granada

After a week of sevilla partying, we are on the road again going to Granada. As I just learned today, and will for the rest of my life, I just don’t learn. As with any other time that allyson and I have had to catch the bus, today was no different, and we decided it appropriate to leave the house at the time the bus was supposed to leave. The walk isn’t too long but when youre carrying a bag of heavy shit and walking fast, its kind of a bitch. So naturally, you say, well ‘next time’ we will know NOT to do this and we will leave earlier because we now know how miserable this brisk walk is. So, keeping this is mind this morning, at 9, when we should have been leaving, we went upstairs and sat ourselves down for a bowl of cereal… oh wait, sorry I just started talking about this morning, like 3 weeks later. Ok so I will come back to that in another post. Anyways, you get the point, it sucked but either way, we made it on the bus. And actually waited on the bus for 15 minutes before it left, so we might as well have walked calmly. Granada is probably a three hour bus ride, of which I took full advantage to catch up on some Zs. Getting to Granada is all going through winding roads in the mountains- definitely good for road tripping and seeing some pretty stuff. Ive probably most definitely mentioned this before but road tripping here is soo much nicer than in America; its not just all highways and rocks and that’s it. You really get a sweet view of all the land and olive trees and pretty sunsets and cool trees. Its nice. Somehow just made me think of that time I saw two cows fucking each other in france- that was wild. But that’s another story. So we get to Granada. First stop: hotel, which is real nice, and all the way at the top of the city. API has been real good about that type of stuff- we always get put into 4 star hotels, which now that I think of it isn’t entirely necessary at all since I think I spent about 5 hours total in our room, and I would actually much rather sleep in a 2-3 star hotel and get 500 bucks back in my pocket for my alcohol that week.. alright, make it two weeks. In the hotel lobby, I saw a flyer for Arabian baths that were real cheap so allyson and I book a couples massage and bath for later that day- so exciting. Right away, allyson, Kevin, eric, Chelsea, adam, 2 spanish girls, and I left the hotel to go explore Granada. We start descending down the hill and theres lots of little spots where we can get a sick view of the whole city on the bottom. There was so much cool graffiti in Granada too. I have always thought of graffiti as art, but I definitely prefer the really sick art graffiti that is actually drawings and paintings rather than people who just sign their name 37 times on the same wall. And there was some sick shit in Granada- real graffiti art. We found a little restaurant that did drinks and tapas so we stopped in- got tinto verano (basially wine and a sprite ish type thing, they serve it everywhere and its delicious!), and as a group, we got this couscous with peppers dish (not that great), croquetas (my favorite), shrimp, sausage, and bread. We stayed there for too long so we missed the beginning of the walking tour for Granada but met them halfway downtown- we went into a cathedral that had the tombs of Isabella and Ferdinand, I think it was. It was a pretty simple church but the outside was real pretty. Granada has sweet architecture and culture because it was the last region to be under muslim control so it has all the repetitive, symmetrical type of architecture which is real sweet looking. Allyson and I went through this one alleyway that had soo many little stores and they were all hippie-ish and chill and Buddha-ish even with all sweet decorations and colors and, yeah, I wish I could have bought that whole street. We had a chocolate crepe and then we headed to our Arabian baths appointment. The place was cool- it was in an old caves type setting. There were 7 pools, one that was freezing cold, and the other six were different temperatures ranging from warm to real hot. They also all differed in size and depth. We were given one hour to chill and switch between all these pools. They served caramels and tea too in one of the nice colored tiled rooms. Then, it was time for our massage, yes! We got to choose between back or legs, to which I chose back, and it felt so great, except it only lasted 15 minutes! It was an interesting type of massage though- it wasn’t necessarily hard at all which I usually like, but it seemed like my massager’s fingers always went right into the muscles or along them that they made them move and took out the knots, idk. We chilled in the pools more after that too. It was so relaxing and we stayed warm for many hours afterwards. With all our tensions melted away, we made our way back to the hotel for dinner which was buffet style and had really good paella, a typical Spanish dish ive been meaning to try, which its base is rice and you can add vegetables and meat to it.
