Back to Spain (Thursday)... sorry for the delay :)

Kim and I wanted to have a full day in Granada, so we got up early and were out even before Mercedes was out of bed. Kim, the chauffeur for the trip, managed the foreign roads very well despite being a little nervous to start things off. Round-abouts were a source of anxiety for some time. But with decent directions compliments of Google and good road signs (compliments of the Spanish governmental department in charge of roadways I’m sure), we made it :)

We had bought our tickets for the Alhambra the night before online, so we pulled into the parking area and went in search of where we needed to pick up said tickets. It was probably the easiest thing ever! You just put in the credit card on which the tickets were purchased and it spit out the tickets- nothing else needed. So great! Our entry time was for 1:30 or so, so we planned to go down into Granada for the morning.

We caught the bus down, found a map (YAY!) and tried to go to the Cathedral we had heard was nice. We were disappointed again that the Catholic Church has decided to ask people to pay to get into a House of God… I’m not paying 3,50 Euros to see a church; Being budget-conscious travelers who have seen plenty of churches in our travels, we decided to spend our money instead on tea we found just outside the church. This guy had about 28 buckets with assorted teas and spices outside his shop, in which there were more teas and spices. It was a site to see for the colors if nothing else! The paprika was so vibrant and everything smelled so good! Kim and I picked out two teas that smelled/looked good and different than things we can get at regular stores and decided this was a much better choice than seeing the inside of a church. :)

We continued our wandering and found the university there as well as some neat narrow streets. We took a few pictures as we enjoyed the architecture and layout of this ancient European city. We knew that we had to eat before we went back up to the Alhambra, so we headed back in the direction of a nice, sunny square where we had seen several restaurants. We picked one and ordered. Despite the mix up that Kim ordered onion soup and was given shellfish soup, it was a decent meal. The one the day before in Malaga had been better, but not bad.

We knew we were getting short on time so we paid and caught the next bus up to the castle/fortress. By this time it was warming up quite a bit and so we made a quick stop back at the car to drop off our coat/sweater as well as the tea. We went back to where we thought the entrance was and were confused that we couldn’t find it. We asked a woman who looked at us as if we were ridiculously stupid and said that we only had 10 minutes to get in and that it takes 15 minutes to walk to the entrance that we needed. We would, she claimed, never make it. We asked the rude lady to point us in the right direction and we RAN to the Palace (Palais) entrance. Luckily for us, we made it. Once we were in the Palace, we could explore everything else at our leisure- it’s just the palace that you have to be at ON TIME!

It was amazing! I estimate that to carve out one 4 in tile with that

amount of detail would take a minimum of 3 solid hours, maybe more… Lord knows I have no experience in how long it takes to carve out tiles like that.

But can you imagine? Entire rooms filled with these tiles? Room after room with that amount of detail? And then to

see the remaining paint in a few places and to realize that after taking all that time to carve out the detailed

patterns that they then painstakingly painted the intricacies of those details!? Unbelievable!

As you exit the palace you enter into the Palace Gardens, which I’m sure would be lovelier in the spring when the flowers are all blooming, but it was still nice. And as the sun continued to rise in the sky, beating down on us without a cloud in its way, the warmth of the day made up for the lack of flowers. :)

We laughed at signs for Generalife (pronounce it like an American… then imgine yourself in the middle of

Spain… kinda funny, right?) over and over again, speculating at what this could possibly be… was it a part of the Alhambra bought out by an insurance company and renamed for publicity purposes? Or was it a part of the

palace/fortress where the General lives? Or where the general people live? Our preferred explanation was, of course, the insurance company… Generalife? Hadn’t we even heard that name for an insurance company before?

As it turns out, it’s pronounced Henera-leefé … we are in Spain afterall… and it’s the General’s quarters and personal gardens… this is information we received from Robert once we returned home much later. This, too, made us laugh.

We drove back to Torre Del Mar through the amazing scenery of Andalucía, watching the sun set over the Sea as we got closer to the house. So beautiful!

We enjoyed more ham and cheese for dinner- it was becoming a delicious habit- plus a salad and, when we were still hungry after spending a very full day with lots of walking and energy-spending, a bowl a cereal finished off our dinner quite nicely.

Kim and I had previously made plans with Emily, the Spanish assistant (see Spain-Tuesday blog), to go into Malaga and party it up. Total Fail. The comfort of sweatpants and a nice warm blanket set in and there was no alternative from that point on. And besides, sometimes it’s more fun to hang with Mercedes and Robert anyway. :)