Weekend in Granada

Man, this thing can really get away from me. It’s already been a week and a half since Granada. On the drive home my mind was awhirl with ideas enough for a book, but they just kind of stewed and never made it into text, until now I guess.

First, by the time I got to Granada it was already worth the trip. As an NHRI counselor, I learned the value of car time for conversations, and that is no less true in Spanish. I communicate in the apartment with Frenk, my ride to Granada, but it is always in a very functional, goal-directed manner (Have you had dinner? Are you done in the bathroom? What time are you going to the gym?) In the car, I had her trapped—a 2.5 hour private Spanish lesson. And I got to know so much better to boot.

She’s a real person. So many of the people I end up meeting here are so simplistic, so easily characterized and predictable. They like pop music, movies and TV, they like drinking and smoking, they find nothing wrong with blantent sex appeal and simple fatty, salty sweet junk food. Frenk is cool. We talked about the problems in the school, and without being able to pinpoint a central cause, respect, motivation, uninspiring curuclum and the classroom environment have made it so that many of her high school students haven’t read much of anything, can’t spell many common words, and simply haven’t developed an ability to think for themselves. Modernity. She had been a vegetarian before, and many of her friends work on a gardening co-op, sharing the work of growing their own vegetables. She’s a big reader, and probably could be considered somewhat of a environmental hippy. So she’s cool.

Then, Granada. Man, I need to make effort get out more because Albox just isn't Spain. My short weekend was so full of new experiences and memories that I just can’t hope to describe them all here. We’ll take a summary tour, and then if you’re interested, you can ask me about it later.

I stayed in the Albayzín, a historic neighborhood across from the Alhambra and filled with Arabic teashops and all kinds of neat clothes. Seriously, I thought it might be time to reinvent my style.


At the hostel (a din of foreigners, English-speaking foreigners) I signed up for a tour with a wacky English fellow where I ended up meeting a group of world-travelers.


Over tapas after the walk, a group of us decided to get together that night to watch the sunset from the caves over the Albayzín (where our guide recommended the girls spend some time if they were looking for a boyfriend with a dog and a van). Yep caves. And people live in them. Not like Fred Flintstone or Conan, these folks have electricity and running water in their hillside dugouts. So 8 of us, after much deliberation about whether or not we would be too late to see the the sunset, were in fact too late to see the sunset. But we wandered up to the caves anyways. Fun.


Sunday was my day to see the Alhambra, and I decided to head up there with Ewa, a tired-out medical resident from Poland. She was sweet, but I could tell she was dreading her return to a pretty hectic lifestyle. Still, we enjoyed the day in the palaces and gardens of old Moorish kings.


Here’s where things get interesting: at about 5:00, I get a text from Frenk saying that the bus route I was planning on taking to her town doesn’t run on Sunday nights. I had planned on staying with her and leaving at the crack o’ dawn so she would be back for her 8:15 classes, but now she was suggesting that I take a cab. Not exactly my idea of a buck well spent. At this point I needed: a place to stay and a ride to Albox. I didn’t want to spend anymore dinero than I needed to, as I figured I was pretty much done with my trip. A 30 or 40 Euro taxi ride could do the job, but I had a couple of ideas up my sleeve.

It so happened that my neighbor Charlotte was also in Granada this weekend and staying with friends. She had class tomorrow too, so perhaps she could help me out. At the end of a short phone call I hadn't solved either problems, but we did have plans to meet for a coffee at 9:00 (2 notes: phones here charge by the minute so people tend to be quite brief, and Charlotte and I speak in my (still) limited Spanish.) So I relax, no need to worry, surely I will get everything sorted out over a cup of Joe.

Earlier in the weekend I sat down with my guidebook and marked interesting restaurants, cafés, bars etc. on my map so I would know the best spots to hit when the opportunity arose. All weekend I hadn’t had a chance to try them out, so I decided that this three-hour window would be a nice chance to treat myself to a good meal.

Well, the first couple of restaurants were closed (Ah, it was only 6:00, way too early for dinner. Try back at 8:30 I learned from a hotel lobby) So I instead set out for Anaïs Café, described as “a bar for bookworms with a penchant for imbibing, literary evenings and tarot readings, as well as mindless fun.” Nearby I found an unmentioned but seemingly good enough “Bohemian Jazz Café”, but the Anaïs Café eluded me. Some combination of the desire to complete what I had set out to do and a curiosity to figure out with that description actually meant kept me searching. Eventually I learned that: 1. The name had changed, 2. It was now in a new location, which ultimately proved to be 3. closed. So back to the good enough Jazz Café. And it was:


I made it to the appointed mall on time to meet Charlotte, and I was practicing my Spanish explanation of what I needed when she arrived with her friends. As I followed them upstairs, I explained too good-heartedly what a pickle I had found myself in, and apparently wasn’t conveying the message that I needed her help. Before getting anything sorted out we ended up in a pretty loud bar. As I tried again to explain my position, Charlotte confusedly asked if I perhaps needed a coffee. No! I thought tomar un café meant we were going to settle down and chat about our weekends in a coffee shop, I didn’t come to the bar because I was wanted coffee!

Eventually, she agreed that maybe I should call Roberto and ask for a ride, and she gave me his number. Busy. Busy. Aargh! At this point I should mention that I have my traveling backpack with me, and as I enter and leave the bar the security guards are giving me the strangest looks. Okay, so maybe I should go look for a taxi for Huétor Santillán? Try once more.

Success! "No problem" he says, "sure." Okay, so a place to stay. Veronica. She studied in Sevilla with me, and I happened to know she was living in something of a convent with 8 University students. "Sure," she says. As she tries to explain where she lives (and my battery light is blinking dangerously at me, I like living on the edge) my eyes scramble over the map. "Okay, so it’s a street parallel to Calle Reyes Catolicos?" At last, they strike the name they're looking for, and one of my earlier markings pops out. "Do you know the Rincón de Michael Landon? Yes? Let’s meet there."


This has got to be my favorite detail of the weekend. After much tribulation, the fact that this little “nook” plays a role in guiding me through still makes me laugh. How could this gem not make it to my map: “In the midst of Granada’s student life, this funny bar is dedicated to retro kitsch and the bizarrely cult star of The Little House on the Prairie.”