We then all headed out as a group to the caves to go see a flamenco show, another typical Spanish activity id been dying to see. We were seated in a long narrow room with all the chairs placed alongside the walls. At one side of the room were all the singers and guitar and drum players and then the dancers would go up and down the narrow hallway dancing in between us. They all had different dresses on with different colors and patterns, and flowers in their hair. It was a little different than I had expected- it is a lot more about intensive footwork than anything else. It made me think of tap dancing. And the singing is very unique. Towards the end, a guy came in, who was super hot and super in shape, and super good at dancing, and, marry me? At times two women danced together and at the end, a couple danced together. Apparently, one of the girls was only fifteen and had started at age 3, but they all looked so much older so it was crazy for us to know that. After the show, we went out looking for places to drink. A lot of bars we came across were not yet open for the night but then we came to a plaza that opened to a couple of bars and a bunch of people with drink and entrance tickets trying to lure you to their club. Before heading into a bar, we were lucky enough to see people training for semana santa. It was a group of guys carrying a huge load topped with cement- they would walk slowly, all in unison, and stop at every street corner. That thing must have been damn heavy just like the semana santa floats, so that was pretty interesting. The first bar we went into wasn’t very busy at all but we decided to start the party early. All of a sudden, Michael Jackson walks in and starts showing off his moves- well, not the real MJ but his dance competition. After a couple more drinks and song requests, I actually got to meet this character because he told me that his brother, cleverly dressed in a Duffman (from the simpsons) costume, was getting married and he was celebrating his bachelor’s party. Im not sure if it’s the same deal all over Europe, but definitely in Belgium, france, spain, and italy, whenever guys or girls are getting married, they have a bachelor’s party out on the town and the bride/groom to be has to get dressed up. Ive seen a bunch of people walking around like that. This guy was no different. He requested allyson and I write down our phone numbers to which al wrote 123-sex-sex. We never got a call from them- maybe they lost our numbers… MJ was cute but got kinda creepy kinda quickly. I wasn’t ready for a blatant makeout show for the whole bar yet so I ducked out and went back to my group which happened to be standing approximately 1.7 feet away. Then, on my way to the bathroom, he caught and my arm and was like ‘you disappeared’ to which I said Im going to the bathroom. He takes this as an open invitation, follows me up the stairs, and tries to come in with me. Uh, no thank you. Shortly thereafter, we leave that bar and make our way to a different bar where I was able to get everyone free sangria, yay! We then headed over to this what was supposed to be a great bar/club right near the caves where we saw the flamenco. When we got there, we were told entrance fee was 8 euros to which we said fuck that. So allyson and I started walking away back towards the hotel. On our way back, I stopped to pet a dog, obviously, and we started talking to two guys. They said they were going to that club we were just wanting to get into, and I exclaimed we had just been there but that we hadnt wanted to pay. They, of course, offered to get us in, how nice. So we climbed all the way back up that wretched hill and they paid for us. We immediately dipped into the bathroom, and when we came out, we weaved in through all the caves in the bottom floor, where we legit found zero people and I thought, ‘thank god I didn’t pay for this shit, nobody is here!’. But then we headed upstairs without bothering to look for the guys and there was for sure a party up there. It had a whole inside club and outer patio that had a sweet view. We found all our friends from API and started raging. Not long after, two extremely angry guys start yelling at me saying they aren’t dumb and aren’t just going to buy a ticket in for American girls who think they are retarded because they disappear right after, etc, etc. with some expertise, I calm them down explaining we didn’t see them so we went upstairs and im so sorry, blah, blah, blah. He asks for the ticket back which I learned 4 seconds before that it was actually a free drink ticket as well as an entrance ticket so I explained I had accidentally thrown it out in the bathroom because I didn’t know. Then, I of course went to the downstairs bar, pulled out my ticket from my pocket and got myself a free drink. Ruthless. The night was really fun and walking back to the hotel late that night didn’t seem so bad since we were singing like crazy fools. Im sure the sleeping town appreciated it.
Next morning, allyson and woke up late and got the breakfast door closed on us. There were still so many people in there and the guy wouldn’t let us in and was watching the door like a hawk, bastard. Everyone said it was delicious with chocolate croissants and everything. We then all headed out to go explore the Alhambra. Its real fucking big and its more commonly referred to as ‘patios with a palace around it’ or something like that because its all patios and wide open spaces with walls around it rather than a legit palace. Its all really pretty, and its actually all white even thought it used to be all colored but because of the sun and erosion and whatnot it, it all turned to white. It still looks gorgeous though with so much detail. Only thing that was lame was that the main fountain piece with the lions was gone and in restoration and has been for the past 5 years or something and will be for the next probably 10 years. But still, real awesome. The Alhambra claimed one of my rings as hers also since I fucking lost it. It had a ton of real cool looking gardens though. After exploring this immense area, allyson and I walked out for lunch. She was absolutely set out for pasta. We found this little restaurant that was a good deal for a menu- it was all real good, except that as for dessert, I asked for fruit, expecting a fruit cup with fresh fruit and instead got an apple with a knife. Oh hey, thanks, I coulda got that on my own…
Bus back to sevilla…