Rachel en España: Granada

Halloween weekend meant another puente (direct translation: bridge, literal translation: long weekend)... yay for two girls in need of a little traveling. Unfortunately, the trip started out a little rough... with me buying the wrong bus tickets for the day before... ouch! Good thing these pretty, sparkley euros grow on trees. After repurchasing tickets and sleeping like the homeless on a bus station bench in Madrid for a few hours, Hannah and I finally made it to Granada. After taking a city bus downtown from the bus station, we found a miracle with four walls, a palace of a Burger King with 3.30 euro meal deals! So tasty after a long day of traveling, and probably made with much higher quality meat. After our American meal, we hiked up a hill to the Albayzin neighborhood, a historic area of town with a killer view of the Alhambra. After setting down our bags and filling our BK cups with vino, we headed over to the lookout.

The next day, we woke up ready to explore the city. We perused through all of the touristy shops, then hiked over to the neighborhood of a famous graffiti artist. After becoming famous, he came back and decorated his childhood neighborhood.

The colors were so bright, and each of the of the pieces had thought provoking quotes. Sooo artsy. Afterwards, we found a bar with wifi, wine and free tapas and looked into visiting the Alhambra and emailed home to let loved ones know we weren't dead. Since our hostel had a kitchen, we brainstormed all day walking around about what American meal we could cook for ourselves that night. We settled on chicken, mashed potatoes and salad, inexpensive and easy. While shopping, we realized there are still things we haven't had to do for ourselves here... like purchase meaningful things the in market (i.e. not candy and wine). When we got to the meat counter, we ordered a quarter of a kilogram of chicken, not realizing that was 5 chicken breasts. Improvising, we bought tortillas so we could use the leftover veggies and excessive amounts of chicken to make wraps the next day. The goal was to make dinner and actually see the sun set over the Alhambra, unfortunately, cooking took longer than expected (cooking tools were limited, no veggie pealer, no baking devices) and we ended up hanging in the hostel with the owner for the evening.

The next morning was our last planned day in Granada. We were told by the landlord to make it to the Alhambra by 8:00 and we'd have no problem getting in (they reserve 1000 tickets to sell each morning, in addition to the ones that were already sold out online). After hiking up a giant hill, we were making impeccable time. It was a little after 8:00 but there was already a mega line. After an hour of waiting, a small commotion erupted in another area, so like a good tourist, I ventured off to check it out. There was another line available to purchase tickets with a credit card, so Hannah stayed in the cash only line and I was the 30th person in the credit card line. Great plan, until we realize that she only has a card and I only had 2 euro left on my card. I reached the machine, used the card, praying for chap overdraft fees as they were announcing that there were only 160 tickets remaining for the entire day. I found Hannah in the other line and we hustled to an ATM to possibly deposit cash and beat the fee. The world's best mother had already transferred my funds the day before, so we did a lot of running and freaking out for nothing. We grabbed coffee and pastries to rest before re-venturing up the hill to explore. The Alhambra is comprised of gardens, palaces and an old castle, all built by the Moors before the Christians not so politely asked them to get the hell out (1300s). Rude, but a completely different story. We explored the gardens and a place built for King Carlos V (1500s) before entering the palace. The detail and immenseness of both the gardens and palace was amazing. I am truly amazed at what people were able to do without any modern technology.