Granada 2.0

WOW. I just got back from Granada tonight, it was a spur of the moment decision. Lucy, who is studying there, came to visit me to see Feria in Sevilla with a couple friends and I'd been thinking about going back to Granada with her for a day, but hadn't planned anything. I decided to just go, why not? I bought my bus tickets in the morning and found a hostel when I got there. I'm so glad I went! The first time I went with Granada was with my program, we toured La Alhambra for 3 hours and I was super hung over, and it was raining out so I didn't have a great time and didn't get to see enough of the city. This time I feel like I've walked through the whole thing.

We got in around 8:30 and Lucy and I went for tapas. One of the awesome things about Granada is that most bars give you free tapas with every drink, so that's how we did dinner. I could get used to that rule. I don't remember which king decreed it, but the reason for the free tapas is that worker productivity was declining after 2 PM when workers left for a break and spent all their money on alcohol, so, whichever king it was, decreed that food must be served with each drink to increase worker productivity. That's how tapas were created.

Lucy had work to do for class in the morning (she had missed class for Feria...cultural reasons) so I got back to the hostel and met a group of people who were going out, so I ended up going out with them. It was pretty fun, definitely an interesting mix of people. First they took us to a bar and then to what felt like a kind of salsa/reggae club. I was pretty tired but I ended up getting salsa lessons from a German man who was a surprising talented dancer. The club was quite a varied mix of people, I hadn't realized Granada was such a hippie town.

In the morning I started out with a 2 hour walking tour that took us through Albaicin (sp?) (the Arab quarter) to Sacremonte (the gypsy quarter) where flamenco was born in the caves that people still live in. Our tour guide took us into a Carmen, a typical Arab style house adopted by the Christians after the Reconquista. The gardens were completely serene and beautiful. I met a girl from Buenos Aires and we ate lunch together, speaking Spanish and English. It took a bit to get used to her accent, but it worked out pretty quickly.

After that I met up with Lucy, who is doing a project on street art in Granada, so we took a tour offered by the hostel on the street art and caves. It was a great decision. I must have walked at least 5 or 6 miles today. Granada is hilly too! Shock to the system. Our tour guide took us farther into Albaicin, and out again to Sacremonte where we met Mali, the most interesting man ever. He came to his door just wearing a skirt and a necklace with the crest of his Indian family. He's Mexican, but lived in India for years finding his spiritual calling and working on an idealistic city called Auroville. His voice sounded like Mufasa. He brought all of us in and greeted each of us fluently in our respective languages (Italian, English, Spanish, German) and took us on a tour of the cave that he lives in which is rigged with electricity and has a garden with a Porche 911 sitting in it. He told us about himself and how much he'd traveled and where he'd lived and would occasionally go off on a tangent about religious unity and mutual respect. He had a meditation room (which is actually 40 meters underground) where he had us all stand in silence for a minute while he played an instrument that resonated for a great length of time. He called everyone "sweetie" and "brother" and invited us back anytime we like. It was a very unique experience.

We moved on to more street art, done by a painter named El Nino de las Pinturas (if I remember correctly), who is very well respected around the city; his works are everywhere. We walked into the old Jewish quarter to see one of his works, where 10% of people are still Jewish, which is high for Spain.

In the garden of the Carmen:

View of La Alhambra

Smelling the lilacs in Mali's garden

Mali quoting Alexander the Great

Street art by El Nino

The Jewish Quarter

View of Albaicin from the Jewish Quarter

I'm so glad I went to Granada again. I saw so much of the city today and got into the hostel culture, making random travel friends; it's very strange, but it's definitely fun at the same time. I could see myself going back to Granada for a longer period of time.

Mas Fotos!

Liz was my proud mama for the night and took all the pictures: 

Dancing Sevillana with Natalie

Desfile!

On Thursday night was the Desfile (basically a flamenco fashion show/showcase) which we've been getting ready for for so long. It was followed by a fiesta at the center and professional Sevillana dancers. I got to dance the Sevillana to live music in my flamenco dress! It was actually really hard because the dress I was wearing is a mermaid dress and very narrow around the knees so I felt like I was taking baby steps. I finally have a few pictures of it, I'll post more when the rest go up!

