Bienvenidos a Granada

Back on the road again. Heading to Granada after spending a day in Toledo. It's a 4 hour trip, so most people are sleeping. I was pretty excited/nervous (in Spanish, this mix emotion is called 'hacer ilusion'), so I didn't sleep much at all. For a while, the trip was pretty flat, just the usual olive tree farm.

 And then, mountains.

 Huge mountains.

The further south you go out from Madrid, the more mountainous it gets. Being from Illinois, I don't see mountains of this size....ever. So I was quite in awe when these mountains popped up. The highway also became substantially more difficult to traverse. However, as I mentioned in the Toledo segment, drivers here are fearless, and our bus driver matched this description. We were flying around bends at speeds which no one should be driving a multi-ton bus.


Let's pause right here and explain the nervous part of the trip; the part everyone on the bus was eager for yet scared. At the end of the bus ride, we would be meeting our Senoras (homestay mothers). Our director Christian told us to stay on the bus when we arrived, and he would call our names 2 by 2 to get off the bus and meet our senora. This, to me, was almost like the sorting hat in Harry Potter. On the bus, we could see all these little Spanish ladies standing, waiting eagerly to see who would get off the bus. We were all giddy/nervous/excited and wondering which one we'd get. Kyle (my roommate) and I were almost certain we had picked ours out of the crowd.

One thing Christian mentioned was how you are supposed to greet females in this country. The custom is two kisses, one on each cheek. You're supposed to lean to your left, place your cheek there (make a kissing sound I guess) and then do the same thing on the right. No one on the bus had done this, so this was making us even more nervous.

The first names were called. It was 2 girls. Everyone stood up to watch them do the kissing maneuver. It seemed to go without a hitch. A minute later, two more female names were called. This continued on until the bus was nearly empty. It was Kyle and myself, and a two other groups of girls. By this time, the Senora we thought was ours had left with some other students. Christian came on the bus - our Senora hadn't arrived yet. We already had something in common (I'm never punctual)!

He tells us to get off the bus. About 5 minutes later, our Senora, Maria, appears. She's short, a little round, and just the most warm person you may meet. Great side story here: I do the kiss thing, then Kyle walks up to her. He does the two kisses, but then freezes in awe of the situation. Maria asks "Como estas?" (How are you?). You learn that in your first day of Spanish classes. Kyle, can't conjure up the words to respond (although he definitely knows how). She asks again. Still nothing. I go "She's asking how are you." "I know, I'm speechless right now!" Those may not  be exact words, but it was pretty funny none-the-less. I tried to let Maria know he was really excited to be there and a little nervous. Heck, I was really nervous too.

We begin walking, luggage behind us, down the streets of Granada. We weren't sure if maybe she had a car we were walking to, or a taxi or something. We make a turn. In my broken Spanish, Maria, Kyle and I talk about the bus ride, where we're from. Somehow, we talk about the Franco era of Spain. First day in the city and we're talking history in Spanish. Yikes. One more turn, we cross the street, and we stop walking. We were at our destination.

 The view, looking right, out my window. This park is called El Parque Federico Garcia Lorca. Really big, lots of runners, not much open space, but very pretty.

 Looking left out our apartment window. Note the hatchbacks. There's construction at the end of this street, so there has been a lot of double parking lately. I think this has led to a lot of random honking, which is annoying when you're trying to sleep. Especially with our paper thin walls.

I will do another update eventually on the inside of my apartment, and on basic everyday living. At this point in the story, the son of our Senora, Pablo, knocked on our door. He lives in the room 2 to our left (Kyle and I share a room). He asks if we want to join him as he and his friends "make pregraming." Being scared out of our shells, we both decline. At this point, I sit down on my bed, listen to a group of Spaniards in the other room prepare for a night of partying, in a country I hardly know, with a language that is not my first, and wonder what the hell I am doing. It was a weird feeling, to say the least.

 The next day. We take a short walking tour of part of Granada. This is on the biggest intersection of the whole city - Gran Via and Calle Recogidas. This is a bank (banco).

