We are coming off a lovely visit to Granada Spain. It was wonderful! I think Granada might be my favorite city in Spain so far. It has this great blend of ancient Moorish districts and a more cosmopolitan vibe. We visited the Alhambra which was an amazing former Muslim stronghold complete with six palaces (two and a half are still standing(ish), as well as gardens and the remains of the structures of the common residents, all contained within magestically constructed and decorated walls. I´m at a lab right now in Malaga (on the coast of southern Spain) and I don´t have the ability to upload pics from here…. but just trust me when I say it was awesome. (Hence the famous quote- “If you die without seeing the Alhambra, you haven´t lived.”).
Prior to Granada we were in Cordoba. I thought Cordoba was beautiful, but I thought it might have been a little overhyped in comparison to Granada and Toledo. That might have had more to do with the fact that we had a problem with the staff at our hostel. I´m by no means fluent in Spanish, but I made it perfectly clear to the guy checking us in that we needed the room for two nights. And I know he understood because when he told us the total I asked if it was in total or per night and he said that it was for each night. Well, in any case he apparently didn´t tell his boss and she was anticipating having the room open for that Friday night. (There were three twins in there but with us in there they could only get money for a double). We came home from the bar to a very angry Spanish lady who spoke no English. It was horrible! She was furious! And said that we did not tell them that we were staying for two nights. There is nothing in life that can reveal your failures at language acquisition than attempting to argue in a foreign language. We ended up getting it somewhat resolved and we stayed the second night but the experience kind of affected our overall mood in Cordoba. I couldn´t believe that guy totally sold us out. Punk. Anyway, we hit the road the next morning for Granada and had an amazing time.
I´m feeling a little tired at the moment. Jon and I went to a bar last night and ended up totally partying like rockstars…. Or at least like 18 year old Danish rockstars… We shared a table with a group of Danes visiting Granada with their college class and we ended up staying out until 4AM! They were really nice and spoke English very well, but this morning when we had to get up and check-out we realized that it was probably a little excessive… Oops.
Tomorrow we are going to attempt to go to Morocco! It sounds crazy and confusing but interesting nonetheless. Wish us luck!
P.S.
Sorry for the Toledo burn Val.
P.P.S.
Thanks Maggie and Jakob for eradicating my lifelong “I don´t eat pork” mantra. I would be screwed here in Spain if I was still off of it! That´s all they eat! And it´s so, so, so delicious!
This Way Maybe 