London Town

So, there haven’t been any updates to the blog in quite a while and I apologize. I’m back in London again after a quick trip to Canterbury. Being in London has made me realize how much I’ve missed the hustle and bustle of a city at Christmas. There are lights everywhere, Christmas music on the radio and everyone seems to be in the holiday spirit. That being said, there are also a lot of idiots out there making it miserable for the rest of us and transportation in London can be unreliable at best, but nevertheless, great Christmas vibes.

I’ve been up to London maybe 4 or 5 times now and every time it gets better. The lights and decorations are great, and last night it was 0°C, which means it is going to snow any day now.

I went to see the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, which is a yearly gift from Norway in thanks for their friendship during the war. I’m assuming the war is WWII, and I didn’t realize that Norway was involved, but it’s a nice gesture nonetheless.

Also making a photo op are the decorations on Carnaby Street. I absolutely loved the chain links that run down the street connecting the buildings.

Canterbury

i apologize for the lack of posts. i havent had access to the internet the last few days and i wont have regular access again until sunday. i have finished my sojourn in spain and will be retuning to the land of the free and the home of the brave on jan 7. mark your calendars! spain was lovely and warm. england is cold. luckily it hasnt been wet and cold, just cold!

Un día normal…

Yesterday I had a very random day. Class was from 10-1, which is half the hours that I have had since I’ve been here since I am the only person in class. Individual lessons are half the amount of time than normal ones, so 2.5 hours instead of 5. Lovely. So I came home from class and enjoyed a hot meal with my roommates, which never happens because they eat around 2pm and I don’t get home till just before three. So, not only do I not get to enjoy their company but the food is not warm either. After lunch we all started packing. Adam and Andrew head back to Boston on Saturday. They have to meet their group at 3am…lucky them. Phil is hanging around for a few more weeks then going traveling with a friend of his. I decided I would try and pack just to see how bad the situation actually is. Well folks, it ain’t lookin’ pretty. I have far more stuff than I have space for. I blame that on my shopping habits and the fact that vacuums do not seem to exist in Spain, so it’s not entirely my fault. I packed very well using Space Bags; removing the air and reducing the side of the bag by at least half. So, without any air sucking device I am left with normal, regular packing. We’ll see how this pans out.

So after a depressing packing session I decided to indulge in a siesta. Partially because I was tired and partially because “When in Rome…” I was awakened from my siesta at 5pm by a friend of mine, Christian, who beckoned me to come to his house asap because we were to go on an ‘adventure’. Now, my parents are probably laughing because they think I’m not the adventurous type. This is true, in the traditional sense of the word. No, slashing around through a jungle with mud up to my knees and insects feasting on my sweating body is not my idea of a good time. My parents seem fond of this ‘hiking’ nonsense whereas I would rather read a book. Outside if I must. But, in a different sense, I am usually up for an adventure. Move to Spain for three months with little knowledge of the language. Live in France for a year and hitchhike to school when the public transportation goes on strike. Its not for everyone, but this niche of ‘adventure’ I am quite fond of.

So, I dragged myself out of my uncomfortable bed and put some shoes on and headed for Christian’s apartment. We met up with our friend, Michal, and embarked on our adventure. The adventure was still a surprise for me. Then we got to the bus station and He had to tell us what we were in for. Christian has been looking for jobs teaching English in Granada the past week or so and apparently he dropped his CV off at this school in the middle of nowhere, a suburb of Granada if you will. And on the way to this school the bus ‘went uphill’ to quote him, and he decided that it was in his naturally inquisitive nature to see what was at the end of the line. Michal and I were the lucky ones chosen to accompany him on this quest. We boarded the bus, got off the bus, dropped off the CV, boarded the bus [again] and road the bus for a little longer. Then the bus made a U turn and pulled off to the side of the road onto a paved bit in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. Everyone else got off the bus, and then the bus driver turned the bus off. We decided we should get off there as well and did so.

We were in the middle of nowhere. The street we had been on led to a village looking place, and looking back from where we came there were some houses on the side of the road a ways up. But we were, as far as we could tell, in the middle of nowhere. Next to an enormous fence that was clearly built to keep its habitants in or keep us out. I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to find out if it was the former or the latter of the two. We decided to walk to the ‘town’ where Christian had dropped off his CV and catch a bus there. Since we had been going uphill for quite a ways the return walk was all downhill and the view of Granada was spectacular. The sun had set and the sky was dark with a few hints of color here and there. So, when life gives you lemons… take pictures of the city and make the best of your predicament.

We made it to a bus stop about 15 minutes down the hill. Got on the next bus and headed back to civiliza- Granada. On the bus Michal got a phone call. A friend of ours had extra tickets for wine tasting and wanted to know if we wanted to join them. We decided that it was not a bad idea and continued to the center of the city. We met up with the group in front of some swank 5 star hotel. Turns out the wine tasting was in the hotel, so we entered, and started to follow the signs when the receptionist arrogantly asked us what we were doing there and if he could help us. We waved the tickets and he reluctantly pointed us in the right direction.