A sign right below a large statue. The sign reads "fountain filled with water from recycling system, not drinkable water" 

 This is the backside of monumento de Isabel La Catolica (monumento = statue/monument). I have better pictures of this I'll post another time. This is on that same intersection. It depicts Columbus signing the contract/whatever from Queen Isabel, when he was funded for his journey to the new world. Our group (ISA) meets here for most events. It's about a 20 minute walk from my apartment.

 Fuente de Granadas (fuente = fountain). Directly translated, grenada means grenade, but I think it also stands for pomegranate, of which this fountain has many versions of (notice near the middle top). This was around the end of our walking tour, down the Paseo de las bombas, a long stretch where many people run/stroll. Pretty, no?

 Ayunatmiento de Granada. City hall, I believe. Julio (a director of ours and the guide of this tour) said that legend has it that the statue on top magically appeared one day, without any prior knowledge to it being constructed. Strange.

 The largest cathedral in Granada. It's huge, but somewhat hidden (if that's possible). You round a corner, and then boom! It punches you in the face. It's spectacular.

 The next day: Flamenco. In Granada, flamenco is huge. As a large group, we walked up to this cave (yes cave. Cave = cueva).

 I was sitting literally next to the performers. Tight quarters, as you can see. Flamenco music consists of a unique 8 count beat, and just a whole bunch of clapping. These girls clap the whole time.The dude with the long hair sings and claps. Theres a guitarist at the end.

 The dancing involves stomping, and in some varieties, castanets. The performers wear special shoes and stomp to the beat. For the lack of a better descriptor, it's bursty. They will begin slowly, then burst into a lot of movement, then slow down again. When they stop, you're supposed to say "Ole!" No one in my group really knew this, so in its place was dead silence. Yikes.

 Day 3 I believe. This day, we're taking a tour of the old muslim quarter of the town, called the Albaicin. It's really hilly, and very tight. This right here is the courthouse of Granada. It is also part of what is known as Plaza Nueva.

 Waiting for the tour to begin. A stray dog (lots of those here, sadly). To the right, a worker on his lunch break.

To the Albaicin (in the direction shown). Stay tuned for the next update...

Vocab words (because you should learn stuff when you read this!):
cueva (kwe-va)- cave
monumento - monument/statue
fuente (fwen-tay) - fountain
banco (bahn-ko) - bank

Toledo: The Little City that Could - Parte 2

Continuing where we left off: the walking tour of Toledo. At this point, were walking towards a small church where the famous painter El Greco painted one of his masterpieces.

 If you look closely on the far right side here, you can see one thing that Toledo is widely known for: knives. There was a litany of little shops, like this one, that sells knives and other crafted items. The guy in the photo actually bought a little pocket knife in one of the shops.

 The entrance to the little church/chapel where El Greco painted his masterpiece. Sadly, you're not allowed to take photographs inside. So I'll just find a copy of it on the internet and post it here for you! Thanks, google.

From what I remember: That's obviously the big man at the top. It was very common during this era to make artwork that represented both the heavens and real life. I'm going to butcher this again, but I believe the guy dying is...a....king? The two people holding him are important religious figures, can't remember who, and the guys with the white collars around him are high ranking kings/princes. I think. Either way, a couple fascinating things about this: On the robe of the guy on the left, you can see the way the man died (stoning). There are only two people looking out from the painting, a man and a child. The man is El Greco himself, who is above the hand above the head of the man in yellow on the left. Many believe the child, on the left in the foreground, is the son of El Greco. 

You know what, if you want to know more about it, just go here or the wikipedia page of the painting.

The painting is pretty much the only thing in the entire entryway to of this little church. The painting itself is huge, probably 20ish feet tall. It's on the far side as you enter, however the painting was originally located in a position that didn't allow for many to view it. Once the visitors to the church became ridiculous, they carefully moved it into an angle that allowed for better viewing. Pretty awesome to see, and almost out of place in such a small town. Moving on...

