Granada

*October 31, 2009*

This weekend we had a three day weekend, so I traveled with 7 other girls: Julie, Kelsey, Jessie, Genelle, Hanna, Rachel and Helena to Granada and Sevilla. Friday night, we took a night bus to Granada. We definitely didn't get much sleep... we had to switch buses in Madrid, where we had an hour and a half layover, then arrived in Granada at 6:30 Sunday morning.

Oh! So you have to hear what happened the night before... so before leaving my apartment in Valladolid, I am packing, and decided to check our hostel website to see what linens they provide. So I go onto hostelworld.om, and search the name of our hostel - nothing comes up. I search for hostels in Granada, and our hostel doesn't exist on the website. I go to the actual hostel's website, and it says unavailable. I look online at other hostel websites... but our hostel isn't there.

At this point, I start to panic a little. I look up the phone number to our hostel from my confirmation email, and call. It just rings and rings... no answer. Then it just disconnects. Now, I have to leave my house to get to the bus station, so I just throw a towel in my backpack and head out. I told all of the girls the situation once we were together, and we just decided that we were going to head to the hostel and check it out when we get there.

Okay, so in the morning, we take taxis to the hostel, ring the doorbell, and a woman answers the door. She tells us something about them having plumbing problems so they can't house us for the night we booked. But, she arranged for all 8 of us to have a bed in another hostel... which happened to be next door.

Phew! We were so relieved. At the hostel next door, the guy told us that what actually is happening is that in the last 48 hours, the police had being going around shutting down all of the hostels in Granada that don't have legit licenses, which turned out to be every hostel in Granada except for two! The one we ended up staying at was one of the two licensed hostels.

What an adventure to start the weekend! It was too early for us to check in, but we stored our luggage, and the guy at the front desk offered us breakfast!

Once we were all ready, we headed out to go see the Alhambra. This is a huge palace and fortress on the top of a hill in Granada overlooking the city. It was the last Arabic fortress to fall to the Christians during the inquisition in Spain, and it is a beautiful example of Moorish art and architecture. It's also massive! We could have easily spend the entire day there, but we just spent time in the gardens and touring the palaces, and taking tons of pictures.

I love that we have learned so much about the Moorish influence in Spain - it was amazing to see all of the intricate art and beautiful architecture in the Alhambra, as well as the view of the city. I don't think that I would have appreciated it as much if I didn't understand the history of it all.

We spent a huge part of the day at the Alhambra, so it was already past lunch time when we walked back down the hill. We found a delicious Turkish restaurant in Plaza Nueva, and sat, relaxed, and ate kabobs and baklava on the patio.

On thing that I have noticed all around Southern Spain, is that we will try to speak in Spanish to the locals, but they will just respond to us in English. I don't know if that's because they have no patience for us, or they think we actually want them to speak in English to us, but it definitely makes me realize the importance of living in Valladolid for the immersion experience... no one speaks English in Castilla y Leon.

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for a bit, then visited the huge gothic Cathedral on the way home. You would think that by now, we would all be tired of seeing cathedral after cathedral in every city, but this one was different because the entire interior was white.

This made the center chapel’s façade seem even more massive, since the gold contrasted beautifully with the white. In most cathedrals, the interior is brownish gray – the color of stone, so the gold façades in the chapels tend to blend in. It was definitely an impressive cathedral, which made sense considering it was Philip II who funded it (he was also responsible for the building of El Escorial in San Lorenzo, which we visit back when we were staying in Madrid).

After, we went back to our hotel to actually check into our rooms. Turns out that this hostel didn’t have private rooms, but just a bunch of different dorms. All 8 of us were split into 4 different rooms, where we each had a bed on a bunk bed, then shared a common bathroom with everyone else. It was called a “backpacker’s hostel,” which was a really fun environment. The rooms were set around the side and up stairs, and in the center of the hostel was an open area with a tikki bar, hammocks, and a fort with more hammocks, then a common kitchen and locker area. It was a fun and homey atmosphere, and we stayed, relaxed, napped and chatted with the other guests at the hostel.

For dinner, they made DELICIOUS paella… it had chicken, black beans, red peppers, and was homemade in the stone oven at the hostel.

After dinner, we headed out to go see a view of the Alhambra at night. On the map, it looked like we just had to walk up the street, turn right, and the plaza we wanted to go to was right up the street. Well, since we were in the Albyzin part of town, the streets are not as clear and direct as the map shows, so we managed to get ourselves lost. The Albyzin is the old Moorish part of town, which was actually built before the Alhambra, as well as built into a hill. So not only are the streets hills, but one street will start, then dead-end, and actually continue up and around another corner. So confusing, but we managed to ask for directions to the plaza, and found where we wanted to go.

Once we reached the plaza, we climbed up these stairs, and found a ledge to sit on which overlooked the Alhambra. It was all lit up at night, and we also had a gorgeous view of the entire city. We just stared at the beautiful sea of lights as we looked out over the city, and just enjoyed the view.

We eventually made our way back to the hostel, where some people went to bed, and the rest of us walked back into town to explore. It was getting late, and everything was closed, but we managed to find an open heladeria, so we got gelato and headed back to the hostel to go to bed. A very long but fun day :)