granada, day one.

i'm sitting in the bus station in granada with a little over an hour to spare, and so i finally have the chance to sit down and write out what i've experienced in the last couple of days.

it's funny when something that you've had a feeling about, something that you intuit strongly for no real reason, is actually reality. andalucía is everything i hoped it would be. everything and more, really. we left madrid at 8am after a night of an hour of sleep and took a bus for six hours down to granada. we slept for the first couple of hours and woke up at the first stop which was most certainly in andalucía already, you could tell the second you stepped off the bus. then when we got back on the road... god. i was panicking a bit all the while because i knew i would never be able to capture it in precise words. we got back out onto the road and the landscape was just. like nothing i've ever seen before. there were mountains in the distance and we were in them a bit, really, these tiny tiny roads on twisted, desert-looking hills and everything just looked untamed and untouched and wild. it looked so wild. in a way i could only ever imagine andalucía being. i put my ever-increasing flamenco playlist on my ipod and just stared and almost immediately started crying. i cannot explain what it looked like outside my window, nor can i explain how i felt about it. my immediate, half-kidding thought was "god, i can see why jesús navas has panic attacks when he leaves." the trees here are so different than any i've seen before. the sun is hot in a way i never imagined. there are lines and rows and rows of olive trees everywhere you looked and god, the buildings. just these ruins of buildings, nearly ancient ones, just out in fields, stubbornly and proudly standing. it was beyond beautiful and beyond perfect and i just had this overwhelming feeling of the importance of the moment in my life, the shift in it, the change. immediately. and as soon as we entered the province of granada i saw a grey-and-white dappled horse in a field and it's just... what better introduction to granada could you get?




we get into the city proper and take a cab to the hostel and we passed the bullring and just. the buildings. the city. it's so, so old. nearly every single building is historical, has a story. it's exactly what i dreamed of at home when i imagined going to spain. i just feel a sense of contentment here that i rarely did in madrid. i love madrid, i really do, but it's a whole other world that could never really be mine. the only time i felt at home in madrid was watching flamenco and every single time i was anywhere near el estadio santiago bernabéu. madrid is an amazing city, but it's just a big city infused with spanish soul to me. granada is spain. in every crack and crevice and every single person, it's spain. it's kind of how everyone thinks of new york city when they think of the united states when the heart of the country lies elsewhere, lies on farms and in forgotten towns and on backroads. granada is no backroad and certainly isn't forgotten (i've heard more english here than anywhere in madrid), but the heart of the city is sangre y oro. and on the way into the bus station this morning i saw a shirt that nearly made me cry that said no solo andaluz, yo tambien soy español (not only am i andalusian, i'm also spanish). i'm ridiculous i know and entirely too sentimental about this part of the country, but there it is. :)

so anyway we get to the hostel which is actually really nice and better than some hotels i've stayed at in the states. and it was a private 2-bed room with a private bathroom. what! brilliant. :) so we got situated and then put on our makeup and other things to make us feel human and we went out. we first went to get shawarma (which was spelled differently on every single sign i saw) which is a kind of middle eastern pita pocket sandwich. the one we got had chicken and green olives and green peppers and lettuce and some kind of creamy sauce and it was just. delicious. and HUGE. ohmygod i want another one already (and not just because i had a chocolate "crepe" and paprika pringles for breakfast this morning hahaha). oh! before we even got to that part of town, we passed an ice cream place near our hostel that was €1 for an ice cream cone. we couldn't resist, and i got some kind of yogurt with honey and pecans and ahhhh. so yummy. this city has so many beautiful churches on every corner. sometimes even more often. and they're all hundreds of years old and just so, so gorgeous. anyway!

so after the schwarma we walked around the windy roads (the sidewalks are barely wide enough for one person. sometimes when certain vehicles pass, you have to step into a doorway to get out of the way or you will get sideswiped) and ohmygod the shops. the shops the shops the shops. they're PERFECT. ohmygod it's just everything i love. everywhere. it's gorgeous gorgeous leather goods (purses and wallets and shoes and bracelets and oh. god.) and long flowy skirts and rings and incense and jewelry just everywhere and just. perfect trinkets. perfect. i wanted every literal thing. i resisted! (mostly, except for a new wallet after mine had gotten stolen the day before) then we went to a tetería which is a tea house, cozy little dens draped with fabric and curtains and playing arabic music with pillows to sit on and lean against with hookah and the most delicious tea you could imagine. the one i got was called flowers of the generalife which are the gardens of the alhambra and oh oh oh. incredible. we lazed around there for a bit and then went back out again.

we walked through the streets once again and i could not stop staring and taking pictures. i'm obsessed with alleys and balconies and doorways (as my pictures will prove) and granada is just. the perfect place to me. we started to walk by this one church and i was like wait. i have to go in there. i just had to. i went in and ohmygod. it was this insane, lush baroque church with those beautiful statutes and very, very lifelike marys and jesus(es?) everywhere and just. ornate and gold everywhere and the ceilings were vaulted and it was everything you imagine when you think of a catholic church in the south of spain. i was overwhelmed and also felt silly because mass was happening and so i tried to leave as quietly as possible. i still cannot believe what i saw in there. it was unearthly.

