5.13.11 Welcome to Granada

A few pics (only 50 today)

On Friday people started waking up incredibly early and weren’t making any great effort to be quiet about it. Two new girls had charged in like they owned the place at 1 in the morning, waking everyone up, and then charged out again at 7. Two other girls had come in at midnight, although much more quietly, but they were packed up and gone by 8 as well. It turns out that out of the 14 beds, only 1 person would be staying that night.

We planned to walk over to the bus station and find a bus to Granada. After showering and packing and breakfast and checking out and the walk, it was after 11 when we arrived at the bus station and so we bought tickets for the 12:00 bus. We asked a woman in Spanish what time the bus would arrive in Granada, and she answered us in Spanish. I should have caught the “a las tres”, but her sentence was long and my brain didn’t interpret it, so we stared at her blankly and she switched to English. It would be a 3 hour bus ride.

We’re getting good at tossing our bags under the bus, finding our seats, working on our laptops for a while, and then napping and/or listening to music. When we pulled into the Granada station, we loaded ourselves up like pack mules and found the correct bus stop without having to ask for directions (go us!). The bus let us off near the Alhambra, and then we were supposed to take a second bus to our hostel. It didn’t seem that much farter though, and not worth an additional $2, so we set off in the direction of our place. We were only staying there one night - we had booked late and since it was a Friday, all the better hostels were full already.

The walk towards the Alhambra was slightly uphill, and we soon came to the entrance of the park where it was located. The road took a turn for the seriously steep. We actually had two choices: the road, which wound up the hill, or the “pedestrian path”, which cut unabashedly straight up the hill. We chose the road. After about 20 minutes of huffing and puffing, I made Tricia sit with me on a park bench, and we ate apples leftover from a shopping trip in Seville. And then I drank all my water. And then we continued - onward and upward!

Finally, we arrived at the entrance to the Alhambra, and the hostel directly across the street. We walked in the door, and there were already about 8 people waiting at reception, but the receptionist was no where to be found. Six people were Spanish, and they take this sort of thing much more in stride than much of the rest of the world. They were lounging around on their bags and talking. There were two women who spoke French (I somehow got the impression that they were Dutch, but I may be crazy) pacing around annoyedly. I also do not have a whole lot of patience for this sort of thing.

Let me here explain the lobby to you: It looked sort of like an abandoned cafeteria or schoolroom. There were warming trays pushed to one side, as if they had once served food there. There was a foozball table that dipped in the middle like someone had sat on it and looked as if it hadn’t been played in years. There were a bunch of tables set up and strewn with school papers. A little blond boy about 9 years old was sitting at one doing homework. There were no overhead lights. There was a tiny little desk - the type you stand behind, like a hostess at a restaurant - with a desk lamp clipped to it.

Ten minutes or so later, the receptionist finished walking her dog and came in. The dog sniffed around my backpack which I had tossed off in the lobby while the receptionist started with the Spanish crowd. They didn’t give her a hard time, although they took a while as there were a lot of them. The receptionist pulled out a giant pill bottle (like for vitamins) and opened it. It was full of bills and change - this was the cash register.

The French/Dutch ladies were up next. They were not thrilled about the whole situation. They had seen one of the rooms, and were apparently refusing to stay. The receptionist, for her part, was refusing to let them cancel less than 48 hours in advance. So, they ended up staying 2 nights and cancelling the rest of their stay. This conversation was a mix of French and English, and took quite a while.

Let me now interject something else - this hostel has the worst reviews ever. It’s only saving grace is it’s good location, which I actually don’t think is that good since it’s at the top of a freaking mountain. I’d rather leave my stuff at the bottom of the mountain and hike to the top of the mountain with nothing on my back. But I digress - the two women should not have been expecting, well, anything but clean sheets and hot water. Which is basically what we got.