Our motley crew sported everything from unkempt facial hair to beanies [winter hats], sneakers to boots. We were in no way shape or form dressed for wine tasting in a 5 star establishment. We entered the room and were, once again, stopped by someone who worked there and once again they begrudgingly allowed us to enter. I am a fan of red wine, and this was some of the best wine I have ever tasted in my life. They had everything, from fruity to dry, from earthy to berry. It was phenomenal. We spent over an hour getting dirty looks and draining wine from our crystal glasses.
Occasionally we would encounter someone who was a good sport and wanted to share his love of wine with is. We learned about the aging process and that the wood the barrel is made of is just as important as the grapes. For it to be a Spanish wine the grapes can come from Spain, but the wood the import from France or Ireland or wherever else they please. Also, they can take barrels that have been used to age whiskey or scotch or other liquors and use them later to age wine to give it a different flavor. Interesting.

After our wine tasting we were quite hungry so we went out for tapas. Who would have thought that a [failed] adventure to the end of Bus Line 9 would have resulted in wine tasting at a 5 star hotel?
A day in the life…always an adventure…

My Presentation to the Granada Rotary Club

My apologies for the lack of posting as of late… I haven’t done anything particularly interesting so I haven’t really felt compelled to post. And after that whirlwind week with mom here I was quite exhausted of the typing and sick of my computer, in all honesty. Well, the moment that all you Rotarians have been waiting for has arrived. Well, maybe it’s not the moment you have all been waiting for, but its something I’m sure you have been curious about. Last night I gave my presentation to the Granada Rotary Club. The presentation consisted of about 25 slides about Oak Ridge, OR Rotary and my family. I wish I could say that it was in intelligible Spanish, but the moment I stepped to the front of the room in front of all 10 people that were in attendance every word of Spanish that I have learned in these past few months simply vanished from my memory and replaced itself with some weird mix of French and English. Ha! I resorted to reading the slides after a bit and then tried to go back to ‘make it up as you go’ Spanish, but it was about as unsuccessful as the time before. Luckily the slides were correct [thanks to my teacher!] and made sense. They also talked to me after the meeting when my nerves has subsided and realized that I can actually speak Spanish, contrary to what my presentation would have one believe!

They were very very interested in Oak Ridge and its bizarre history. I did a bit of research myself, thanks Wikipedia, before putting it all together and found out some interesting facts myself. For example, I didn’t know that some crazy mystic named John Hendrix had ‘visions’ of Oak Ridge some time in the early 1900’s about 42 years before OR actually came into existence. Cool.

I also thought it would be entertaining to make the presentation interactive, i.e. ask questions and see who knew the answers. I figure if I have to embarrass myself because I don’t speak Spanish then they can embarrass themselves for not knowing everything about American geography, right? I opened the presentation with an easy enough question, a color-coded map of the US with each region labeled; northwest, southwest, southeast, and northeast. To their credit they guessed SOUTH, but when that was not a choice, quickly recovered and said ‘southeast’. The next question was significantly harder. A map of the 7 or so states that make up the “southeast” and they had to identify Tennessee. First guess? Georgia. Then Kentucky then Florida then North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama. Then Mississippi. Then they gave up. No prize given out that round.

For those of you that are laughing, there will be a quiz later about Spain, so don’t go getting all cocky because you know where Tennessee is! Mom, your quiz will just be to show me Spain on a map of the Worl- … Europe. But I jest. Mom did a great job navigating all of Andalucía.

They also really seemed to enjoy all the goodies : city of Oak Ridge pins as well as the four way test coins. They all put the pins on and admired the coins, even though they were in English. Actually, quite a few members speak English, which i didnt find out until later. They were holding out on us!!! the Four Way Test in Spanish is La Preuba Cuadruple. Just in case you needed to know!

I had Felicity, a 6 month scholar from California play photographer for my presentation. but the internet connection at the house is too slow to upload anything. i'll try again later. At the end of the meeting I did a banner exchange with not only the Granada Club, but also a Rotarian who is visiting from her newly founded club in Fermoy, Ireland [that’s on the quiz now too!]. They were founded this past summer, and unlike the Granada Club, they have more women than men! I’m not sure if that’s allowed but since she has come to the past two meetings and was really excited about exchanging banners I figured it would have been rude not to. It’s quite interesting to see how different the banners are from each country. The ones from Ferwoy and Canterbury are quite similar, and my banner looked a lot like Rebecca’s banner from California. The Granada one doesn’t look like any of them… maybe it’s a Spanish thing!