Doing my runway walk

Posing with Jenn and Kelsey!

Being silly

Lola, my Sevillana teacher; she's adorable

Lagos: Vacation from vacation

I just got home from our weekend in Portugal a half an hour ago, so I'll post right now so that I don't forget. It was such a great weekend! I'm a little bit toasted, but we got in some awesome beach time and everywhere we went was incredibly gorgeous. It happened that about 20 people from CC-CS came on the same trip, it was so nice having so many friends together!

We left in the morning on Friday, which was a struggle...and got to Lagos in the early afternoon. We walked into the pretty beach town and hung out at the pool on the roof of our hotel for the rest of the day, it was cloudy so it was pretty chilly. On Saturday we luckily came into some great weather for our "Sailboat Sangria Tour and Grotto Cruise". The sangria was most definitely flowing, and it started at 11am! Demasiado. It was great to hang out on the sailboat, of course I jumped off it into the freezing cold water, it was...invigorating. We went in launches from the sailboats to tour the grottos and alcoves on the coast. I couldn't believe how gorgeous it was. Then they dropped us on the beach for the rest of the day (with incredibly soft sand!) Today we were beach bums all day. There's a beautiful little beach right down the street from our hotel, so we walked down there and set up camp. Getting in the water was a challenge because it was SO COLD, but Liz, Kate and I swam out to one of the cliffs and jumped off of it. It wasn't too high, but it was still a thrill. After staying in the water for that long my skin got so numb that it actually started feeling hot.

View from the top:

Sangria and sailboats with Kevin and Cam!

A tunnel in the grottos

At a point in Portugal called The End of the World...it was a little windy

Sunset at the End of the World

Madrid!

Getting around to the Madrid post finally! Friday morning Hilary and I left for Madrid on a nice long 6 hour bus ride. The morning was very exciting, and very stressful. Our bus was at 8am at Plaza de Armas, which is 15 minutes from where I live, walking, and 25 minutes from Hilary's hostel. I woke up and got there by 7:30 and sat to wait for Hla, who I thought left at 7. When she didn't turn up by 7:40 I called her and found out that her alarm hadn't gone off and she just had woken up! I ended up begging the bus driver to wait for just a few more minutes, and just as he was about to leave me in Sevilla, Hla managed to sprint into the bus station. It was a close call.

We got to Stu and Antonio's apartment around 3, it is AWESOME! So lucky that we got to stay there. We started touring in the afternoon and made it El Mercado de San Miguel, an indoor gourmet market with the best froyo ever, and the Royal Palace. When I came to Madrid 5 years ago, I had gone to the Royal Palace, and I've wanted to go back ever since. It is the most gorgeous building I've ever been in. Unfortunately you can't take pictures inside, it's so incredible. My favorite room has an orchard with flowers and peaches carved into the ceiling. Hilary and I walked through twice so we could take it all in. Our tour guide the next day told us that the palace actually has over 1000 rooms, so the tour must only go through a small part of it. The king does not currently live there because he deemed it excessive to live in such luxury in hard economic times. Instead he lives in a modest 100 room palace.

On Saturday we took a free walking tour of the city with Marc the Irish tour guide who yells a lot. He wasn't a bad guide, just a bit emphatic. He took us to Plaza Mayor, the oldest restaurant in the world, Miguel Cervantes house, the Egyptian temple, Plaza del Sol, and the Royal Palace. We did a short history lesson in which I was King Carlos V and Hilary was King Phillip II (I think?). Afterward we went to a bar called El Tigre where they give you a huge plate of tapas with every drink you order, not a bad deal. Later we were able to meet up with Purcell and hang out a bit in the city center with her. 

Tapas at Mercado de San Miguel

The cathedral next to the palace, it was a cool perspective with the sun behind it

The Palace

Temple given to Spain by Egypt in the 70's....don't remember why

Plaza del Sol; The Times Square of Madrid?

The second most translated and widely published author ever (if I remember correctly)

Free tapas! Jamon is everywhere. 

Updates

I should not be blogging right now, I should be reading the 100 pages I have left of Nada, by Carmen Laforet, which is actually a very good be, albeit insane. I have to read the rest of it by tomorrow, but I think a quick blog post is necessary because I haven't in a while.