I think our turn went fairly quickly - we had our receipt for the reservation, paid the lady, asked if she had a map, was told she didn’t, asked if the pool was open (okay, it had 2 saving graces), was told it wasn’t (so much for that one), and we went up to our room. It had a bunk bed, a sink, and a bathroom. Here’s how you should picture the bathroom: take a bathroom stall from McDonalds. Shrink it down a bit. Turn the toilet sideways. Add a shower. Seriously. If you sat all the way back on the toilet, the door would just barely close touching your knees (although it didn’t close all the way, so you had to be careful not to bump it or the door would open giving your roommate a free show). The shower was miniscule, and if you raised your arms to wash your hair, one elbow hit the wall and one went out the shower curtain. If you turned a little, your elbow would run into the faucet handle.

Luckily, we take these things in stride. We decided to walk down the mountain and look for some food. We accidentally ended up on the nearly-vertical pedestrian path, and had to inch our way down. Near the bottom, I came up with the most brilliant-beyond-brilliant idea. When we got off the city bus, it was right near our second hostel. We should have gone in, left our bags, and hiked up with just our day-packs. Completely, absolutely, amazingly brilliant! Too bad I had it 2 hours too late.

Down in the city, we saw a Kebab place that advertised free Crepes if you spent 3 Euros, so we went in and sat down and asked if we could split a meal that included a Kebab pita sandwich, fries, and a drink. And the Crepe? Turns out you only get that if you order 3 Euros worth of tea. This took us a while to get: in Spanish, it’s pronounced TAY, which is how the owner pronounced it even though we were speaking English, so this was hard for our brains to translate. However, we quite enjoyed our Orange Fanta, fries, and yummy yummy sandwich, even though we didn’t get a free Crepe.

We wandered around the city a bit longer, but in the end decided to return up the mountain (we didn’t want to be climbing in the dark) and go back to our tiny tiny room. We needed to get up at 6:30 in the morning to get in line at the Alhambra to get tickets. They sell most tickets to tour groups online, and you can’t buy tickets in advance at the door (as we learned when we stopped by before returning to our hostel). So every morning they have only a limited amount of tickets left, and they go to the people who line up at 7 to wait for the ticket office to open at 8. So that was our plan. We also stopped at a grocery store to pick up breakfast and lunch - pastries, apples, and nuts to tide us over for the day. And then we curled up in our little bunk beds and went to sleep.

5.12.11 - Seville

Here are lots more pics

We had decided to go to the Cathedral instead of the alcazar in Seville, but it didn’t open until 11, so we weren’t in any big hurry on Thursday. The room was much quieter than on Wednesday, and even the noise from the kitchen drifting through the open window seemed more subdued. So we were able to sleep a bit later. We had our usual toast with Nutella, cereal, and strong coffee with milk, sugar, and cocoa mix. At Tricia’s recommendation, I mixed chocolate flakes, corn flakes, and granola with dried fruit together in one bowl. I wouldn’t exactly call it good, but it was certainly an improvement over taking any of them separately.



10% of CC's body

Around 11 we walked over to the Cathedral (which is the largest gothic building in Europe and the largest cathedral in Spain) and joined the long line that had formed. We weren’t entirely sure why people had gotten there before 11 and formed a line, but we waited in it anyway, as it was moving now that the Cathedral was open. I found the architecture very beautiful, with white columns and archways and carvings. There were museums of gold rosaries, goblets, and plates used for the wafers, as well as the usual floor-to-ceiling dioramas. In the front we saw the casket holding (at least 10% of) Christopher Columbus’ body.

After we’d seen everything in the Cathedral, we climbed up to the bell tower. There are 34 ramps that were used by the nobility and by the bell-ringer to ascend the tower. I have to say, they make for a much more pleasant climb than stairs. Up in the tower, we jostled with school groups for a spot at the windows so we could take panoramas of the city. It was a great view of the buildings and windy little streets below (which were purposely made narrow and windy so that air would be cooled in the shade of the buildings and pushed along to the plazas where people gathered). There were tons of bells, and they went off while we were up there, making all the high school kids shriek in surprise.

