Tea and Nargilah

Granada was the last Islamic stronghold in Spain before it was conquered by the Christian kingdom in 1492. It´s actually really cool because I just learned about Granada in my 3 cultures class after having been there for the weekend. We took a bus from Sevilla early Friday morning. We made one stop on the way to a park called Torcal which had a really interesting rocky landscape conducive to some tedious hiking. After spending some time hiking through the park and eating a picnic lunch of bocadillos (sandwiches) and fruit made by our señoras, the next stop was Granada. We arrived at our hotel in the afternoon and then met up in the lobby for a walking tour of the city. Granada is situated in the Sierra-Nevada mountains of Spain, so it is at a highter altitude than Sevilla (which is completely flat) and the temperatures were much lower.

We walked along the outside of the Alhambra, in the cathedral to see where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel are buried, and through the streets of the city center. Our last stop was a typical tetería which serves all varieties of tea and hookah. The first night, we went to a tapas bar which actually seemed to be more common in Granada than in Sevilla. If you order beer or wine, you are served a plate with bread, meat, and cheese, and some green olives. We had a lot of fun experiencing the Spanish ambiance of tapas bars. My favorite part about Granada were the markets that lined the narrow streets. The stores all sold Arabic style clothing, jewelry, hookahs, etc. and it seemed to be a requirement that everything sold must be brightly colored.

On Saturday, we took a 2 and a half hour tour of the Alhambra. Unbeknownst to me, it is actually more like a small city than merely a single building. It is where the sultan and all the administration of the Muslim reign of Granada resided and governed the empire. The walls are decorated with Arabic phrases basically reminding to praise Allah. The decorations otherwise were all geometric shapes with different symbolic meanings. In one room, the tour guide explained the significance of each wall having 5 windows--they represent the 5 pillars of Islam. And the ceiling (at least in the room of the sultan´s throne) was designed with 7 rows of stars representing the seven levels of heaven culminating in the highest level of paradise which is actually where we got the phrase 7th heaven. Just as impressive as the buildings themselves were the gardens surrounding the Alhambra and the spectacular views from the grounds, as the Alhambra is situated up on a hill.

After the tour, we all ate crepes in a local restaurant called Las Cuevas (the caves) which must have actually been a cave hundreds of years ago. There was no natural light in the downstairs part where we ate...only the candles on the tables allowed us to see enough to eat our meal. Then, Saturday night was by far my favorite activity of the weekend. With API, we went to a flamenco show. The venue was actually more like a house and I actually think the gypsy family that puts on the shows lives there. We were in this really narrow rectangular room sitting in chairs around the perimeter of the room. There were several dancers, men and women, all in costume, and a guitar player and several singers. The coolest part was at the end when they invited members of our group to get up and dance one at a time. I´ve never laughed so much in my life. My cheeks were seriously sore by the end. Afterwards, we went to a hookah lounge and had a relaxing evening.

We had some free time on Sunday before our bus was due to depart for the return to Sevilla so a bunch of us hit up the market for some last minute souvenir shopping. The prices in Granada were actually relatively cheap so lots of people did their christmas shopping.

In mundane news, I had my first midterm yesterday in Spanish syntax and I think it went alright although it was not what I was expecting. I focused my studying on certain grammatical rules that of course weren´t on the test at all. And today, I got the Sevilla newspaper before class and the front page mentioned an article about facebook which caught my eye. I opened the paper up to the page to read the article and there, staring back at me, was MY PROFILE PICTURE. Of the millions of people on facebook, what are the chances that they would choose to put mine in the article with only about 20 others? I´m a little creeped out that they can publish my photo like that. The funniest part was that Danika´s profile picture, a friend from UF that has nothing to do with Spain, was also on the page. Well, I´m saving the copy to show you all when I get home...but I still can´t believe it--how crazy!