This is the first full day that Chris B. has been with us and he is already used to our schedule. We are going to catch a bus for Granada and so we wake up… at about a typical time for us. I set the alarm for 10 AM. Unfortunately, Eric and Allison don’t hear it, since we are now in different rooms. At least that is what they told me. So I get up and get ready and in the process wake up Chris B. Then at about 10:30 I knock on Eric and Allison’s door and rouse them from their slumber. We are planning on catching the 1 PM bus, so we figure we have time.
It is really stormy outside and I occasionally see lightning crack out over the Mediterranean Sea. Sadly, my camera is not able to capture it. There are a lot of leftovers from our grocery store excursions and one such thing is a box of sangria, well half a box or so. Since Eric and Allison are busy finishing packing,
Sangria: the breakfast of kings and scholars
We also introduce Chris B. to some of the angelfish that we got the day before. He is pretty skeptical of the fact that it is angel fish, since that is kind of an exotic fish. However, he is not skeptical of the great taste.After we are all packed, we realize that we have some food left over and we decide that we should try to pack some of it so that we can take it with us. We pack some of the more saveable things such as peanuts and crackers, but have to trash a lot of it. Our trash can is a little fuller than we would like.
Eric thought that Chris B. was a super super light packer and that he was only going to be wearing his satchel and nothing else. I am not sure if Eric is disappointed that Chris B. has more luggage or not. I will ask him. His response: “I am. Very disappointed.” So there you go.
Like I said, the walk was pretty easy, the train/bus station was about 15 minutes away and it was threatening to rain, which worried me slightly, but I figured it would be ok. We saw a couple of interesting things. The first was a sex shop for hamburgers, which Eric has been interested in every time that we passed it.
The second thing was another game store. Eric took the opportunity to go ask about Nestor games again. This guy was much less friendly than the girl in Sevilla, and Eric informed us that it seemed like the guy felt Eric was just wasting his time.
The final thing, that I was probably the only I found interesting, was the fact that the newspaper stand also sold porn magazines. Although, not Playboy… maybe Spainish Playboy, I didn’t check. Anyway, I just was surprised that they blatantly sold it on the street like that. I won’t post the picture since it is probably not suitable for this blog.
So as we were about 50 feet from the train station when it starts to rain, so we hustle inside and then we head to the bus station, which is connected to the train station. Unfortunately for us, we have to walk outside again to get there and it is kind of pouring, which means that we get to walk through the rain. It is weird it seems like the people of Granada do not like the rain as they are huddled in doorways waiting for it to stop. Perhaps they are just smarter than us and realize it will end soon.
We get to the bus station and attempt to buy tickets. Sadly, the tickets for the 1 o’clock bus is sold out, which means that we will need to get tickets for the 2 PM bus. So, after a few problems with the machine (it got stuck on the step where we pay, and sort of froze the machine, we purchase tickets and then we need to decided what to do for an extra hour. We walk around the bus station and then, finding nowhere to sit, we head back to the train station, which is also a mall. Actually, it is more of a mall than a train station. It even has a Spanish coast guard recruitment center. The outfits are pretty spiffy. If I spoke Spanish and liked boats as much as Eric I might join.
Chris B. wants coffe, and after walking around the… Train Mall Station, we find a haagen Daz… that is spelled wrong, but I am sure that you all know what I mean…ice cream stand that also serves coffee. Eric gets a Crepe cone.
Chris B get a coffee and Allison gets an ice cream cone. Now we only need someplace to sit. As I already mentioned this is more like a mall, so there is hardly any seating since they want you to just keep walking and seeing new stores. We find some chairs that we think are free, but after sitting down for a 24 seconds the waitress comes up and tells us that it is only for the restaurant… that is really not that close. So we move, to the seats at McDonalds. We figure we are safe there since it is a McDonalds, who will really care. Well… care they did!Chris B. and Allison get up to buy some Kebabs and Eric and I guard some stuff. Just as Eric is about to eat the most sensitive part of the crepe cone, the manager comes over and yells “Solo para McDonalds!” (Only for McDonalds) Eric, startled, drops his crepe cone in his lap. He is able to save it, but he is still embarrassed. We then have to decide what to do. I decide that I will simply buy some things from the Euro menu and eat them reallllly slowly. In truth Eric would have been the better candidate for this job, since he always eats slowly, but too late, off I go. I get a cheeseburger and small fries, and I do my best to eat them slow. I do a fairly respectable job.
Soon it is time to go, so we load up and head back to the bus station. We find our bus on the terminal and see that it will be loading at “gate” 23. We walk out there and stand with the mob of people. No bus arrives at 23, but one arrives at 24. And it says it is going to Granada…. So…. I guess that is ours. People rush to load their stuff onto it, which I will still never understand. We wait around and then load our stuff. Then another bus pulls up to the stop, it is also going to Granada… and it says it is Bus no. 1, which is the bus our ticket says we are supposed to be on. So after some confusion we switch our stuff, and tentatively get on. Luckily it is the right bus.
Oh, I need to mention that Chris B. knows Spanish much better than us, so he is already our translator, which displaces me as the person who knew the most Spanish. Lol… not that I really knew a lot, but … more than the walkies.
So the bus ride isn’t bad, it is about 2 hours and as we get on it starts to rain.
View from my seat:
The bus drivers window is pretty foggy and I contemplate how he can possible see. … Chris B. suggests that he knows the way by heart, so he doesn’t even need to see.
We arrive in Granada around… 4 and it is absolutely pouring. This is a rain that we haven’t seen while we have been in Spain. What happened? We aren’t in the plains!!!!