But, for those of you that don’t know, I only have 2 weeks left here in Spain. As of Dec 3 I will be traveling to London and that Friday [7] I plan on visiting Ines, a friend of mine from my semester in Grenoble at her home in Vienna. I’m going to look into speaking at a Club in Vienna, but seeing as my German consists of Halo, sheisse, bitte and danke, I don’t think I will get very far… I’m banking on the fact that someone, or most of them speak English. To save money, I will be flying to Bratislava. Mom, Jill, Bratislava is where the film “Hostal” supposedly took place, not Croatia. And for you people out there that simply accumulate random facts Bratislava and Vienna are only about an hour away in car [I’m not sure about the exact mileage], making them the closest capitals in the world. See, you learn something every day, even you Nick, even you.

Well it’s getting late and I have 5 hours of class tomorrow, and the next day and the next day. You see what I did there? I HAVE CLASS ON THANKSGIVING. No Kathryn, I don’t get Thanksgiving Break. Nor did I benefit from Labor Day. I’m thinking I might have to take my own Thanksgiving break since I am not allotted one by the school…

Friday November 9

Today was pretty much a lazy day. We had a leisurely breakfast then checked out of the hotel and headed to the beach so that mom could say she set foot in the Mediterranean. I opted out because it was a bit cold and sandy and I wasn’t in the mood to ruin my only pair of shoes for the trip.

After our stroll we still had a few hours to kill before our flight to Rome so we drove around and found IKEA. Now, mom has never been to IKEA, but I have had the opportunity to go when I was in France. It’s a great story for those of you that were there, for those of you that weren’t, you kinda had to be there. So, after being ushered by one of the 20+ parking attendants we parked about a half-kilometer from the store where parking was easy with our big banged up car.

For those of you who have never been to IKEA, it’s a furniture and home store that is set up like you would a house, with a certain path to follow. So a walk through of the entire store can take over an hour if you try and see it all. We made it through and I think mom was genuinely disappointed that she couldn’t buy some things because they would require pricy shipping. After seeing the goods we decided to have a coffee and muffin at the cafeteria. It was pretty good for being 0,80 cent coffee, even mom said so. I don’t think we bought anything from the main store but we got some goodies and sweets from the Swedish store by the exit.

After our shopping extravaganza it was time to head to the airport to catch our flight, returning the car was quicker than we had anticipated and when we got to the counter they hadn’t even begun ticketing for our flight. So we lolly gagged around the airport for a bit and then checked our bags and headed to the gate, after checking out the duty free goods.

The flight was 2.5 hours, longer than I would have thought, but not too bad. The kids behind us were miserable though. They were loud and kept banging on the seat and were old enough to know better. I would have gauged them at 9-11 years old, which is old enough to keep your voice down and not yell on an airplane.

We arrived in Rome and found Ilaria there waiting for us. Her mom had gone to park the car, so we waited mere moments for her to arrive. Getting the car was another story. Italian drivers are crazy. I cant even begin to explain the backing up and cutting off and parking everywhere that took place in the 10 minutes that we waited for Ilarias mom to bring the car around. The ride to Pollenza was equally interesting. At one point we missed our exit and actually stopped on the interstate, backed up, and took the exit. Im still amazed we made it out alive. But in all honesty her mom is a fantastic driver. She handled curvy roads at 11pm in the dark and snow without a problem. I cant say that I would have been as calm, speedy or successful as she was.

About halfway we stopped to get pizza in this little town called Spoleto. The pizza was fabulous. Then we loaded back in the car and finally made it to Pollenza at about midnight.

Saturday November 10

Today was our only full day in Pollenza. We walked around the city and then went to Ilaria’s school and Macerata. Later we went to the seaside to see the Adriatic. We had lunch at a nice little restaurant and mom cut her spaghetti. There was a woman at the table facing ours and apparently her face contorted in such a way that her disapproval was known by all around her as soon as she saw mom drag her knife across her plate of noodles. There was also a young man whose eyes made him bear a striking resemblance to John Travolta. I unsuccessfully attempted to get a photo with my cell phone, but apparently even when my phone is on silent it still makes a noise when it snaps a photo. Awesome. His girlfriend wasn’t too happy about the attention he was getting from our table either. Whoops.

Gibraltar, Thursday November 8

Against the advice of our chatting hotel receptionist we headed for Gibraltar after a lovely breakfast of CEREAL, which I haven’t eaten in over 2 months and I am very much looking forward to again tomorrow ☺

We asked how to get on the interstate from the hotel, seeing as we found it completely by chance the other night, and we got pretty good directions. As I was walking out the door he called out “You have your passports, right?!”, and of course, I didn’t. I hade made mental note after mental note, but remembering my passport seems to be the hardest thing for me so far on this trip.

