Granada

I just got back from Granada at 9 pm and had dinner at home. It was a whirlwind 36 hours. Here is my recount of the weekend:

I was in bed by 2 am on Friday night because I had to get up early Saturday morning – the first time I have gotten up before sunrise here. We walked to the University at 8:30 am, where two tour buses were waiting for us. We stopped once on the way to Granada – spanish truck stops are very similar to american ones. As we got closer, the land got hillier and soon we were in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We got to Granada around noon and went straight to the Cathedral for a tour. It was about 70 students, everyone in my program, and some of the guides that we’ve gotten to know well. Angel, a professor who knows everything about the history of Spain, came with us. I always made sure that I was in his group for the tours. A few other people who work for CIEE (my program) that we don’t get to see much came along too so it was fun to hang out with them. The Cathedral was ok, its huge and all white inside. I don’t think the pictures I took will capture the size of the building well – the ceilings were about 150 feet high. There was lots of scaffolding and restoration projects. The little museum with old clothing, swords, crowns, silverware and jewelry used by the royal family was cool to see. Granada was the home of the Royal Family during the 16th century and to most important King and Queen in Spain’s history, Ferdinand and Isabel. The christians built the Cathedral in the 16th century on top of some important muslim mosque soon after they expelled all the muslims from Granada. The Christians also decided to destroy some of the Alhambra and add on to it several buildings and “improvements” that don’t compare to what the muslims built. It was also almost blown up by Napoleon's army, someone decided to cut all the fuses and save the place from being destroyed.

After leaving, we walked around the Cathedral where there were lots of shops selling spices, scented soap, incense and tea. One of the guides tricked my friend, telling him to stick his finger in a bag of saffron and lick it – his finger and teeth were stained orange for the rest of the day. There were some decent stores and bazaars but I can’t wait to go to a real arab market in Morocco and buy something cool (maybe a monkey claw or magic carpet?).

We got back on the buses and drove up a mountainside next to the city towards the Alhambra and our hotel. Our hotel was really nice and was only a five-minute walk from the Alhambra. We got our rooms and had a buffet lunch at the hotel, and then we walked to the Alhambra (a Muslim palace/fortress) for a tour. We were there for several hours and I got a great tour from Angel, all in spanish. It was cool and relaxing inside the buildings and in the gardens. I saw large tour groups from Japan, France and Germany, and lots of American, British and Spanish tourists. It was a lot of walking, a lot of picture taking and by the end we were all exhausted. We kept climbing higher and higher, and the Alhambra goes on and on, it’s like a little city on a mountain. At the end, we had the option to go to the hotel for a couple hours or take the bus the to center of the city to see more sights. Almost everyone went back to the hotel. I ate a bocadillo that I had brought from home and then was out instantly and slept for two hours.

At 8:30 we went back to the city and split up into small groups to get tapas. We got a really cool view of the city lights at night on the ride down the mountain. In Granada, almost every bar gives you a simple tapa with every drink you order. You get tons of free food. We wandered around for a while before finally picking a place. We stood around a giant barrel turned into a table and had some tapas and drinks and then decided to sit down at a table and get raciones – full dinners. It was my best dinner so far in Spain. I split a red pepper salad, with tons of olive oil, and grilled shrimp, with tons of garlic, with a friend. I ate platefuls of bread because it was so good dipping it in the garlic sauce and red pepper olive oil sauce. The city was much more beautiful at night, we saw several fountains full of bright lights and the streets were packed with people.

We went to a bar across the street from where we ate to watch the Real Betis – Barcelona soccer game. We got more free tapas with our drinks there, I was stuffed. We had some wine and lots of Alhambra beer. Almost everyone met up at a bar on a street full of student bars. Granada has even more college students than Sevilla, over 100,000. It was really fun at the bar with everyone in the program and all the guides there. They played a lot of spanish songs which is rare, its usually mostly american music. We left the bar at four a.m. and got falafels at a little restaurant nearby, there were about 6 middle eastern take-out places on that street. There are almost no restaurants open that late in Sevilla. After a few hours of sleep, we had breakfast in the hotel and then checked out and headed south to Almuñecar, a town 30 minutes south on the Mediterranean. Granada is only 15 minutes from a really good ski resort. In the winter you can ski and go to the beach and swim (in reasonably warm water) all in the same day. I wish we had more time to spend in Granada, it is a really fun city and we didn’t get to explore the old parts of the city or much of the center on our own.

The drive to Almuñecar was the best part of the day. We drove through the biggest mountains in Spain (and Spain has the second highest average elevation in Europe, after Switzerland). All the Colorado-Boulder students on the bus had to compare it to the Rockies. There was a lot of Colorado pride. Most of the students say that the midwestern kids have the most pride, though maybe its because there are a lot more students from the midwest than the west or east coast. We saw so many stunning cliffs, dams and huge bridges over valleys and gorges. As we got closer to the Mediterranean, we saw lots of tomato, olive and avocado farms and big irrigation systems and greenhouses.

When we got to Almuñecar we saw an arab castle on a peninsula. The coastline was dotted with little towers that were built by the arabs to guard the coast. Signals were transmitted from tower to tower by fire and smoke. The castle was high up and had great views of the rocky coast and harbors full of little fishing boats and newly built high rise hotels and resorts. There were very few tourists even though the town was very built up. We also saw some Phoenician ruins (some little stone walls) from around 200 BC. The Phoenicians, who originally founded the town as a shipping post, named it Sexi (pronounced sexy). We saw a bakery called Sexipan. Almuñecar is an arabic name. We had lunch at a place near the beach, it took forever for the four courses to be served. Four of us left as soon as we could to spend as much time as possible on the beach. We saw people cooking freshly caught fish and shrimp on the beach over a fire, played some soccer with a group of 8, 9 and 10 year-olds, got ice cream, and then hung out on the beach with everyone else once they were done eating. It was a really good time, but we only had about an hour at the beach as a whole group. There were quite a few big jellyfish in the water and old men in speedos sun tanning on the beach. The ride home was uneventful, we did see a bright orange sunset.

I’m loading my pictures on to my computer right now, 137 pictures from the two-day trip.

Regular classes start tomorrow - I’m excited. It feels like a four-week vacation in Spain is just coming to an end and the school year is finally starting.