Grand Granada I

WOW. What a weekend. This will be an overly long post. Get some coffee first.

Friday Night: Friday we went to a roof party on top of Hotel EME, accross the street from Seville. It's one of the nicest and most modern hotel in Seville. It was really fun and we had a great view of the city the whole time. The plan was to head to La Carboneria afterwords for some live Flamenco but the majority of the group headed to Buddha (a discoteca) and I headed back home at about midnight. I needed the sleep regardless - I cough as I write this. Basically this company called DiscoverSeville puts on these events and gets us into nice places for free because... these bars see the benefit through alcohol purchases. So as we're on the roof they would let us know where we're going next. More or less.

Saturday: Jam-packed day. First, we went to Carmona from 10-2 - an event put on by CIEE. It was pretty fun. Our tour guide, however, spoke on the bus about the history of Carmona on the bus ride to and from the location... which was a bit annoying. However, Praise the Lord! I had some great conversation with Micah about my faith and the Chirstian religion as a whole. He's a great guy to talk to. Carmona, I believe, is called "the city of death". We visited some tombs and strolled through the town. We got back later than planned, at about 2:25 and we needed to catch a 4:00 bus. We literally ran from the bus to the metro, took the metro home, ran to our casa, shoved food in, finished packing, and ran back to the metro to catch our bus. We made it. Granada here we come.

The bus ride was very smooth with beautiful views of the mountainside along the way. The bus was probably about 15% full. I had some good time alone with God (TOWG) and then watched the Shawshank Redemption on my Ipod. My fellow travelers (Micah, Phil, Rob and Kyle) all slept. Haha - finding the hostal. We took the correct bus, but took it about 7 stops too far, to its final stop. We asked a guy on the bus where La Catedral was and he was shocked as to why we were still on the bus. The hostal was very skecthy on the outside. First, we saw a sign that said it was closed for the holidays until January 24. Great. However, a woman accross the street - having surely seen this happen numerous times showed us an even sketchier door to knock. It all worked out. I would say the hostal we had this weekend was the best value hostal we may ever have this semester. You'll see photos. That night we checked out a Bohemian bar to get some chocolate deserts - sweet place. We returned on Sunday.

Sunday: This was our full day. Oh boy was it full. Got up at about 8:30, went to bed at about 5 AM. We first went south to Garcia Lorca Park which was really nice and a good way to start the morning. We then walked up the excessive hill to Alhambra to buy tickets for Monday (thinking this was necessary). We got up - they told us, if you want tickets for tomorrow, buy them tomorrow. Nice. We also took the "scenic" route which included a much longer and more difficult hike on a rougher terrain. We then wandered for some time around the city looking for any type of cheap food. At this point, the group consisted of Phil, Rob, Kyle, Reagan, Allison and myself. We found La Hambergueseria which had good cheap food. We then tried to locate (unsuccessfully) Puerta Nueva, which 0 of 4 Spaniards even new existed. At this point we decided it wasn't important enough to visit. Next we headed north to Sacromonte, a hillside that overlooks the city. It is stunning. Interesting story - we were about halfway up when we wanted to get a group picture. We asked this well-dressed, young, vibrant woman to take our photo. We then continued hiking up and eventually found our way above the sea of white houses to the open hillside - where people live in caves all over the terrain. There are no words - i really don't know what to write here. As we nearly made it to the top of this hill of caves - we saw the woman again. She lived there.

It was a bit scary - I personally was very hesitant to walk by all of these cave-type homes - not really knowing if people would be mad or offended or could potentially be dangerous. :) Mom. We then decided to increase the stakes. There's this ancient wall that follows along the northern hillsides of the city, probably 25 feet high. Rob and I decided to climb it to get a vew of the entire city. It was somewhat tough, but we made it and that view alone has been the greatest moment on my trip thus far. It's amazing that the poorest of the poor and the royal families in Alhambra have the same beautiful view. We spent about 2 hours up on the hillside taking in the view. At about 4:00 some of us headed down permanently (myself included) to get some coffee and tour La Catedral. The others stayed up to watch the sunset - and ended up actually chatting with the locals and seeing their homes in the hillside. Wow.

La Catedral was awesome, prettier than Seville's, in my opinion. It's almost all white and very well lit up. Yes, I did all of this in one day. We then went to get tapas at La Antegualla - where you get a drink and get a "free" tapa. So it'd be 2 euros per coke and tapa for me. It was great. Next Micah, myself, Phil and Rob went in search for live music and/or Flamenco for about 2 hours - no success. We had a good time bonding and exploring though. Next we headed to Flannigan & Sons to watch the Vikes game. It was a great time there. There were about 20 people from my program in there. Many were dancing and enjoying themselves as some of us just watched the game (and the crazy dancing). The bars in Granada are required, by law, to close at 3:00 AM. Luckily, thank you Brittany!, a friend told me that Paddy's Pub has screens you can watch from the street. Kyle and I made it over then where about 50 people were watching the game from the street in silence (if too much noise is made the cops are called). There, Pat Delahunt from high school was watching the game, what are the odds?? I pretty bummed about the result - Favre being Favre for the first time all year on the last play of his career, but yeah. We were better. We were unlucky. Aaaaaand sleeep.

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