Día Dos en Córdoba y Granada

(Eva Esquivel, a gypsy flamenco dancer in Granada, Spain)

On Saturday, Katherine and I headed downstairs at about 9 am to grab some of the continental breakfast from the hotel. In my opinion, continental breakfasts in Europe are far superior to those in the US. The hotel had a wonderful spread of warm pastries, which included chocolate filled croissants. There was also ham and cheese for sandwiches, yogurts, cereal, and fruit. I was pleasantly surprised.

The group met at 9:45 and walked to the Capilla Real (or the Royal Chapel) where we met Robert, one of Ana's friends and a professor at the University of Granada. He was our tour guide for the day and gave all the talks in English. Yay! La Capilla Real is where Isabella and Ferdinand are buried as well as Juana La Loca and her husband, Philip. Isabella and Ferdinand were originally buried in the Monastery of St. Francis in the La Alhambra, as the Capilla was still being constructed when they died. But as stated in Isabella's will, they were to buried in the Capilla upon its completion. During the Napoleonic invasions, the coffins were opened and looted and when Granada later flooded, everything in the unsealed coffins got pretty nasty. You can still go see the coffins though. The Capilla is also very nicely decorated. There is a huge iron gate that used to separate the nobles from the commoners, and it is one of the first gates signed by the artist. Before the Renaissance and humanism, such artists weren't given credit for their work, but this gate prominently displays the message, "I was made by the master Bartholomew." There is also a huge altar space with very elaborate scenes from the Bible (with Charles V disguised as a wise-man - he wanted to be included in the decorations) and the sacristy has been converted into a museum. The coolest thing in this museum is Isabella's jewelry box where she stored the jewels that she ended up giving to Columbus to fund his journeys to Asia/America.

Next, we walked up a really steep, mountain-like hill to La Alhambra, a fort built in the 8th century, which became a contained town of Arab palaces in the 13th century. We stopped at the gate where Robert explained the ancient security system. To break down the doors, invaders would have to walk under a covered area. If invaders reached the door, the Arab soldiers could pour hot oil down on them from the covered area above. You can't see any of this from the road, and attackers wouldn't figure out the system until too late.

We then walked into the Alhambra and Robert explained that the much of it was built with money collected from the Jews and Muslims after the Catholic occupation. Muslims and Jews could stay in Spain if they converted to Catholicism and paid extra taxes, but when they revolted in 1568 and lost, everyone had to leave. When the French later invaded Spain, they thought the Alhambra would be the perfect place for a military district and decided to knock down all of the Arab palaces in the process. During the process an Arab, who had only one hand, went around and disconnected as much of the dynamite as he could, so the palaces that remain are thanks to him. The French got caught up in Russia and never finished their construction. Eventually the whole place fell into disrepair until it was later refurbished and used for a music festival in the 1950s.

The place is pretty cool. It's spread out over all these hills with great views of Granada. There are lots of gardens, aqueducts, old ruins, and restored palaces. We learned a lot about the history of everything and had plenty of time to explore on our own, too. I also learned that gypsies live in caves in the mountains and are very tricky. They will offer you a sprig of rosemary and then grab your hand to read your palm. Then you need to pay, and since coins are bad luck, the least you can give them is 5 euros. We all watched a woman have this very scam happen to her. I could make a decent living doing that. . .

A bunch of us then went out to lunch at a kebab restaurant in La Plaza Nueva. I got a falafel kebab (which is falafel and salad stuffed in a pita with tasty sauces) and loved it. I'm a big fan of kebab. We went back to the hotel for a minute, turned on the TV, and saw the Disney Channel playing their Halloween marathon - I hadn't even remembered it was Halloween.

Then after that we were on our way to the Hamam (the Arab baths). This Hamam was much more of a spa than the authentic one in Morocco (although the effect was altered by their attempts at Halloween decorations which included people walking around in masks and paper pumpkins hanging on the walls). There were a bunch of pools with different temperatures, ranging from really cold to toasty hot, and you just go soak for a while. There were no Moroccan ladies surprising you by dumping buckets of boiling water on your head or scrubbing off the top layer of your skin, so this was a bit more relaxing than the authentic baths. These baths were in a dark cave-like room and there was this relaxing music playing in the background. There was also a room off to the side with candies and Moroccan tea, so the whole experience was quite nice. To top it all off, I had my first-ever official massage. It was somewhat awkward, because I didn't realize massages are generally topless, and I wore a one-piece, which complicated things a bit, but after that was settled, the massage was really great. I would highly recommend one - although I would also recommend wearing a bikini.

After the baths, Katherine and I walked back to the hotel, stopping to buy some chocolate for our candy-eating Halloween fiesta later that night. We had quite a bit of free time so we wandered around the Albaicín and did some souvenir shopping. I bought myself two Moroccan lamps (which would have been a whole lot cheaper in Morocco, but oh well), some earrings, and a pasta bowl made in Granada. I am really starting to acquire a collection of souvenir pottery. I have my pasta bowl, a pitcher from Segovia, and four bowls from Morocco. Those will be fun to transport back to the US.

We stopped to grab dinner at a tapas/bocadillos place. I got a spinach and cheese omlette bocadillo, which was pretty tasty, and a Fanta Naranja. We then had to meet up with the group so that we could walk to the flamenco show where we all had tickets. It was about a half-hour walk from the hotel through a pretty part of Granada, and almost the entire way, I told the advisor, Ana, my Julia stories. I'm not sure how we got on the topic, but she was appalled and said that I should move out. I'm still not sure what to do about this situation.

We got to the flamenco show, which was in El Centro Internacional de Estudios Gitanos (or the International Center for Gypsy Studies). They have a big auditorium (which I liked, because you can see more that way) and behind the stage are these huge windows that overlook the lit-up Alhambra on the opposite mountain. The show was awesome. There was one dancer and four musicians and they were all really impressive. It was also cool to think that they have a school for gypsy studies, (I wonder if they teach them about how coins are bad luck).

After the show, we walked back to La Plaza Nueva, where Lizzie, Katherine, and I sat down at a restaurant for dinner, although I ended up getting a gofre con chocolate (a waffle with chocolate). It was delectable. From the restaurant, we could watch everyone walk by in their Halloween costumes. Halloween is a new holiday in Spain, and the Spaniards haven't quite figured it out yet. They get dressed up in costumes, but because there isn't any tick-or-treating, they just walk around the city. I think not getting candy completely contradicts the whole point of Halloween, but who am I to judge? After a quick stop at the hotel, the three of us walked around looking for a discotheque, but the only one we found looked like it had a dress code and was expensive. So we ended up going back to the hotel and eating the chocolate we had bought earlier and watching more bad Spanish music videos. Happy Halloween!