We found the interstate without any problems and continued to Gibraltar. We went through the classy town of Marbella, but weren’t close enough to the water to see any of the really swank yachts. When were about 30km from Gibraltar you could just barely see the rock looming in the distance. We figured how to drive through customs and were then promptly discouraged from trying to find a place to park in the city and that we were better parking in Spain. Back into Spain we went. We then set off for Gib on foot with our passports in hand. Basically all we had to do was show them that we had a passport and they were ok with that. No drams.

We walked to the city center and found the tourism office. We decided against a taxi tour as that would have been about 16 pound each, or $60 in total. We opted for taking the cable car up to the top and possibly stopping off at the Apes den. We walked through the center of the city and peeked in and out of all the English shops; Bhs, Marks&Spenser, Topshop and many more. Too bad that the prices for everything were in pounds, that just makes it more expensive for us Americans!


The cable car station was a bit farther than we had anticipated, but we managed to find it without too much trouble. We took the cable car up to the top of the rock and as soon as we got off we were greeted by the lovely tailless apes that inhabit the rock. We snapped a few cute ape photos then went to the viewing platforms to see the strait, Africa and the Mediterranean. The view was quite impressive and it was a fairly clear day as far as the top of the rock goes.

Ronda, Tuesday November 6

We were supposed to go to Ronda on the way to Málaga, but we couldn’t get Alhambra tickets for Tuesday so we switched the days for the Alhambra and Ronda. Basically all that means is a lot more driving.

Ronda is where mom really wanted to go. She really wanted to see the “Puente Nuevo”. It was only until a few days after our trip to Ronda that she revealed to me that the architect of the bridge fell to his death while inspecting the bridge and that they used to hurl people off of the bridge during the Spanish Civil War. Now that makes it much more interesting.
So we went to Ronda the wrong way. You are supposed to approach from the south for the most spectacular view, but alas, we came from Granada, from the north. At first, its an unimpressive city. Larger than the pueblos we had visited Sunday but smaller than Granada. A walk to the historical district is what it takes to realize the full extent of the city’s charm.

One side of the city is just a cliff. Buildings go right up to the edge and look as if they are going to topple over to the rocks below. Moving further along to the old Moorish quarter, the architecture gets ‘older’ and we caught a glimpse of the Puente Nuevo. Its not a very long bridge, but it is incredibly tall. We weren’t even able to see how far down the bridge went because the view is obscured by the gorge the bridge is spanning.

Besides the bridge and the ancient Moorish quarter there isn’t really much to see. We walked past the Plaza de Toros and made a quick stop at the post office where we proceeded to buy all of the stamps the guy had left. Not really, but we probably used over 30…



We got back to Granada and were pretty exhausted. We ran a few errands around the town and settled down for some tapas. After a few bites we remembered to take a picture of some traditional tapas to show everyone ☺

Malaga

in Malaga now, to italy tomorrow. no time left to post pictures or write a post!

Alhambra... and more

¡Dios Mio!

Today we went to the Alhambra. Simple enough one would think, right? Well, it also involved checking out of our hotel at 730am, going to get our car which was parked by my apartment and me going to get my passport…since I forgot it… and its kind of important for going to Gibraltar and Italy… so we made it out of the hotel, to the car and successfully retrieved the passport, then it was on to the Alhambra. We got directions from the hotel and had a go. Luckily, we found it without one problem, parked the car and were on our way.

Our ticket time for the Nasrid Palace was 9-9:30am, since there can only be 350 ppl there at a time. So we go to the Palace of Carlos V, thinking it’s the Nasrid Palace because we didn’t do our homework and mom goes “this is it?!” it was pretty unimpressive. The exterior was a square and the interior was a circle. Tricky. So we head over to this Alzcaba place, which is one of the three parts of the Alhambra and the guy taking tickets turns us away and tells us to go to the Palace, I try and tell him that we already went, but he assured us we hadn’t and that we could come back once we had gone to the palace. So we made our way back to the “palace” and only then realized that we had actually skipped the Nasrid Palace, the most impressive part of the Alhambra, because we thought it was just the one room that was the palace of Carlos V. So, lesson learned; do your homework before you visit the Alhambra, or get a map or something!

An entire tour of the Alhambra takes about 3 hours. About an hour in each part: Generalife, which is the gardens and patios, Alzcaba, which is the old fortress part, and the Nasrid Palace, which is self explanatory and has some of the most intricate designs I have ever seen in my life. I don’t even think the Vatican can compare to the detailed carvings of the columns. Unfortunately, one of the most famous rooms, the Salon des Leones, was under restoration, so we did not get to see the fountain of the 12 lions. The basin was there beings restored but the lions had been taken elsewhere to be restored.