 I'm planning on talking a bit more about this later, but this is the mandatory car in Spain - a small hatchback. If it's not one of these, it's a small expensive sedan (mercedes) or a motorcycle/vespa. That's pretty much every car I've seen here in 2 weeks so far. One land rover, one corvette (totally out of place) and a couple vans. Just hatchback city over here.

Pretty sweet. An outdoor temporary ice rink in the middle of a plaza that leads up to the biggest church in Toledo. It's not really that cold here, nor is there much water at all, so I'm sure this is a treat for the locals.

 Really awesome church. The detail on the entire thing is intense. They're restoring the tower to the left, which is obviously a very meticulous procedure.

Typical road (yes, road) in this town. They're almost all one way. Cars don't really honk if you're in the way, they'll practically just run you over. Seriously. There were some close calls.

A typical road sign of Toledo/Granada. They're pretty small and sometimes almost hidden. Getting lost in these maze towns is pretty common, and this probably doesn't help. This particular sign is important, because it refers to the sister town of Toledo, Spain - Toledo, Ohio. 

 You just can't hide from the yellow arches. This plaza (called Plaza de Zocodover) is known by  many as McDonald's plaza. 

Okay, let's fast forward a bit... At this point, our walking tour is done. It's roughly 10pm local time, and we had not eaten dinner. Our tour takes us back to the hotel, which is about a 10 minute drive (aka too far to walk) from the center of Toledo, where these pictures were taken and where the restaurants are. Me, my roommate and two other guys we met here decide to take a taxi into the city and get some food. No big deal.

The taxi shows up literally 2 minutes after having called for it. We get in, tell him we're going to Pastucci in Toledo. He pulls away, quickly, and we're off. We make some American-Spanish chit chat, he informs us about the shooting in Arizona, of which we were all not aware. Kinda weird when a Spanish cab driver is the one informing you of big events in your home country. Anyway, this is where this above photo comes into play. Remember I talked about small streets and cabs/cars basically almost running people over? This ride into town was scarier than most roller coasters. This guy FLEW through these tiny streets. You know when you go slow through a small opening in your car, checking your mirrors to make sure you don't scratch your car or lose a mirror? Yeah, forget that. This guy was gung-ho for getting us to our destination. I must have audibly gone "whooooaaa" like 4 times. I literally thought we were going to hit pedestrians on numerous accounts. This guy was playing real life Crazy-Taxi, and he got us there with time to spare (nerdy video game reference!)

 After eating awesome pizza (that took a while, but was worth it), we walked around the city just to see what was around. We came across this glowing building.

 And this one.

 And this view of greater Toledo.

 Back to Plaza de Zocodover (McDonald's plaza) for the nightcap. As I mentioned, the day I arrived in Spain was similar to their Christmas day, so they still had a lot of decorations up. At this point, it's probably closer to 11 or 12, yet lots of people are out at this time. It's here that we decide to get a beer or two. We stop in at one tapas bar, each get a beer (except daniel, he got a glass of wine) and with the drinks comes 2 plates of tapas! They're all little pieces of bread, one topped with a type of ham, and the other 3 with fish. One has anchovies. Not super popular with my group, but I take a couple bites.

Next, we head to an Irish bar just down the road. Turns out, some more people from our group are there. The bar is absolutely tiny; fitting 20 people in the main level is a chore. There's a staircase at the end of the bar that goes upstairs and downstairs. The bathrooms are down, and up is another level of this bar,  but even smaller. We head upstairs and grab a beer each. It's clear that the locals stay upstairs, as we were given our share of angry looks. We head back downstairs, beer in hand, and converse with people in our group while singing to hits from the 90's that are playing on the speakers. Pretty fun time.

 The view from our hotel room the next morning.

Our directors asked us to get to the lobby by 10am, with all of our luggage. We board two huge buses - turns out they needed two not because of the number of people, but because of the amount of luggage we all had. In 4 hours we would be arriving in Granada.