Día Tres en Córdoba y Granada

(A home in the Albaicín of Granada, Spain)

We woke up on Sunday to another one of those wonderful continental breakfasts and I stuffed in as many chocolate croissants as is (somewhat) socially acceptable. We then headed upstairs to pack up all of our stuff and met in the lobby to put our luggage in the storage room and check out. Robert met up with the group and we left to take a walk around the Albaicín (the historic neighborhood).

We learned that the Albaicín is protected by UNESCO as a world heritage site, and therefore has become quite the neighborhood to invest in. People who buy homes there must follow certain building rules to preserve the feel of the area, so all the millionaires are moving in and paying the "real" families who lived there before to move out. So while the buildings of the neighborhood are being preserved, the people of the neighborhood are not. The area used to be quite rundown and didn't even have running water until the 1960s. It is built on a hill, and the streets are very windy and steep. We climbed quite a bit, (and it was still very hot), but at the top was a great view of Granada and the Alhambra.

We stopped at an old home turned restaurant so we could see what the inside of the houses looked like (or the courtyard, at least) and then travelled on over to El Monasterio de Santa Isabel la Real. This is a pretty simply decorated convent, as all the money in Granada went towards building the Capilla Real. I can't remember anything else about the history of the convent as Robert suddenly mentioned that in the convent live baking nuns who sell their goods to the public by means of a little turntable. Now I've seen Samantha Brown do this on the Travel Channel, so I was pretty excited. You go up to this little wooden door and ring a bell. A nun on the other side will answer, and you open the door and see a little wooden turntable. The nuns can't be seen by the public, so they show you what baked goods are available by spinning the collection around for you to see. You can then ask what the prices are and place an order. You put the money on the turntable and spin it back around, and they will spin back your boxes of cookies. It's really quite a lot of fun. We all lined up like the diligent students we are and a few of us ordered something with Robert's help. I got a bag of lemon muffins. I also decided I would make a great nun.

We then wandered back down the hill and ended up back near Plaza Nueva for lunch. A bunch of the BC kids stopped to get a poster of their names written in Arabic, and after that, Kevin, Jeff, James, and I stopped at a kebab restaurant. I ordered yet another falafel kebab, (which was delectable) and we ate outside in the Plaza. There was a marching band that went by at one point, so that was cool, and after we finished our kebabs, we stopped at an ice cream shop. I got a scoop of chocolate brownie ice cream, which kept me occupied until we got back to the hotel.

We all grabbed our stuff and got back on the bus. I sat with Kevin on the way home and all of us watched Juana La Loca, a Spanish movie that tied into the history of Granada. After that movie, (I missed about half an hour in the middle due to drowsiness - and then was very confused for the end) we watched The Orphanage, a Spanish horror movie. I saw that with mom and Hayley when we were in Alaska, so I managed to get some Econ reading done on the bus.

We got back to Madrid at about 7 pm, and after taking the metro home with Amanda, got back to Julia's at about 8. Julia and I sat down for dinner and were talking about my trip. I mentioned that I liked the food in Granada because it reminded me of the food in Morocco.

Her curt reply was, "No."

I said, "No, what?"

Julia: "The food in Granada is Andalusian."

Me: "Oh, I know - but it has Arab influences."

Julia: "No. The food in Granada is Andalusian."

Me: "But it is very similar to the food we ate in Morocco."

Julia: "No."

Keep in mind that I don't think she's ever been to Morocco and doesn't seem to know what Moroccan food is whenever I bring it up. It's good to be home!