The large reflecting pools are incredible. Mom says they built them to reflect light, whatever the reason, they are absolutely gorgeous and since they are perfectly calm they are as smooth as glass and the reflection is as accurate as the original. Alzcaba was less interesting. Climbing the towers offered incredible views of the Granada but other than that it didn’t have much to offer. The Gardens of Generalife were quite beautiful, and its November. I can’t even imagine how beautiful they are in the spring and summer; but then again the hoards of tourists probably ruin it. After our 3 hour tour we returned to the car, and were luckily not stuck on some island…

We decided to take the scenic route to Málaga instead of the quicker route. The coastal route took us past Salobreña, where I was lucky enough to go to the beach earlier in October. After miles of scenic coastline, white towns tucked away on the sides of mountains and curvy roads we opted to take the more main highway the rest of the way. This is where it got interesting. Up until this point mom had printed directions and a map to every place imaginable, in every combination possible. I say up until this point because while I was looking for directions to our hotel outside Málaga I came up a bit shorthanded… there was no map and there were no directions.

Our hotel was in some little touristy town called Torremolinos that my school director, Pilar, described as “horrible”. Not off to a good start. It was chosen for its proximity to the airport and not its likeness to Myrtle Beach, who would have known. So, the daring adventuresses we are we set off to Torremolinos without the slightest idea of where we were going. We drove and drove, went through tons of round abouts, all in search of the tourism office where we might find a map. Finally, we see some signs and follow them. After a few twist and turns there are no more signs and mom is convinced that we have missed the Office. We park the car with the intention of hiking up the hill to ask for directions at one of the nicer hotels we are NOT staying at. As I’m getting the reservation information together mom yells “Elizabeth, look out!” and I see a HUGE tour bus coming down the hill, right towards my open car door. Instinct tells me to slam the door and get out of the way. Unfortuanately my purse didn’t make it all the way out of the car and is now shut in the door. I figure it’ll be ok there, until it decides to go limp and turn upside down, spilling EVERYTHING into the middle of the road. The bus is now parked, in the middle of the road as I scramble back to the car to pick up my cell phone, camera, ipod, and other valuables that are now strewn across the street. The bus driver is laughing as I finally get everything BACK in the bag. As he passes he said something, which I assume was humorous, to me in Spanish and drove off…followed by at least six to seven cars as I had managed to cause a mini traffic jam. Excellent.

So we hiked up the hill and went into some swish hotel to ask where the tourism office is and the man at the desk curtly replied something to the effect of “baja la calle y a la derecha” which means “down the street, on the right” so we set off back down the hill, about halfway mom decides she’ll walk back up to get the car, I’ll continue walking. So I make it almost to the bottom of the hill and mom shows up, I hop in and we drive to the tourism office, which was a good 2-3 minutes away in the car. Thank you nice hotel man for telling us that it would have been kind of far on foot. I walk up to the office while mom parks illegally on the side of the road and it says the office closes at 14:30. WHO CLOSES AT 14:30?? I look at my watch 2:50, we missed it by a mere 20 minutes. Which, after all the driving and wrong turns and bag spilling seems like mere seconds. I locate our hotel on a sun-bleached map hanging in the window and decide that we can make it, damn it, we can make it. Back in the car we go and on our way to our hotel, which better be some luxury resort at this rate.

We make it about as far as we can go on the road, and turn up a street that looks to be fairly residential. Mom makes a U turn and then I see the street name and it sounds familiar, as in that it’s the street our street is off of. We make another Uturn and continue up the road. I see our hotel in the distance as well as our road Sistema Iberica, so we turn. NOT. It’s a one way road. Reverse, back on the main road wondering how to get to the elusive mecca on the other side of the houses. So we take a turn or two and end up in front of the hotel. Then we park down the road a bit and walk to the hotel. At this point we are laughing so hard because it has been so terrible finding the stupid place that it better be a nice place. We walk up to reception, we are greeted in Spanish. Mom asks a question in English and BAM, the receptionist is British. Saves the day. About 1,374 questions and inquires later and we are unloading bags and heading to our room, which is, if I may say, pretty nice. Its no Ritz or Four Seasons, but it will do the trick. The gregarious receptionist suggested that we tour downtown Málaga, and since that wasn’t one of the ‘already planned days’ we headed into the city via the train since the station is about a 3 minute walk from the hotel.

Once in the city we found some old church, and then some other old building. And something else old that was falling apart, and then there was MANGO and ZARA and more shopping! Hooray! Málaga has shopping, because it is a CITY, not a town, like the ones we have been visiting all week. To be fair, yes we did go see the cathedral and other educational things. The Cathedral was started in 1528 but never finished, and in 1765 they decided to restart construction, much like La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona… except that they ran out of money and just left it, so one of the bell towers is completed and the other is cut off about mid-column. This is why it is affectionately known as “La Manquita”, The One-Armed One. Interesting. After the 3 hours of walking around the Alhambra early this morning, the stress from not being able to find the hotel and the hunger from not having eaten all day we found ourselves pretty exhausted so we headed back to the hotel at about 6 to catch dinner at 7.