To start with, I haven't yet posted my pictures of Semana Santa, Holy Week in Sevilla. I was only there for the last 2 days of it, that was all that was necessary for me. In the first place it is demasiado gente (way too many people!). I came home on Sabado Santo and I went to the Cathedral to see what I could see, which was the paso (float) El Sol, I believe, which depicts Jesus carrying the cross. I saw it entering the cathedral, but from very far away because there were so many barriers and people. The pasos move very slowly because they are big heavy wooden structures supported by men kind of shuffling their feet under them. In front and behind the processions follow with Nazarenos, hermandades (kind of like religious fraternities) that wear uniforms that look like they're in the KKK. There is also the band playing blarey, brassy Semana Santa music that can be heard from very far away. In the weeks leading up to Holy Week I would see and hear them practicing by the river at night.

The next paso I saw was of Maria, I think, and I was much closer to this one. That's mainly because I was just trying to get home, but all possible ways of getting there were blocked off for processions. It took an hour and a half to find my way home, I had a nice impromptu wander of the side streets of Sevilla on the way. Finally I decided to wait at one of the barriers and they let you through once the paso passes. It was pretty cool to see one up close, they are very beautiful and elaborate. 

Real life?

I had to register for classes this week, thinking about next semester is way close to going back to real life.

On the upside, Hla is here! She stayed in Liz's homestay for her first few days and in a hostel with friends close to Alfalfa. Unfortunately my class schedule here isn't conducive to hosting someone, so I haven't gotten to hang out with her as much as I'd like to, but we're leaving for Madrid tomorrow morning for the weekend! Who's looking forward to a 5 hour bus ride?!

Hla's first day in Sevilla was HOT, weather she's not used to (because she's studying in Copenhagen) but since then it's cooled down. Today is cloudy, which doesn't happen too often in Sevilla, and 'rainy', meaning there's about 2 rain drops. Yesterday we did a lot of wandering the the north centro area, we went up to the top of the Metrosol Parasol, walked to Casa Pilatos and then met up with my intercambio. At night we went to Las Coloniales, which has pretty awesome tapas and sassy waiters and out to Alfalfa, which I managed to return from with a new pair of super euro-chic sunglasses.

She didn't get it

I did try to explain to my senora that I'm trying to avoid eating bread this week, so I asked that she give me yogurt for breakfast instead of a slice of pan, which she's fine with. But, last night, she gave me empanada for dinner, a dish made with pastry dough. O well. She even said that she was going to make me something else but then remembered I'm not eating bread this week and made me empanada instead. I felt it was too rude to say no, so I had some. I guess it's the effort that counts!

My senora's primas (cousins) are staying with her this week. I only met them yesterday, they're very sweet. One of them, Mikaela, knew I was going out after dinner so she advised me to dress up "guapisima" so that all the ninos would say "oo que mona!", then she made me show her my outfit before I left. Very cute. 

Dublin and Galway

So weird to finally be in a country where everyone speaks English! I get nervous about my Spanish after speaking English for a weekend, so after nine days, it might be a little rough to get my brain back into Spanish mode. It was, in a sense, a bit more relaxing to be somewhere where English is the primary language. I love Ireland, I think it's somewhere I'd like to go back to, but definitely over the summer. We spent our first day in Dublin. The weather wasn't terrible, so it was good for a walking tour. We started out on the free tour offered by the hostel, but it was supposed to be about 3 and a half hours long, so we branched off after a while. I really liked our tour guide, as well as a lot of the other Irish people we met. They were very friendly to tourists and had a wry sense of humor that I appreciated. Even after just 3 days there, the resentment toward the English was very apparent.

Our first day in Dublin we went to the Dublin Castle, Trinity College and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Then we went to the Guinness Storehouse, which I like a lot, learning about the history, brewing process, advertising and business of Guinness. At the top is the Gravity Bar, a room with 360 degree windows and a great view, where you collect your pint included in the tour. At night we jumped on the hostel organized pub crawl, which took us around to a few touristy bars in Temple Bar and later to some more local ones. At one we got to see some great live music and at another I ended up getting a free pitcher of beer due to  very odd bartender.