With admission to the Cathedral, we also got a free ticket to the Iglesia del Salvador. Never ones to pass up free admission, we asked the guard how to get to the church. We listened gravely to his long speech on directions, didn’t understand much of it, nodded, and trotted off confidently in the direction he pointed. We did manage to find the church, which also had a museum inside. It included a “Suit of the baby Jesus of the Virgin”.

Afterwards, we needed to eat, so we stopped back at the Bar Duque where the waiter was friendly and the food was good. And the menu was in English. So sue us. We ordered Peppers, Russian Salad, and a Spicy Sausage of the Highland sandwich. Oh, and two beers. I’ve been having this weird craving for beer, which is quite strange as I’ve never, ever, ever liked beer. I actually hate beer. But I’m really enjoying cheap Spanish beer. And the other tapas were very good as well.

In Bar Duque they sold ham flavored potato chips, but we couldn’t get a good picture of them since they were above the bar, so we trotted off to find a store that sold the chips so we could take a picture. At first Tricia thought I was being silly to be so obsessed with ham flavored chips, but she soon got into it and was keeping an eye out for stores as well. In the chip aisle of a little Asian shop (think 7-11, but dingier), it took us a long time to find the ham flavored ones. We quickly snapped a picture, and then slunk out feeling a bit like shoplifters.

We stopped back at our hostel for a little siesta, and then it was off to the Museo de Bellas Artes. It was supposed to be free for Europeans and 1.5 Euros for everyone else. We had our money in hand as we approached the gate, but the curator was chatting with someone and didn’t want to be bothered with us. “Gratis, gratis”: “It’s free, it’s free.” And then he turned back to his friend. We hesitated a second, and then gave up and went in. No sense arguing with the man.

One floor was devoted to Catholic art, where I lamented that the paintings didn’t go in chronological order. Jesus’ birth is right next to his crucifixion; Mary learning to read from Saint Ana is right next to paintings of Mary Magdalene. (If you’re like me and don’t know the dates of stuff, that would be about 8 years before Jesus was born to a few years before he died.) And while I'm on the subject, painters tend to put all the wrong people in all the wrong places.  Like, since when was Mary Magdalene at the birth of Jesus?  The other floor was a temporary exhibit of Spanish artists who painted Andalucía (that would be Cordoba, Granada, Seville) in various years. We weren’t allowed to take photos in the museum (although I keep saying I’m going to start ignoring that rule because I don’t remember what we’ve looked at).

My finger in the "stuff"

Back at the Oasis, we set up shop on the rooftop terrace. We found an outlet for our computers and brought up our $2.40 wine. I stopped in at the bar of our hostel to ask if they had some alcohol or peroxide for my finger, and the bartender pulled out a brand-new first aid kit that they’d bought the day before. We looked through it together - it was a little on the skimpy side, in spite of the kit itself being huge. There were gauze wraps and a couple of bottles of “stuff” which we broke open. I read the Spanish on one and decided it seemed like the solution should be diluted in water, so I showed the paragraph to the bartender, who agreed and gave me a cup with water and the stuff. And I left my finger in it for 15 to 20 minutes as a certain mother suggested I do. (More than one mother has warned me against blood poisoning, which will travel to your heart and you will die.)

By the way, the wine was God-awful. We managed two little Dixie cups full each before tossing the rest of the bottle and going off to sleep.

5.11.11 - Seville



Our room (and Tricia sleeping in the top
bunk) and pics

 In a room with 14 people, it can be hard to sleep in. This was exacerbated by the fact that the kitchen window and the bathroom window opened onto the tiny patio, which also had a window into our room. And everything was tile. At 8 am, when breakfast started, 4 floors of backpackers descended on the kitchen. It sounded like a mob scene. All 14 of us opened our eyes and stared at the ceiling or at the bunk above our heads. Some people (like Tricia) gave up on sleep and went to join the mob. Others (like me) refused to give in to the noise and covered our heads and pretended we could sleep through the noise. In the room, we quickly realized which people got up early and which stayed in bed - we were all comrades in the battle for sleep.

