Friday
Sarah's sister, Emily, met us at the bus station in Granada, where we took a city bus to our hostel. It's difficult to describe Granada. One street will be large and city-like, but the next street over will be a lot like Sevilla: small and very Spanish. You can tell that there was a lot of Muslim influence though. One of the older areas of the city, which used to be the market square, is now occupied by shops whose owners speak arabic. The main attraction in Granada, La Alhambra, used to be a Moorish plaza before it was converted to a Catholic area.
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| Granada seems ok |
Our hostel is amazing: we finally have our own room (with a bonus bathroom!) and the roof has an amazing view of the Alhambra and nearby Cathedral.
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| Get out of the way, I'm trying to look at cathedrals! |
Fun story about the cathedral: we walked in to take a look, as many others did, and there was a wedding going on. Really strange. The bride and groom signed the paperwork in front of everyone? Is that normal? I'll tell you what isn't normal: complete strangers, dressed in rain jackets and flip flops, watching a wedding full of people they don't know. Weird.
But anyway, Emily showed us around a bit, we got some kebab (obviously), had some Tinto de Verano at a cafe (like sangria, but sans fruit and with carbonation), and then walked around some more.
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| The tinto round came after the beer round |
We met with some of Emily's friends at a cheap tapas bar. Insanely cheap drinks and free tapas with each one. The best were fried eggplant with honey. We didn't feel like party cat-ing too hard, so we went to one other bar (sunflower seeds come with your drinks?) before calling it a night.
Saturday
Today was the day we booked a tour of La Alhambra. There was some mix-up with the tickets (fyi booking online is insanely complicated apparently), but we eventually got everything settled to see La Alhambra and the connecting gardens and Generalife (King's summer house). It was unfortunate that it was raining and that we got soaked, but that didn't "dampen" our moods. HAR HAR HAR. As expected, everything was amazing. The gardens were really cool, showing the difference in Muslim and Christian design.
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| Not sure why this guy's summer house was right next to his regular house... |
They also had some great views of the rest of the Alhambra. This was even more gorgeous, with insides that were ridiculously ornate and courtyards that were actually stunning. The craziest part through were all the walls. So intricate, most of which had rows and rows of chiseled arabic writing and other designs. It was nuts.
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| The outside of the building does not at all indicate that this is a circular structure |
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| We're at Hogwarts |
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| That seems difficult |
After that, we changed out of our wet clothes and hung out at a cafe for a bit. We had to relax before Beast Mode Bar Night 2012. We started at a tapas bar, Poe, where I had 6 tinto de veranos, mostly to get the free tapas that came with. They were unbelievable. A spicy thai chicken, pork stew, skewered pork with pineapple. I can't believe how cheap everything was. For less than 12 euros I was slightly tipsy and full of delicious food. SO GOOD. Fuck.
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| That pile of tapas bowls belongs to me |
Then around 12:30 we went to an amazing discoteca up on the hill facing the Alhambra, which looked incredible from up there. So while dancing literally all night, we had an amazing view. And club music. Awesome. Then we headed home around 6am.
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| This was our view while we danced to "Call Me Maybe" |
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