we then took a tiny tiny bus up the winding slippery cobblestone hills of the old moorish neighborhood to get to el mirador de san nicolás which is the point in granada where you can look out over the whole city and which is a plaza of sorts. we hike up the stairs and immediately see and hear two gypsy men with their guitar and their accordion. it's late in the evening but the sun is spain doesn't even start to set until about 9.30 or 9.45 so it was high high in the sky still. the view of the city is nothing short of breath-taking. and straight in front of you is the alhambra in all of its ancient glory, right next to the sierra mountains which had snow on them, to my silly amazement. we sat up there and watched people and looked at the view for a few hours and bought bracelets from this pregnant gypsy woman who wasn't spanish at all but who was very sweet. there were so so many americans up there! hahahaha i felt silly (and i do feel silly, apparently, everytime i hear too much english. i get really uncomfortable and i don't even know why). this american girl came up to us and was like "you guys speak english?" and we were like "...yep?" and she was like "oh thank god" and she was a girl from dc who had apparently been traveling spain by herself and she was just really glad to have someone to talk to. we talked for a bit and we agreed to meet her for tapas at 10p because her hostel was close to ours and so she didn't have to be alone. we had really amazing tapas (pork chop with garlic mayo sandwiches, patatas bravas and ribs with this like. incredible honey sauce. ohmygod) and an entire bottle of wine, all of it for €12. it was €4 a person for tapas. did i mention that i love andalucía?

we sat and watched a weirdass german music channel that played the most RANDOM SONGS EVER for awhile and talked and she was just really sweet. we said goodbye to her and went back to the hostel and slept for TEN HOURS. i think we were tired, i don't know. we got up and got started waaay too late (it was my fault because i kept ignoring my alarm) and we went to have a menú at this place off of gran vía and it was so so yummy. the first plate was some kind of andalucían salad which was a sort of potato salad with tuna that came with AMAZING olives that were super garlicky and chips. the second plate was soup that had lentils and chicken and beef and--wait for it-- blood sausage. i was like "oh what the hell" and cut it up and mixed it into the soup and lemme tell you, it was really, really good. the blood sausage had some kind of sweet spice in it (rey and i decided it was nutmeg) and it was just such a wonderful, interesting flavor. the third plate was a pork chop that was absolutely yummy and then i had flan for dessert. and we got to watch some of roger's match toward the end. (:c)

we had gotten tickets to the alhambra and so we left and went to the gardens before our alloted time to enter the palace itself and ohmygod. the alhambra. describing it is futile because it just needs to be seen. i will post pictures very soon. every single inch of it is ornate and incredibly beautiful. the ceilings, the floors, the walls. the fountains and the gardens and the orange trees. it's a paradise. the view of the city was staggering. i never wanted to leave. i cannot believe such a place exists. we were there for about three and a half hours total but it didn't feel like it at all. i'm in love. it's rey's favorite place in the world and it was the 5th time she'd been there. i took so, so many pictures. it's going to be absurd to go through. :) but after you leave you still feel the presence of it. i want to go back again today and tomorrow and always.

and the air here smells so different than madrid. the air in madrid smells infinitely better than the US in general (depending on what street you wander down though, of course), but the air here is something special. and i cannot even begin to tell you what it is. it's just different. so perfectly andalucían.

after we left the alhambra, we went behind the cathedral in the city and there was a stand set up that sold spices and teas that you could buy by the 100 grams for €3. i bought a few bags and smell the spices (god the saffron) before we left. we went back to the hotel and then got ready to have dinner. i got scrambled eggs with fries and chorizo because i cannot stop eating it hahahaha. it was SO FILLING and very good. beforehand we got a cheese and pate platter which was so so good as well. i left way too full to be alive and we then went on a search for this flamenco place i'd found out about. we trekked up to this tiny tiny kind of beautiful kind of scary at 1a alleyway and the place was closed! :( we've been trying to see flamenco in vein for two weeks. STILL HAVEN'T.

so we went to this tetería we passed on the way to the flamenco place and the guy IMMEDIATELY starts hitting on rey like. in the middle of her ordering. hahahahaha. she blamed me because apparently i'm the one who has been inviting the INSANE ENCOUNTERS we've had over the past month. ohmygod the stories i could tell. hahahahaha sigh.

anyway we get this tea called a night in granada or something lovely like that and it was very very very yummy. and we got a mixed fruit hookah which was also very good and we watched snl skits and kat williams cartoons on rey's ipod and got stared at by italians for laughing so loud and then we left and went home and went to bed at like 3a. and it's now 9.25 and my bus gets here in 35 minutes so i have to stop typing. the next time i open my computer i'm going to be in sevilla. ohmygod how is this my life?

<3 photos under here of our first day in granada. after i get back to the hostel tonight, i'll dig through the alhambra pictures.