What was supposed to be a quiet traveling day turned out to be a very hectic day indeed. And tomorrow promises to be just as interesting as we cross the boarder and head to Gibraltar. Hopefully I will remember my passport ☺

Pueblos- Lanjaron, Pampaneira, Bubion + Capileira

Day two of the motherly invasion left us in a car for an endless number of hours exploring numerous unpronounceable pueblos to the south east of Granada. As I did not study these pueblos in my history class I cannot give you a brief and thorough synopsis of their history, but for those of you who thirst for knowledge I shall supply you with names, fear not. The first pueblo we went through was Lanjarón which is famous for the bottled water that shares its name. Unlike Evian, it does not cost a fortune and is only about 0,47 cents for a 1.5 liter bottle of refreshing deliciousness. The second pueblo we passed but did not visit was Cañar, followed by Bayacas, Soportújar and Carataunas. We then followed the signs towards the pueblos turisticas and continued our climb up the mountain. Did I mention that these pueblos are all nestled in the Sierra Nevadas, the mountains that fringe Granada?


The first pueblo that we visited was called Pampaneira. Small, white house and shops tucked away into the side of the mountain. A few kilometers up the mountain we ran into Bubión. And just after Bubión we made it to Capileira, the highest and largest of the three towns. From Capileira there is nowhere to go but turn around and go back down the mountain. We had the option of then going to Trevélez, the highest town in all of Spain, but it looked to be two hours away on curvy roads and I understood moms desire to not drive at night. Hairpin turns and sharp curves paired with dangerous drop offs didn’t seem like much fun after sunset to me either.


We made it back to Granada by about 4:30pm and I decided that we should go up to the Albaicín and catch a glimpse of the Alhambra. The entire way there was me looking at a map and trying to figure out the horrible maze of streets and where we were and where we were trying to go. We finally made it to the Mirador St. Nicolas, which is the Plaza that looks out over the city and is a perfect place to snap a couple touristy photos of the Alhambra, or in my mom’s case, 37. Yes, there are SOME good ones out of that batch.

So not as much history as yesterday (yesss!!) but just as many lovely pictures (yesss). And, yes, I am aware that there are currently NO pictures, but, remain calm, they will be posted eventually.

Cordoba

Our day began a little behind schedule, with me waking up at about 9:58am and going, hmm, aren’t we supposed to be up by now. Casually I nudged mom and asked her if it was go time. We got ready for the day and were out the door within the hour. The first thing on our never-ending list of things to do was eat breakfast. A chore harder than one might imagine on a Sunday in Spain. Everything is closed, even the hotel cafeteria! So we wandered down the street to my favorite coffee shop El Tren (I’m not even going to translate that) and luckily it was open so we had a couple croissants and a cup of café con leche between the two of us. We walked back to the hotel and managed to maneuver the car out of the hotel parking garage. It was so miserable parking the night before that we were doubtful if we would be able to park down there again. After successfully not scratching the sides of the brand new rental car (Citroen C4) we made our way out of the city, which is not so easy with its narrow one-way streets and lack of stop signs.

Our first stop was Córdoba, a city that dates back to the Romans, over 2,000 years ago. It reached the height of its power when it was the former capital of Andalucia, when it was known as Al-Andalus and under Moorish rule. Rivaling Baghdad in power and wealth it is home to The Mezquita, an enormous mosque built in the 8th century. Córdoba, where Jews and Christians worked alongside Muslims, was captured in 1236 by the Catholic Monarch Ferdinand and used as a strategic position for the Catholic Monarch’s siege of Granada in 1492. Don’t quote me on this, its just what I remember from history class…


Córdoba is much warmer than Granada, that was the first thing I noticed, also its ancient center is much more secluded than that of Granada. You walk through the gates at the Puerta de Almodóvar and immediately you step back in time. Narrow streets with whitewashed houses line the streets. Pebble and cobblestone streets make thin-soled shoes a bad idea and the blazing sun makes one feel like they are on the Mediterranean, not three hours from a beach. We walked through the streets and made our way to the Mezquita. Walking into the Orange gardens was absolutely spectacular, I didn’t realize that there was more to see. After shelling out some euros we made our way into the mosque and its vastness overwhelmed me. Its just a huge expanse of space broken up by red and white striped arches. We roamed around in semi darkness and snapped several, well, probably more than several, photos of the mosque and the arches. For me, the most impressive thing wasn’t the craftsmanship, but the sheer size of the mosque. We seemed to walk for ages and all we could see were arches and more arches.

