Gratis: housing, food and laughs
Road trip
A flamenco show
No, Europeans do not know how to shuffle cards
A certain early morning snack
Deanna's public vomiting
Arabic
Y language barriers rule
Morrocan tapas
Ártist affair
La Alhambra
Años cumplidos por Sara. Happy 23rd, chica
Good morning from our ocean front hotel!
And a lot of sunshine
(and Torremolinos)
Outside of the Cathedral in Málaga where we had a potential (very likely) siting of Robert Downey Jr.
The aforementioned Cathedral.
...in it's almost entirety
Conveniently located in the plaza of the Cathedral, thank you for the amazing patatas bravas
Emily and her mom Deanna on their ocean front balcony in Málaga. Can you guess if the balcony that I am standing on is also ocean front? Yes, free ocean front housing. Thank you Deanna, I hope we repaid you in innumerable laughs.
Liquor store security.
Post-Indian food feast. Ethnic food, found almost nowhere in Spain.
Flamenco show. Unfortunately it is not possible to see from these photos but the stage is set in front of a large window with a view of the Alhambra illuminated at night. Absolutely brilliant.
Frederico Garcia Lorca's summer home in Granada. This is where he wrote and painted most of his works. I touched his desk. Before the city development, back then, he had a view of the Alhambra from his bedroom window. Probably also did a lot of daydreaming about Salvador Dalí in that room...
Meet Luis, Sara's salsa instructor from years back. He housed us for 3 nights in Granada and guided us to some of the best tapa bars in the city. FREE GOLF!
This is how TAPAS work: Order a beverage, free plate of food. Refill your beverage, next plate of food. Then you pay for your 5, 6, 7, 8 beers and you're content in more than one way.
Fried eggplant chips.
La Alhambra. 14th Century Moorish fortress. The greatest and most preserved in all the land. It's brilliantly perfect: location, lighting, construction, and artistic flare. You'll see.
That is Emily's mom Deanna (who drove us to Granada and accompanied us around).. Perhaps it was jet-lag blues or she was completely awestruck with the Alhambra's beauty. Either way, Deanna got a little sick and in the enormity of the fortress, and it was basically impossible to find a bathroom close by. This was not the first bush that received her love, but it held her up and did it's job. I wonder how many other people have left their bodily fluids on the Alhambra...?
Emily being artsy or something. I guess it's not too hard to be inspired.
The chicas and I in front of the city at sunset.
La ciudad de Granada
One of many reflecting pools at La Alhambra. These are the most beautiful as it's Islamic architecture meets Christian influence of gardens and ground work.
Creatures
Now you have made it to the inside of the fortress. Hundreds of walls, pilars, floors and ceilings articulately carved by the Moors.
Arabic, what does it say Cammy?
Not one corner un-carved.
Oh and my favorite: Carvings meet tile.
Reflecting pool
Mmm, wrap that in a tortilla.
Probably the most famous photo of the Alhambra.
I was there!
More arabic for Cammy to transcribe, although after posting this I realize that it's backwards.
I'm not sure which way is the floor and which way is the ceiling.
AND HERE IS A CLIP FROM OUR FLAMENCO SHOW.
THE GYPSY TRADITION OF CAVE FLAMENCO CONTINUES ON, NO MATTER HOW TOURISTY, IT REMAINS INCREDIBLY TRADITIONAL.
The whole trip was planned for Sara's birthday weekend.
She studied abroad in Granada for a semester in college and she wanted to re-visit her favorite city. It was an amazing trip of eating, drinking, dancing, and standing with our mouths to the floor engulfed in hundreds of years of history, art and literature. Besides the Alhambra, my favorite location was our Moroccan tapas bar. Two nights we stuffed our faces with cous-cous, empanadas, spinach dishes, potatoey goodness, etc. We celebrated Sara's 23rd and went salsa dancing for her special night. I salsa'd. YES, that happened. Form dancing with rules and movements. We met great people, and one of the first nights while enjoying a (VERY) late night/morning snack of churros con chocolate with an Italian, a German and a Bulgarian, I referred to Granada as the dirty south (This is while my body was so exhausted from dancing I almost fell asleep in my churros). Couple nights later, while playing cards and having tapas with the same German and Italian and having that ever so familiar conversation with foreigners (We are from California but teach English in Spain, where are you from?) the Italian says he's from some little town in Italy.... "In the dirty south." He speaks better Spanish then English. You can assume that I'm spreading my -isms everywhere I go. In other news, Europeans do not know how to shuffle cards. They do the little kid method of mixing them on the table face down, or just pulling random ones out of the pile and putting them on the bottom.
When they watch us shuffle and bridge, they wear a similar face to the one that was frozen on mine as I stared at the Alhambra for three hours.
Cheers from Granada...
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