Granada

basically: "give alms, lady, there is nothing in life like the pity of being blind in Granada"

After a four days of constant bus rides, by the time we got to Granada everyone was absolutely exhuasted. 3 cities in 5 days is not even close to easy. We all crashed for a little bit, enjoying being horizontal and not in seats, and then Kaitlin, Cristina, and I ventured out to eat and watch flamenco.

sooooo tired

Granada, well, Andalucia in general, is famous for flamenco. Crisitina knew someone who was studying flamenco in Granada, so luckily we had connections and someone to go with who knew where to go. We had dinner in the ruta de tapas. Tapas, if I haven't explained before, are something scrumptuous that comes automatically with your drink, and in Granada they are particularly famous, as in you order a caña (a beer from the tap) and get a healthy sized sandwhich, all for the lovely price of 2 euros. yussssss! Before we went to flamenco we hit up an Irish bar for a Guiness, because it's everyone's weakness, then we headed to the bus stop to go to Salamanco (I think that's what it was called...) where all the flamenco is. Where was our flamenco? In a cave. Sweeeeeet.

our cave!

The preformers were all gitanos (gypsys) and all of the same family and all amazing. The audience? LAME. I had seen flamenco before so I knew what to do: clap along, get into the music. Flamenco is music and dancing of the soul, of feeling, and you shouldn't watch it like you watch ballet, it's totally contradictory. But of course, besides us, the room was filled with english tourists who just stared at the dancers' feet, whereas I, the crazy person you know, was clapping along, totally enjoying myself, and reveling in the evil glares I was getting from the tourists who just didn't get it. Good times. I loved every moment of it. Flamenco is the most emotional music you will ever see in your life. Te juro.

dancing with passion. this dancer ended with tears in her eyes.


wow.



La Alhambra

At 6:00am, Chris (professor), Lauren, Kaitlin, and I headed out to stand in line to buy tickets for the group to visit the Alhambra. If you don't know what it is, I'm knowingly and willingly going to send you on a guilt trip and say shame on you. It is one the 7 wonders of the modern world. Look it up. I'm giving you an assignment. Anyway, we walked to the palace at 6:00, stood in line in the freezing cold for 2 hours, then seperately bought tickets (groups bigger than 5 can't enter, so we cheated the system). The rest of the group met up with us at 8:30 (lucky ducks) and then we started are tour of the Alhambra. Wow. It's an entire city of wonders, like Aladin, but in real life. I can't imagine it in the spring when everything is flowering and everything is even MORE green. Every part of the castle was covered in ornamental carvings, absolutely breathing taking, and colorful. Wow. I spent the whole morning and afternoon in wonder.