Eric looks apprehensive about the taxi.
Our driver is…. A bit quiet. But he seems a competent enough fellow. It is interesting watching the money slowly tick up as we drive. It takes about 10 minutes to get there, and it poured the whole way. We even saw standing water in the streets, which was just a little crazy.
After resting a little and checking that the internet works… but failing to check on my laptop :-/… we head out to explore the city of Granada. We just sort of meander around since we don’t have anything that we are too keen to see. The main interest is the Alhambra, which Allison has purchased tickets for tomorrow. So we roam around. Just after we start walking, it starts to pour again, but we power through. Eric and Allison both have raincoats and Chris B. has a hoody. I managed to forget my hat… which means I get a little wet. But that is ok, certainly not the first time that has happened.
Here is us walking:
We first walk around the commercial district, where Eric buys himself an ear of roasted corn. Chris B. does not like corn.
I have no idea what I am doing…. But it must be funny, everyone is laughing.
Notice how soaked we are:
We keep walking around and find a couple of things of interest, that I will most let the pictures do the talking.
This is a door with a cool knocker.
I think Spain is a little behind the times… didn’t they break up in the 80’s?
We found this little park that had … fake exercise equipment…. Basically exercise equipment with no weights or force, so it is just like… preparing kids to like exercising in a gym? This was actually a really cool little park and and it had a huge trough and lots of “exercise stuff” and then some nice trees. Pretty cool place for a very residential part of Spain.
We also found a couple of cloisters. Here Eric explains to Chris B. how the cloister they are going to build in their house is going to work and how much Gort and Klatuu will enjoy it.
These is a lot of Arabic writing on buildings and all over. Here is one example that was over a doorway.
The walkies and Chris B. stopped to buy some magnets. I looked around the store… I found some very interesting little figurines…. :-/… I am sure there is some other meaning for them… but… still, maybe a little much?
We found another wedding at this little church…. Luckily, no fireworks this time :)
We found a huge number of stray cats just hanging out in the canal. They seem pretty happy, and it seems like lots of people toss them food. It is very weird to see a pack of cats in the middle of a large city.
At the end of the road we find a great viewpoint of the Alhambra. Here is the walkies and Chris B. in front of the Alhambra.
Here is a closer shot of the Alhambra.
Finally, our journey would never be complete without a panorama jama whenever time permits. Here are the results of the panorama of the Alhambra.
We reach the end of the road and have to decide to turn back or head up the hill and explore a little more. We decide on the exploring option. We head up the hill and find a sign talking about the sacremount, which is supposedly a bunch of caves set in the hills, which sounds interesting to me… so we walk up to a viewpoint… I don’t see anything that looks like cool caves… and I am pretty disappointed. There are a few caves set in the hills, but mostly nothing exciting, so we head back down the narrow winding road. We then head up and through the arab district, which is pretty interesting. Here is a picture of the group walking ahead which shows a little of the district and what the streets look like.
We are growing hungry and so we start to look for a place to eat. We settle on a little Italian place and Eric and I share a pizza while Chris B and Allison both get pasta. Chris B. gets his inaugural food picture taken.
After we finish, we decide that we are going to try tapas again tonight. I know that we haven’t been successful anytime that we have tried it, but we hope this will be different since now we have someone that actually sort of speaks Spanish.
We pass a few places advertising tapas and we look in and Chris B. has the same problem that Eric and I have had. We just aren’t confident enough about going up to the bar and worried that it will be weird. So we head back to the hotel to check out the guide books and see if they recommend places. They just recommend some regions. We also notice that the hotel that we are staying in has a little bar of the fifth floor so we decide to try that. We head up and as we are walking to it, this guy sitting at the bar is just… staring at us… very intently. We panic and scatter, Eric and I start to head down the stairs, and Allison and Chris B, go back. The guy bursts out of the bar and tells us that the elevator is that way and points backwards… like we didn’t know where the elevator was… :-/… we are scared of him, so we say, ok and leave.
It is a very inauspicious start to our tapas night…. Undeterred we head out and go to the regions the book suggested. After a while we find a place that is to our liking and we order a beer… actually beer and tapas… but same thing. And we get tapas! Pretty meager at first, but pretty great really, it actually worked!!!!
Another round! New tapas!!! OMG, it is working. By the time we got to the fourth round we didn’t care what we got, we were just so amazed that it was actually working that we thought everything was awesome. The beers were not incredibly large, but still enough to have us feel them. Eric and I got one more round (round number 5).
Round 1:
Round 2:
Round 5:
Eric is ecstatic that we got free tapas, and it is pretty great. It was also way easier than it will be in Madrid, so I guess we need the practice. We head back to the hotel, where we decide to have one final nightcap in the fifth floor bar at the hotel. I am worried that the guy might still be there, but Eric is emboldened with beer and free tapas and he leads the way and we barge in, luckily he is not there or I am not sure what would have happened. The place it actually pretty cool… well it is an open air bar, so technically it is cold. We get a beer as well as a mix of peanuts and gummi candy and toast our wildly successful tapas adventures.
Night Cap:
In honor of our magically night we made up a few tapas songs:1) I Believe I can Tapas: (I believe I can fly)
I believe I can Tapas!
I believe I can Tapas so highhhh
I dream about it every night and day
Spread my lips and eat away...
2) Tapas Rolls (Tight Pants)
Watch for my Tapas Rolls
Watch out for my Tapas Rolls
Side Dish Side Dish
This is how we do it
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