Tapas hoppin'

Granada is a great city. I so under-estimated how fun this trip would be. I know some people didn't have as great a time with all the architectural stuff, but I had a blast.

I have so many pictures that i want to post from activities I talked about in yesterday's blog post, so I'm going to start with a picture recap of the Alhambra.

Alhambra pathway

Granadas (pomegranates) at the Alhambra

Alhambra gardens

Palacio Nazaríes, Alhambra, Granada España

Pediment of a column inside the palacio with Islamic inscription

Tiling in the Alhambra. This color scheme repeats all over the site, but each time the tiling pattern and tile shapes are slightly varied. 

Encarni and Maribel, two of the Preshco team members that make trips like these possible for us. 

Mini mihrab and inscription in a wall, and another example of Alhambra tiling

Ceiling inside the palacio- very typical islamic style with "honeycomb-like" decor that is meant to evoke senses of allah and bolster the sense of profound awe and beauty upon arrival

Honeycomb close-up

One of the many courtyards

After our siesta time, we toured the Granada cathedral and had an opportunity to get our bearings in the city. The cathedral is gorgeous, but is another example of stylistically confused Spanish architecture. The pillars and bottom half of the building are built and decorated in the baroque style with over-the-top detailing and excessive use of gold leafing. The apses of the arches and the ceiling, however, are in the gothic style, with pointed, clean-cut lines. 

Cathedral

Organ pipes- Baroque style

Rear of the cathedral looking forwards- note the Baroque style of the alter area, but the gothic points in the arches on the ceiling

I suppose the stylistic confusion can be accounted for by Spain's central location, the mixture of influential styles, cultures and managing architects, and the length of time it took to construct these buildings.

After our tour ended, Amber, Sarah and I met up with Luis, a young Spanish guy who was our tour guide in Portugal, but who was coincidentally in Granada this weekend. Luis is from Sevilla, but saw my Facebook status about going to Granada for the weekend and messaged me his contact information. Anyways, we met up with Luis and a bunch of his friends and walked to El Albaicin, a park at the top of one of the big hills in the city to watch the sun set over the Alhambra on the next mountaintop over. It was quite a hike to get to the top, through tons of windy little streets and secret alleys, but it was worth it. I hardly think the pictures do it justice:

With Sarah, Amber, and Luis walking to El Albaicin

Walking up to El Albaicin

Alhambra at sunset from El Albaicin- beautiful!

So once the sun set we made our way back down into the city and parted ways to have some dinner, but not before having some fun taking pictures in the streets. 

Example: Sarita goofing around in a graffitied doorway

More grafitti

We also happened upon a protest on our way back to the hotel, which is the Spanish version of Occupy Wall Street. Apparently these protests were going on all over the country yesterday- pretty interesting! Again, this photo hardly does the protest justice; there were thousands of people marching in the streets. 

Granada is one of the last cities in Spain that gives you a free tapa with every drink, so the three of us met up with my friend Lindsay, who teaches English in Granada, an a bunch of her friends and went tapas hopping! We went to a handful of places, including a traditional Moroccan tapas place, a more traditional Spanish-style tapas place, and another with amazing chickpea salad. Dinner gets started so late here, so by the time we finished our hopping it was time to go to clubs with Luis and his gang of friends.

On a side note, it turns out, you can get pretty tipsy having one drink with only one small tapa; Sarah, Amber and I were definitely feeling it walking from the last tapas restaurant to the club. I need more food than that with my drink! But I guess when in Spain, do as the Spaniards do: comiesta, siesta, fiesta. Eat-sleep-party!

We went to an amazing place right by where we watched the sun set called Camborio. Camborio is built into caves on the side of the mountain, and has a massive glass enclosure where you can see the Alhambra all lit up. Supposedly if you stay out late enough you can see the sun rise on the Alhambra, but I island quite make it that late. It was a great time though, and certainly one of the best clubs I've been to here in Spain. It's going to be a hard act to beat- the view, the music, the caves, the glass enclosure.... Anyways, I only stayed until 4, but it was great. I definitely want to go back, both to Granada and Camborio.

This morning we packed up or things from the hotel, and Amber and Sarah and I went out to explore the city some more and with a more specific mission to find Indian food. We met up with Ethan, one of Lindsay's friends who we met last night and is all teaching in the city, and found a place to eat. I'm not sure if it was good Indian food like I get in Northampton, but it tasted great. I'm just not sure if it tasted great specifically because it wasn't Spanish food or because it actually was decent. Either way, it wasn't tuna sponge cake. That's a win in my book.

After lunch we got coffee with Luis an his friend Rufus and said goodbye to them as they headed off the Sevilla. We still had an hour, so we wandered around an old bazaar and saw a bunch of hand made goods. I bought three different kids of tea! But that's it, despite how tempting the jewelry and clothes were; I'm holding out for next week in Morocco!

Bazaar

Handmade blankets at the bazaar

Spices! Yum!

TEA! I got some "Cuentos de la Alhambra," "Atardecer de Marrakech," and "Amor Turco." My total was just over 10 Euros for 10 ounces of tea. Hopefully I'll have the self restraint to save it for once I'm home, at least that's my plan right now...

Finally, we wandered back to the hotel in time to get on the 4:00 group bus back to Cordoba. We are getting close to home now; I can tell because we are driving through fields and fields of olive trees by where the festival was last weekend. When I get home I'm going to take a run to procrastinate writing a paper for Music that's due tomorrow. My goal is just to make it through this week, because next weekend we don't get back from Morocco until Tuesday evening and then I have classes Wednesday and then Thursday I leave for London for six days. Thank goodness spaniards don't take education half as seriously as Americans, otherwise I wouldn't have enough time to train for the half marathon, and travel and party!