Granada

Hello everyone,


Last weekend, two of my roommates (Ben and Joe) and I traveled to the south of Spain to the city of Granada. It was an amazing trip that I will never forget. The original plan was for me to visit Chris and Magnolis (family in Granada), while Ben and Joe would do their own thing and explore Granada. Ben and Joe really didn't have any plans for once they got to Granada; they don't speak Spanish, they didn't have a hostel, they didn't really know how long they wanted to stay, they knew there was something called "The Alhambra" there, but they were going to Granada. 


The bus ride was about five and a half hours through beautiful southern Spain. We arrived on Friday night and quickly realized that Granada was much larger than we thought. Thankfully though, I informed Chris and Magnolia that my friends were coming, and they made them feel as at home as possible in Granada. They basically made our weekend perfect.  They picked the 3 of us up at the bus station at drove us to there apartment in downtown Granada and they knew Ben and Joe didn't have a hostel so the told us about one that was right down the street from them. Then they invited them over for dinner and said that they want to feed us every meal for the weekend. They were so incredibly nice. Chris and Magnolia have two children; Lucas (9) and Carla(5). Their apartment was amazing. Not the biggest, but it had great interior with a balcony and a patio on the roof-it was wonderful. The best part of the apartment was the view. They lived on a hill that over looked the entire city. To the right you could see the local cathedral and the to left was the Alhambra. The Alhambra was an ancient fort that was build during the 14th century by the Moors then taken over by the Christians later. Its huge, about a square mile fort on top a hill and they only lived 200 yards from the entrance. The next day (Saturday) Chris, who knew everything about Granada and the Alhambra, gave us a 4 hour tour of the Alhambra, which was unbelievable, so interesting, so much history. It was great. After that we went to a tapas restaurant for lunch/dinner, (Which my Aunt Susan paid for and was delishious). After that we went on a walk though the city.


Saturday night was sooo much fun. Chris and Magnolia had been telling us about this famous flamenco (Spanish dancing, kinda like tap dancing I guess) show that Granada was know for. People said it was debatably the best show in Spain. What made it interesting was that it was in the gypsy neighborhood of Granada. And to make it more interesting,  it was in a cave in the side of on of the hills. And to make it MORE interesting, it was the same exact show that Michelle Obama went to this past summer. We had no idea what to expect.  So we took a cab, told the driver where we want to go, he knew the place, drove us there, we got out...and realized that we were on the patio of some house with a couple of Spanish people standing around. And all the houses in this neighborhood were caves dug into the hill. Now, there were signs for the show, but it really wasn't that obvious that we were in the right place. After about 30 seconds of awkwardly standing around, this older guy in suit kinda showed up out of nowhere and started talking to us. (We later came to find out he was the manager) He knew that we were there for the show and told us to follow him to get tickets. He leads us into like the living room of one the cave houses and lets us buy tickets right there. Very funny. After about 5 mins the show begins and we are allowed to enter the cave where the doing the show. The cave was about 50ft long,10 ft across and about 7 ft tall. It was lined with chairs and had a space in the middle for the dancers. Now, the reason we had taken a cab to the show was because the bus that usually picked people up for the show was full. It was at this point that we found out that the bus was full of about 30 Japanese tourist all going to the show. 


So to recap, its 30 Japanese tourists and us watching a flamenco show in a cave, that was run by gypsies, in the south of Spain and Michelle Obama has been here before...it sounds like a Mad Lib. The show was amazing, they danced literally inches in front of you and at the end...they pulled Ben up to dance with them (theres a video of it on Facebook). The last day we got a quick tour of the oldest neighborhood in Granada called the Albaicin. It was very beautiful and there was a light snow which capped of our perfect weekend. 


I am still working on getting the pictures up but for some reason it is being stubborn. If you can see them on my facebook they are up there.


Hope all is well back in the states!