After the mosque we tried to find the tourism office, but settled for the Palacio de Congresos and some toilets instead. For lunch we grabbed some ice cream and continued our tour around the city. Seeing as we only had a few hours of daylight left we made our way through the ancient Jewish Quarter and then back to the car. You pay for parking your car by inserting the card you receive upon entering into an automatic machine on the -1 floor. You then pay what it tells you, it spits the card back out, and you drive off. When you get to the gate you insert the already paid for card and continue on your way. For an American, who is used to paying at the gate, you can see how this had the possibility of being quite a tricky situation, especially since we were parked on -2 and didn’t have auto pay machine thingys on our level.

We left Córdoba and headed for Úbeda, some little town about 2 hours away that has really nice 16th century architecture. Needless to say, on the way it was starting to get dark and by the time we got there it was pitch black out and we could barely read street signs, let alone see the sights. We stopped at some old looking building, which turned out to be a former hospital now turned in to their Palacio de Congresos and Exposiciones. Lots of Palacios today. We took some pretty bad night shots and piled back in the car with the intention of just heading back to Granada. A few one-way streets later we were committed. We ended up driving the old city, unless the new part of the city has a huge rustic wall surrounding it, and passing an overlook that I can only imagine is the most beautiful view during the day. Mom pulled over and I hopped out to snap a nighttime shot, but when I saw things moving down the mountain, somewhere not to far from where I was standing, I decided I was better off in the car.

We continued on the curvy dark road that had a drop off the side of the mountain and miraculously made it back to civilization and back to the interstate! Decided to skip Baeza because it would have been too dark to see anything anyways and headed back to Granada, which was about 2 hours. By the time we got home it was about 9pm and we were STARVING. But, as it was still Sunday, lots of places were closed. We parked the car on the street by my apartment rather than deal with the hotel lot again. We wandered to my favorite tapas bar, but it was closed so we walked one street over to see if we could find anything lucky. Found a tiny Italian bar/café/restaurant and feasted on pizza after a day of quasi-fasting. And by feasted I mean we each had our own pizza. Delicious. Cant wait to wake up tomorrow and do it all again!

From the driver’s perspective
"The paved roads of Andalusia Spain are very nice and easy to navigate. The cobblestone ones are a completely different story. I have never needed to back up to make a turn before, but then again I’ve never been in Spain before either.
My day consisted of saying” what’s that, take a picture.” So I have some pictures that have no name but are very beautiful. Liz doesn’t like my date stamp on the photos, so tomorrow I’ll have to figure out how to turn that off. "

Canterbury Rotary

I apologize for the lack of blog activity this past week. I was in Canterbury, England visiting James on a surprise visit. That is why I couldn’t mention it on the blog, but now you know and now he knows. My visit to Canterbury was two fold, see James as well as visit the Canterbury Rotary Club. This past Tuesday I enjoyed lunch with the club and exchanged banners with their president. Note; he wears a large crest that says “President”, maybe the ORBRC should invest in one… Also, a lot of the other members had ties with the Rotary emblem as well as a smaller one below it which might be the sign for England or Kent, I’m not sure. Their large wooden wheel that can be seen in the pictures bears this same crest. Anyways, I got there a bit early since I had to walk there and I wasn’t exactly sure how long it would take. Everyone I asked said “up this road, a ways…” which wasn’t very encouraging. James came most of the way with me, but his hairline fracture held him back the last bit. I figured it was a straight shot and I could handle it by myself. When I got to the meeting place, which was the Kent County Cricket grounds, there were several buildings so I asked at the main office where in fact the meeting was to be held. They directed me to the correct room and there I met two very energetic and nice Rotarians, one of them being the vice president. I spoke with them and got an apple juice from the bar. Everyone gathered in the room at about 12:30 and we were seated for lunch at 1pm. We were served minted lamb with mashed potatoes and veggies. Mint is not something I would thing to put on meat, so it was a bit weird at first, but then my palate got used to it and it was alright. Didn’t add any extra mint sauce though, that was a bit much as far as I was concerned. After lunch we had dessert and as my table was the last to be served our meals we were the last to finish and the last to get dessert. I had a bowl of fruit, which was quite a luxury after living in a college apartment for a few days where fruit is quite scarce and ramen noodles and pasta in abundance.

The club has about 60 members, and it seemed like not everyone was in attendance. As I learned, it was the first time they had ever met in this particular room and its possible that some others showed up at the wrong room and saw no one was there and decided it was a holiday. The room was quite nice, overlooked the cricket greens. Doesn’t hold a candle to Melton Lake, but it was nice nonetheless, and it wasn’t raining, which I was afraid of. At the end of the meeting a nice Rotarian, whom I had not met during the course of the meeting offered to drive me back, which was quite generous of him. So that was that and I was on my way. Their club functioned much more like ORBRC than the club here in Granada… maybe that’s just because I could understand what was going on…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIMMY!!

yesterday, 10/10 was my little brother Timmy's 12th birthday. Just thought I would share some pictures with everyone. And maybe you can convince him to get a haircut! He looks like he really enjoys the iPod nano we go for him when we got mom's computer over the summer. Sneaky us, he had no idea!