Oh, and did I mention that there was the window to our room, then directly across the patio was the window to the bathroom? Sometimes it was wide open and the people inside didn’t realize it. Even when it was closed though, it didn’t do much to hide what was going on inside. At one point, a guy and a girl were both in there…..don’t think they realized the show they were putting on. Actually, the bathroom was for people from a couple of bedrooms, but only our room could see directly in. Tricia and I realized this on the very first day while we were doing laundry, so we were very discrete.

Although Tricia had already eaten breakfast by the time I got up, she ate with me again at 9. We had our choice of 3 cereals, all of which were named “Discount Cereal”: chocolate flakes, non-chocolate flakes (like corn flakes), and a granola-with-fruit type of thing. I went with granola, but it was a bad decision. (I later learned there was no good decision with the cereal.) The milk was lukewarm since it is boxed (shelf-stable) and the fridges were all full with the food of 400 backpackers. We also had toast with a generic-Nutella type spread or with various flavors of marmalade. Finally, there was really strong coffee (espresso?). We added sugar, milk, and hot cocoa mix and were good to go.

At 11:15 we wanted to take the walking tour of the city, and joined in with the girls from Canada from the night before. We were extolling the virtues of the Madrid tour, and hoping that the Seville tour would be just as good. When we met our guide, Allie, she told us that it was her very last tour as she was leaving Spain in just a few days.

First up on the tour: we stopped to see the Cathedral and the Alcazar, which were right next to each other. According to the tour guide, the Cathedral is the final resting place of “at least 10%” of Christopher Columbus. I think she liked the Alcazar better, but since it was modeled on the one in Granada, we decided that the Cathedral would be a better use of our money. Allie asked if we could guess how many steps were in the tower of the Cathedral. Since the tower in Boston was only in the 200’s, I was guessing 2-3 hundred for the Cathedral as well. But it was a trick question: they used ramps instead of stairs so the bell-ringer could ride his horse to the top 5 times a day and ring the bell.

Next up comes the strangest story I’ve ever heard. In the 15^th century, the king died in a riding accident, leaving his 11 year old son as next in line. Since he was only 11, the Catholic Church took over for the next few years. They saw an opportunity to put the rich Jews in their place, and organized an attack in which 1000 or so Jews were killed. Seven years later, the Jews were organizing their own revolt against the Catholic Church. The daughter of one of the instigators, Susona, learned of the imminent attack, and was afraid for the lover she was dating in secret - a Catholic soldier. She warned him, and he warned the others, and another group of Jews was killed in the resulting surprise attack, including Susona’s father. Both her lover and her family then rejected her, and she fled the city, never to be heard from again……until she died. In her will, she asked that her head be cut off and hung outside her family’s house as a reminded to never go against your people. After 150 years of her head hanging there, they took it down and replaced it with a plaque.

Near the end of the tour, we stopped at the bull ring. For the last 2 weeks of April there were bull fights every day, but for the rest of the summer they’re only on Sundays. So we won’t see a bull fight in Seville, which is okay, because it’s an extremely, extremely violent sport. (Before the fight even starts, the bull is stabbed a couple times to make sure he’s not at his best.) Allie told us of a famous bull fighter who was told by his doctor that he couldn’t fight anymore. In addition, he shouldn’t smoke, drink, ride a horse, or have sex either. So, he got on his horse, bought some whiskey and tobacco, and hired two prostitutes. In the morning he killed himself, leaving a note that said, “If I can’t live as a man, I won’t live at all!” So they built him a statue.

We didn’t enjoy the tour in Seville quite as much as the one in Madrid, but we’d still had fun and gotten to see a lot of the city. We decided to skip touring the bull ring and head home for a nap instead.

We then got up to wander the city on our own. We needed some food, and were looking for tapas when we passed by a sandwich place that advertised “Euromania” where everything was 1 Euro on Wednesdays. That sounded pretty good to us. So we went inside and ordered an “orange-flavored soda”, a barbacoa sandwich, a chicken sandwich with guacamole, and a bag of homemade chips (impulse buy: they were sitting next to the register). On my way to the counter with our order, I stopped by a table and asked a guy what he was drinking. “Jarra tinto verano.” Jar of summer red wine? Ish? So I ordered that too. A large, since everything’s a Euro.

