Granada!

This past weekend I went on an overnight trip with my program to Granada. Our bus left early Friday morning, and it took us about 3 hours to get to our hotel. Driving into the city I instantly fell in love... (I think all Katers must be born with an innate love for mountains). Our hotel was located right next to the Alhambra, so as we were driving up to it we got a sweet view of the city from above. We stopped at the hotel to drop off our bags, ate lunch at the hotel buffet (which had AWESOME food), and went to the Alhambra. There are literally no words to truly describe how beautiful and amazing the Alhambra is. It is located on the top of the mountain, so you can see the whole city in pretty much any area you're standing in. Granada was the last Muslim city in Spain until Fernando and Isabel, the Catholic king and queen who ruled the rest of Spain, took it over in order to unite and have power over the entire country. The Alhambra was the last big "Muslim accomplishment" in Spain. I was kind of disappointed because "El Patio de los Leones" (the patio of the lions), one of the most famous parts of the Alhambra, is under construction right now so we didn't get to see it. After the Alhambra we walked about 15 minutes (downward) to get to the town, where we went to a "Teteria," where we ate arabic sweets and tea. It was a really cool cafe and I liked the tea although I didn't think the sweets were all that great. After tea, we had two hours of free time to walk around and do whatever we wanted. Our group decided to just walk around and enjoy the city. There were a lot of little shops that we went into, but I didn't buy anything. We eventually ended up in a tiny restaurant that sold gyros for about 3 euros...... sooooo delicious. By the time we finished eating, it was time for us to head back to the hotel for another dinner buffet. We picked up a couple of 40s of "Alhambra," the wittily named beer of Granada, and spent a euro on a bus ride back so we didn't have to walk 15 minutes up the mountain.

After dinner we drank our 40s in our hotel room and later met up with some of the CIEE spanish guides and other students to go the bars and discotecas. On the walk down the mountain (keeping in mind that they are cobble stone streets), I tripped and fell.... to make matters worse, I was leading a group of about 70 people, all who I'm pretty sure saw me fall. I have a jynormous wound on my knee now and it feels like my foot might be broken (it's not really that bad, I'm just being dramatic)... Anyway, we went to a bar first, where we got free shots and had a few drinks, and then headed for the discoteca. It was kind of annoying because we were a big group and nobody knew where we were going, so basically we were aimlessly following the person in the front of the group. It took us about 40 minutes to find the discoteca, and once we got there we found out if was 15 euro to get in. We obviously ditched that since it was a rip off (Buddha for life!), and started walking to find the other discoteca. We walked for about 30 minutes and then got annoyed because no one knew where we were going, so my group decided to go get food somewhere and call it a night... best decision ever (the rest of the group never found the discoteca). We found this janky little restaurant that cooked really good burgers. They put really weird stuff on it (carrots and mayonnaise?) but it somehow ended up being really good. After our binge-fest we got a taxi back to the hotel. It was only supposed to cost us a euro each, but conveniently got stuck behind a garbage truck so we ended up having to pay 4 euros each... mierda!

The next morning we woke up bright and early for a breakfast buffet (I swear I gained 10 pounds from all this buffeting we did)... We left the hotel shortly after breakfast to visit el Barrio de Albaicin, the oldest and most authentic neighborhood in Granada. There were lots of cute old streets and it had a really beautiful view of the city since its on top of a mountain. In one area of the neighborhood there is a really amazing view of the Alhambra (President Clinton said it was his favorite view that he has ever seen). After taking a million pictures, we walked downward again toward the town below (my favorite pastime), and headed toward the Capilla Real. The chapel was built by Isabel and Fernando (los reyes catolicos) as a symbol of their defeat of Granada. Inside you can find their tombs along with those of Juana la loca and Felipe el hermoso (Juana is the daughter of los reyes catolicos). Their grandson (Juana's son) is buried there too; he died at a young age, otherwise he would have been the king to unite Spain and Portugal into one nation. Sorry, I'm boring you..... anyway, they have these huge marmol tombs, but their actual caskets are in the ground. We were able to walk down steps and look through glass to see their caskets. Kind of creepy. After visiting the Capilla Real, we had some more free time which we used to sit in a cafe and drink coffee (we were tired from our eventful night)....... Went back to the hotel afterwards, had yet another buffet, and we were off! Overall really fun weekend. I would recommend Granada to anyone visiting Spain... absolutely beautiful.



Picture #1: The Alhambra
Picture #2: Me inside the Alhambra
Picture #3-4: My friends and I in the Alhambra, with the city in the background
Picture #5: Patio in the Alhambra... usually there's a cool reflection in the water but you can't really see it very good in this picture because it wasn't the best of weather