam room, and showers. One is free to roam around, pick what pools they want to sit in, in whatever order they want to go in. The steam room followed by the cold room was my favorite sequence. Anyways, worth the money. I don’t think there is one person reading this who wouldn’t have loved it—so get your behinds on over to Granada and treat yourself!

Some conclusions:

Seville: favorite city to walk around and explore

Barcelona: city with my favorite sites

Granada: city with my favorite atmosphere

Safe return to Madrid, and now excited to see Lucy, who came back yesterday. As I sat down to lunch with Adela yesterday, I asked her what time I needed to pick her up and she informed me I would be doing no driving or teaching this week, as my students Alicia and Maria were skiing all week! The girls go to a French school, which regularly takes a weeklong break every few months—so I’m a free bird this week! Plan on seeing more of Madrid. And Friday, I leave for Cadiz, (southern coast of Spain), for the Spanish “carnaval,” (American Mardi Gras).

Hope everyone’s February is wrapping up nicely! Mom says the weather has been mild at home, so that’s good. Talk to you all soon, and thanks so much for reading this semi-sporadic post!

Missing and loving you,

Mary

 Our hostel deck!

 Me by the fountain in the city center.

 See what I mean about the shopping? This was my favorite but the lamps cost a fortune.

 Giant creature attacks Granada!

 La Alhambra garden...

 ...and again.

 Carnaval paraders!

 City view from Alhambra! Look at all those white houses.

 con Mary.

 Mountain view.

 con Mary.

This is the atmosphere I was talking about--laid back, no shoes, guitar strummin'!