The food was pretty good for the amount we spent - little sandwiches and lots of chips and a great big glass of what turned out to be carbonated red wine. We made a note to stop back in a couple of hours. Tricia filtched some ice and stuck it in a silverware wrapper to hold to her back as it was hurting her a bit.

Next we went by the cathedral and went into the free portion where mass was held. It was very beautiful inside, with ornate carvings and paintings. And then back out into the city once again.

As we were wondering aimlessly and looking at architecture, we passed a building that advertised “Arte Sencial” in banners all over its sides. So of course we wandered in. There was a guard sitting at a table by the door with pamphlets spread in front of him. We asked him “cuanto cuesta” (how much?) and he told us it was free. Are photos okay? He gave us a “sure, whatever, I really don’t care” nod, and we went in to see what there was.

The exhibit was to help promote Spanish artists, since they don’t apparently get their due in Spain or in the rest of Europe. It seems that the Spanish feel they are behind the rest of Europe, and so they really love European art, architecture, etc. The photos and paintings were interesting: a photo montage of the walk to a church; a photo of hundreds of origami swans all laid out in rows. We stopped for a while and watched a video that showed clips of tides on the sand interspersed with cups of coffee: it would sometimes be slow and sometimes speed up to crazy speeds with flashing lights and colors - a juxtaposition between the tranquil and the fast moving.

After the exhibit, we went back outside and made our way again to Plaza de Espana. There is a sort of moat around the plaza where you can rent boats. A bunch of young girls had rented boats and were completely incapable of rowing them in the right direction. I don’t think they understood that they were supposed to row backwards. In trying to row forwards, they were trying to make the flat part of the boat cut through the water, and the most successful boats were only managing to turn in circles. We sat and watched for a while as the girls shrieked and rowed - they were afraid they were going to tip over (we thought they might tip over too, as they had no talent at rowing boats).

All over the Plaza de Espana all the railings are made of porcelain, which I think is quite funny. It was built in the 1920’s to show how advanced Seville was when they came to the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. Unfortunately, not a lot of people were traveling as the exposition ended up being the same year the Great Depression hit. In the Plaza, each city in Spain gets a bit of the porcelain devoted to it for a painting. Some are violent with soldiers on horseback killing each other, and some are religious with angels. We walked around the entire plaza and looked at the painting chosen to represent each city.

We’d actually spend a long time walking around, and three hours had passed since we’d last eaten, so we went to Euromania at the “Place of 100 Sandwiches” again (I may be taking liberties with the name, but I’m not too far off). This time it was 8:00, and the place was full to busting. Tricia and I both got Jarra Tinto Verano, and then went upstairs to wait for our two sandwiches and plate of nachos. There were no table upstairs either, so we stood and stared at the diners and tried to make them uncomfortable while we sipped our wine. Many other table-less patrons joined us, and there was a crowd of both sitters and standers.

When Tricia went downstairs to pick up our food, a small group of diners split off from a group of about 15 that had pulled 4 tables together. I pulled their table away from the others and sat at it to stake my claim. A lady hurried over to clean it off for me, and Tricia was very happy when she arrived with the food that there was a place to set it down. The nachos were ridiculous - a handful of chips with tiny bits of nacho cheese, salsa, and guacamole on the side. The sandwiches were pretty good though - we’d gotten ham, chicken, and cheese and “special” with green chilies and red sauce. All in all, better for lunch than for dinner.

On the way home we stopped into a little shop and browsed the wine. We decide on a bottle of red for 1.60 Euros ($2.40). We had planned to drink it on the terrace at our hostel, but instead got comfortable in bed typing on our computers and couldn’t actually get ourselves motivated to leave.

Thought I'd end on a panoramic of Plaza de Espana