September 5, 2009
6:00 PM
Location: Fontiveros St. in the home stay
It’s been a couple days since entry one, and I have some free time (post siesta, pre camino) to write a little.
After 13 hours of waiting in airports/sitting on planes, I arrived on Thursday afternoon in first class from Madrid to Granada. Let me be the first to say that first class is not all that it is cut out to be. First of all, I was the only one sitting there and probably the only American on the plane (talk about entitled), second of all, there was no advantage to sitting there except I think they gave me a choice of a snack which I thought was ham and cheese, but which was actually smoked salmon and basil. Surprise! I hated myself in those moments. But walking off the plane erased all my negative memories of my weird flight. The plane pulled to a stop in the middle of the Tarmac and two chair cars rolled into place by the front and rear doors. Obviously Arrested Development and the Bluth Family stair car came to mind when I saw them rolling up. We stepped off the plane into the bright, hot Granada sun that beamed down onto the black pavement. We were sort of led, sort of expected to find our own way, down the tarmac to a tiny door that entered into the baggage claim. Walking with your suitcase in hand on pavement usually only touched by airplanes, airline equipment, and airline personnel is a feeling unlike any other. I felt like I was in heaven. I took a cab to our hotel which was a welcome relief after the disorganization of “Bestplace” (=worstplace) hostel in London. It actually wasn’t that bad.
Hostal Nuevas Naciones was waiting for me with arms open. Sydney was already sleeping in our room (yes, all ours!) when I got there. A shower and AC had never felt so awesome as it did that day. At 10:00 after a short nap, we found some dinner, didn’t understand a word our waiter said, decided there was room for improvement when it came to our
conversational Spanish, and rushed back to the hostel for a pretty sweet 11 hour sleep. The next day took us out and about through the city streets of old Granada, and when I say it is beautiful, I do not kid around! Everything is clean, beautiful, old, and awesome (except for the ladies who “read our palms” without us asking them to and then stole 10 Euro from me and 5 from Sydney, assholes). We had no idea where we were and were pointing and asking each other questions like silly Americans and didn’t realize until later in the day that we had actually been looking at the Alhambra for the last couple of hours and were trying to get to it but couldn’t find our ways. Doesn’t matter, I’m over it.
That evening Sydney and I became official on facebook after our date to Plaza de San
Nicholas en Albayzín, the first, and oldest part of Granada across the river from the Alhambra. The sweet Dutch man who ran our hostal with his wife informed us that the Plaza was a great spot to watch the sun set on the Alhambra and listen to live music. Afterwards, he said, we could get dinner up in the old city. He was right in a big way. We walked up into the old city huffing and puffing (it’s very hilly up in there. Duh, otherwise when we got to the top it wouldn’t have a good view!) and arrived at the most beautiful lookout I’ve ever seen. You can see the whole old central part of Granada and the Alhambra. On this particular clear night, the sun set just right on the Alhambra causing it to give off a yellow/orange glow (just what Mr. Holland told us), and the moon shone brightly in the sky next to it. As we watched a Spanish band played guitar, cajon and hand clapping in
the Plaza. One guy had a mullet, the other a half up half down hair do, and I’m pretty sure one of the band members was akin to the water boy of a football team, except he walked around with a lit cigarette and put it into whichever band member’s mouth wanted it so they wouldn’t have to take their hands off their instruments. Great job, if you ask me. The whole thing was pretty perfect.
Eventually we headed down, got some food, bought some helado, where we ran into language misunderstanding two, and then went to bed, ready to get up the next day for our 12:00 bus to Malaga.
We got to the Bus station at 12:15. I bought a 1:15 bus ticket. Sydney bought one for 1:30. It was awkward. I guess I had gotten the last one. Nevertheless, the bus ride was beautiful, and I sat next to a man who smelled awful. The hillsides lined with olive trees rolled past us as I listened to my iPod and tried to ignore the stench of B.O. coming off homeboy to my right. At one point we pulled off the highway into a town and stopped in front of a restaurant. A couple people got off. Thinking it was a pit stop of some sort, I considered getting of to use los aseos, but decided I didn’t want to wake my seatmate, so I stayed on. Lucky thing, because the minute the people got off, the bus pulled away. Uhhh…what? Some cool parts of the bus trip: Really amazing countryside with huge hills and a bunch of what appeared to be marble quarries, a giant silhouette of a cow on top of a hill, the truck full of pigs that we passed, the weird fountains in that little town that had grass painted blue/green surrounding them, the fact that no one ever made it clear where we were going so I was pretty certain at one point that I was going to wind up in Madrid without knowing it, the sweet houses perched really high up on the mountains. Sydney’s bus arrived only 5 minutes after mine and we got into a cab to the hotel. He drove us like five minutes from the front of the bus station to the back, the location of the hotel. Great. Thanks for letting us know, friend. He probably actually did, but we didn’t understand.
After an awkward meeting of other Americans and a short info session about phones at 630, Sydney and I decided to check out the “Gym” on floor six. It was a one door room with a sign on it that said ‘Gym.’ We walked in and it had two work out bikes with unadjustable seats that were too high and a weird apparatus for doing situps or something. It also had about a thousand towels stacked up decoratively in a huge shelving unit on the wall. We decided to check out the spa instead. It had a Jacuzzi, steam room, sauna, outdoor terrace. It was definitely a hidden gem. Out on the terrace, aided by a couple of the towels we found in the “gym,” Sydney led us through 8 minute buns and 8 minute abs, both of which she has down by memory. Afterwards we changed into our bathing suits to take a dip in the hot tub only to find out that Jacuzzi does not always = hot tub, but rather sometimes = kinda cold tub. That was the case there. I have to admit, though, it was pretty pleasant in there. We decided it was opposite day always in Spain, because the Jacuzzis are cold and the milk is warm.
Our orientation day one went well and yesterday we arrived back in Granada to our home stay. Our family is really nice, and we each have our own rooms. I do miss the hNN AC, though. Classes were also great today, even though we basically didn’t talk at all and our professora led us on a tour of the area, spewing out the most obscure historical facts I’ve ever h
eard and not understood in my life. It didn’t really matter, though. This city is beautiful. Spanish rocks. I’m off to go on a walking tour with the group at 7. Hopefully I don’t slip on the cuestas (steep inclined paths).
A next day amendment to this post:
After taking a walk today, three things must be noted about spain:
1. The Alladin fad caught on strong here and has people completely sucked in. The Alladin pants here are all the rage.
2. Today I saw two dogs stuck together by the butt. I dunno how it happened, but neither owner seemed to be that upset. That's not something to note about Spain, just something to note.
3. Mullets are very, very in here.
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