Rainland....err...England

As some of you may already know, I planned a surprise trip to Canterbury to see James. He didnt know i was coming and was very VERY surprised when i just showed up at his apartment. He was probably more upset that he was the only person that didnt know I was coming and acted as if they had all pulled a prank rather than a surprise. boys. But, while I am here, I do not really have access to internet, so there probably won't be any posts until i get back to Spain next week. Also, i will be visiting the Kent Rotary Club on tuesday, so that should be interesting. All i can say is i miss that Tennessee weather. Spain has good weather as well, but here, all it does is rain...

Salobrena

Saturday October 6

Today we went to the BEACH. The weather had been so good Friday that we decided it was in order to take a one day excursion to the beach before it got too cold. We met up in front of the school at about 7:15am to take a bus to the bus station. I should probably explain who “we” is. “We” is all the students learning Spanish at the Sociedad Hispano Mundial so; Myself, Rebecca, Felicity, Daniel and Ilona. Rebecca is a 3 month scholar from California and Felicity is a 6 month Rotary Scholar from Cali as well. Daniel is from Plymouth, in Southern England, and Ilona is from Holland. From the bus station we got a bus to the nearest beach, Salobreña. If you were to draw a line from Granada directly south to the Mediterranean you would end up in Salobreña, a quiet coastal beach town on the Costa Tropical, just a bit east of the Costa del Sol.

We arrived at the beach by about 10am and it was a little bit chilly and cloudy, but still nice. As the day wore on it got warmer and much more pleasant and a few daring souls tested the Mediterranean. It took me a while, but I took my dip, even if it was only once. The water was crystal clear, you could see the pebbles and your feet along the bottom. Felicity and Dan decided to swim out to the buoys that marked the limit that was safe to swim to.

When they got back they informed us that they saw a 4-5ft long eel. Well that about did it for me, no more water! Like I said, the water was so clear that you could see anything, even a creepy water dwelling creature. Personally, I’m most recently used to the muddy Atlantic, where you cant even see your own feet in water that’s 6 inches deep. The water was colder than the Atlantic during the summer, but it was much less salty. It wasn’t painful to go underwater and then open your eyes like the Atlantic is.


While we were soaking up sun we noticed a parade of some sort that was passing by the beach. It seems to be the season of festivals in Spain and we decided it was a festival to honor their patron saint. The horses also made their way on to the beach which was interesting and terrifying at the same time since some of them didn’t seem to want to obey the person on their back…

We stayed on the beach until about 4:45 when Daniel, Felicity and Ilona decided to take a hike, and I mean HIKE up to the top of a hill to see some castle. I could see the castle pretty well from the beach and I wasn’t exactly wearing good walking shoes. Rebecca and I decided to head back to the bus station and find a little café there to have some tapas. After a wrong turn and a 45 minute detour and a walk in the correct direction we finally found the supermarket we had visited that morning and bought some water and potato chips. The potato chips were probably not the best option seeing as we were already salty, but man, they were good.

We met up with the other three at the bus stop and then headed to a café to have some food and a coffee. We mulled around there for a bit and caught the last bus to Granada. Happy and sunburned we slept the entire way home. I’m not sure what’s in store for tonight, but I think its flamenco dancing. Not to be confused with flamingo dancing, MOM.

Reunión Rotaria

Last night I went with Felicity to the Rotary meeting. It was pretty much the same as last week. But, this week, unlike last week, I was able to take some photos and even snuck in some video footage.

Procesión Nuestra Señora de Las Angustias

Holiday in Spain

All weekend has been somewhat of a celebration in Granada. I’ve asked around and I’ve gotten several different answers. Some say that there is a pueblo near Granada and it’s a festival for their patron saint. Others say that it’s the patron saint of Granada and that’s why there are celebrations. All I know is there is a mini carnival across the river and one of the main routes through town has lots of tents set up with people selling chestnuts and fruits. I guess that’s why they are a healthier nation than us. Instead of funnel cake, beer, ice cream and fried Oreos they are selling fruits and nuts. America, take note.

Needless to say, I found online that the Procesión Nuestra Señora de Las Angustias was going to start at 18h00. I decided to head into town just after 6 and catch a glimpse of the parade. After about 30 minutes a band marched past so I figured that the main event would soon follow. Another 30-45 minutes later another band passed. 15 minutes after the second band a procession of women wearing black suits, white shirts and purple cords filled the streets, after them a group of men wearing the same. Finally at about 7:30, an hour and a half later, I saw what everyone was waiting around for. A large representation of the Virgin Mother and Jesus that is glided in gold was carried though the streets by about 20-30 men. They stopped every 30 ft to rest and allow the public to snap photos. I got a few, as well as some video. I hope it works.