Our next day in Ireland we took a bus to a smaller town called Galway. It was very charming with lots of green space, and it was right on the water where we saw Galway Hookers, traditional irish fishing boats (also a kind of beer). The town was basically centered around one main street, lined mostly with pubs and small shops. It was a nice change from all the big cities. Our last day we spent on an organized tour to the Cliffs of Moher. We made a stop at a farm in the countryside along the way where we did and short hike. It was unbelievably beautiful, our tour guide had all of us lie down in the grass for a minute and listen to the silence. I could have stayed there for a few hours. Then we went on the Cliffs, which were very impressive. At points along the walk there wasn't much of a barrier between you and a drop straight down, a little scary, but very beautiful.

Bangers and Mash anyone?

The Galway waterfront

There's no way to capture the countryside in a photo. Our tour guide told us that over the summer there are over 600 types of flowers that cover this area. 

The mini cliffs, practicing before we got to the real ones

Some cliffs...

Brussels and Amsterdam

Brussels = food. Demasiado comida. The center square is beautiful, lined with gold crusted buildings that house beautiful little chocolate shops. All the surrounding streets are filled with chocolate shops, bars and restaurants, and waffle and frites stands. The chocolate shops all give out free samples, therefore we all completely overdosed on chocolate. We walked all over the city, which isn't too big and found the famous Mannekin Pis, the Peeing Boy statue. We walked out into the African quarter of Brussels and on our way out hit the famous Antique flea market. We also made it to Delirium village, a well known bar area of the city, and went into the Delirium cafe, with countless types of Belgian beers.

From Brussels we did a day trip to Amsterdam. I wish we had more time there, but we made do with what we had. The entire city is gorgeous, everyone travels around on bicycles, I was almost run over a number of times. We went to the Anne Frank house in the morning, a very worthwhile visit. Afterward we went down to the Van Gogh museum, which was a pretty long walk, and when we got the and found out it was 14 euro to enter we decided not to go. Oops. We wandered back into the city center and found the open air flower market, the most awesome cheese store ever, an area called Begijnhof (antiguamente for women who neither wanted to marry nor enter a convent) and walked into the Red Light District.

Chocolate shops all ready for Easter

The beautiful city center

Waffles = Amazing

Begijnhof, still functioning as a community today

Flower Market

Cheese!

Mussels in Brussels!

YUMM

Drinkin' a Pink Killer in the Delerium Cafe (probably not looking my cleanest)

Paris

I've been to Paris before, though only for a few days, so I thought I wouldn't really want to hit all the big sites again, however it was actually pretty cool to check out what Paris has to offer after 5 years. The first step was figuring out the metro system, which, once deciphered, was clean and punctual and easy to use. For the rest of the time we walked...and walked and walked and walked. Our first day we started at the Arc de Triomphe, walked down the Champs Elysees, passing some very grand buildings along the way. Then we got the the Louvre, my favorite part were Napoleon's apartments. Our next day we did Versaille in the morning. A friend of mine kept saying that as they were building it, wasn't anyone thinking, maybe this is just a little bit excessive? After we went to the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. At night we went out in Montmartre decided to go into a bar because they advertised 2 euro beers (everything in Paris is usually way more expensive). It turned out to be a very local place where I ended up meeting a few Parisians. We spoke a mix of English and Spanish, some of them were better at one or the other language. They kept telling me how exotic my "New York accent" sounds, which I think is ironic coming from people who speak such a beautiful language. Our next morning we had to catch a train to Brussels around 1, so we spent the morning wandering Montemartre. We went to Sacre Ceour, a beautiful cathedral, and the surrounding streets filled with cafes and boutiques. It felt like a completely different city than the rest of Paris, much smaller and calmer. 

In the Louvre! (Makes me think of Aunt Leenie's kitchen)

Napoleon's Apartments

The yogurt in France is the best yogurt I've ever eaten

Marie Antoinette's bed (Not so fun fact that I remember from my last tour: when Marie Antoinette gave birth, there were 200 people in the room to watch, the room is not very big, so they had to break the windows to let in air because she couldn't breathe.) 

Sacre Coeur