¡Granada!

SO! Lexi and I decided that rather than go see caves in Candelada, we would hop on a € 15 bus for a few hours and end up in Granada, where we would have almost exactly 24 hours before leaving again on an equally inexpensive bus. It was a beautiful plan for a very beautiful city. We got there at about 3 in the afternoon and went to check in at our hostel. We found it without any problems and discovered ourselves in what can only be described as a hippy-stoner's paradise. It was a tad ridiculous. Also extremely orange. But the hostel was very nice, the staff was exuberantly helpful in an absolutely not helpful way (maps? What are those? Oh, the buses....well, they run sometimes and stuff. Here's a coupon for free sangria!), and while there were no lockers there was a safe for our passports, so it was pretty okay considering it was dannnnged cheap.Anyway! Lexi and I struck out into the city looking for stuff to do for a few hours. We decided to go to the cathedral right away since it wouldn't be open Sunday morning and because it was only a few hundred yards from our hostel. It was a very nice cathedral but not really my favorite. It was the only Renaissance cathedral that I have seen in Spain so far though, so that was nice. While we were walking around the outsides of the cathedral, some gypsy looking women sudden set upon us. My person shoved rosemary or something under my nose and then put it in my hand. I figured she wanted money, and tried to give it back, but then she seemed to be letting me go so I thanked her and started walking. Then she caught my arm rather quickly and started reading my palms. Fortunately, I am very intelligent, have a good heart, and will have luck in love and marriage. Fantastic! Five euro. I was a tad annoyed, but I had expected it, so I explained to her that I hadn't asked her to do this and I wasn't going to pay her. DUH. I ended up giving her a euro just to say "fine, we're even," but she persisted that I needed to pay her five. I refused and she ended up swearing at me and pushing me several times haha. At that point I tried to rescue Lexi from her gypsy and we continued on our way. We would be accosted the next day as well, but escaped unscathed as we were more prepared for battle the second time.

After the cathedral we walked around for a long time looking at interesting buildings. We found an old hospital and worked up the gumption to go inside further than we were possibly welcome to. We even tried going down the mortuary hallway! There were incredibly detailed murals / etc on the walls so we took some pictures. There was a man there also taking pictures and he came up to talk to us for a while. He was from Cameroon and he was visiting the hospital because it was a hospital of San Juan de Díos. He explained that he was a brother of San Juan and told us a little about the history of the church and stuff. Cool! Then we came across another church that was friggin awesome. The admission unleashed us into a very very unpopulated monastery / convent type church and all of its many interesting rooms and incredible sanctuary. It was probably my favorite church of the entire trip. There will be pictures up of it soon and I need to find it on a map so I know its name. But yeah, it was sweet. We heard Vespers while we were there, so we sat outside a door and listened to the nuns singing for a while.

Dinner was the weirdest thing ever. We ordered hamburgers (I know, super adventurous -- sometimes you get tired of spanish tortilla and weird bacon strips) but when we got them it turns out that this restaurant's idea of a hamburguesa was fish. FISH. Noooooooooooooooo it was pretty gross but I managed to conquer mine because I was very hungry. Then we hopped on a bus and tried to get to the muslim quarter but it was already night and the bus stops are so poorly marked that while I think we were in the neighborhood it was impossible to tell where we should walk to see mosques, etc. Bummer, man. But we got some night shots of the Alhambra from a distance, so I guess that was cool.

The next morning we woke up wayyyy early and headed out to find the Alhambra. We got off at the bus stop labelled "Alhambra," but this would turn out to be a misnomer. After walking a LONG ways we finally found a sign that cheerfully said "Uphill Pedestrian Path to Alhambra, 380 meters." Let's put a stress on the "uphill" part of that. Good gravy. But eventually we got there! And it was really not difficult to get tickets like everyone had warned us it would be. So for the next several hours we explored astounding gardens, palaces, and a fortress until we were tired and hungry. Then it was almost time to bus home! On the bus ride I couldn't resist taking a picture of some giants. Er, I mean windmills. ¡Hasta otra vez, Granada!

Captions:

1: The inside of a Nasrid palace

2: Ruins of the Alcazar / Fortress

3: Don Quijote's foes