Galavanting in Granada Part 1

So last weekend our MD group took a trip to Granada.  As this trip had MANY pictures, I'll be splitting in up into days.

Everyone woke up wicked early on Friday to be at the Madrid train station at 8:30.  This meant I was up at 5:45 Friday morning.  Yikes!  We hopped on the train and took the 4 hour trip to Granada.

The train was really VERY comfortable and so the ride was an easy one with most of our group together in the same car.

Once we arrived in Granada it was like we were in an entirely different country.  Granada has a LOT of Muslim influence (the Alhambra is a Muslim palace), but even then it still felt so different from the other places we'd been to in Spain. There were orange trees everywhere which we were later told were sour oranges, hence the reason no one ate them and they were still hanging on all the trees.

We walked the 10 blocks or so from the train station to our hostel.  The hostel we were staying in was VERY pretty.  Two open courtyard type areas and ceramic tile.  Only drawback was there was little to no heat.  SO cold.  Luckily the weather that weekend wasn't freezing so we were ok.

It was about 2pm when we were all settled in and ready to explore.  We had the rest of the day to walk around the city.  First we headed to the old Arabic neighborhood on the hill opposite the hill with the Alhambra.  As we were walking we randomly found this set of steps and decided, "What the hell.  Why not just follow them!" And up we went.

BEST DECISION EVER.  The steps kept going up....and up....and up....eventually we reached a point where you could see out over the whole city.

Here are some of the trip mates!  From right to left: Hilary, Sarah, Margot (my roommate) and Jill.  We took a bit of time just hanging out there and then continued up the hill.

We ended up in this very cool park at what felt like the top of the world.  It seemed to be filled with gypsies and other more free willed individuals.  I wandered around the park and then realized that the building I could see in the distance was La Alhambra!

 I wandered away from the group to try and find the overlook that our group took a picture at four years ago.  I walked down through the streets which were beautiful and deserted.  The houses were all white and close together with little cobblestone streets.  I soon found out why the place seemed empty as a walked past the local mosque which was full and prayers were underway.  As I wandered back up the hill (for the others had called to try and locate me) I just followed my instincts and happened upon the same patio from four years ago.  There, waiting for me, was my group.  I really enjoy how things have just happened by chance on this trip!

 Our group!

My old group!

We just hung out on this patio for a long while because there were people playing music and a little puppy running around.  It was great weather and all around a lovely afternoon.

Here's a nice picture Margot took of me just hanging out!

 

Here is our adorable puppy friend!!!  Her name was Pepa as I learned from her owner and she was teething so she kept wanting to play with us and picking stuff up off the ground.  I ended up having to hold her head and tell her "quitalo!" which is "drop it" in Spanish as she tried to eat some paper.

After a while we began to get hungry and decided that we should just get some tapas and sangria while we were up here.  There was a nice little bar with outdoor seating just across from the patio so we all headed over there for a bite.

Now, as most of you know I do not like wine. At all.  Even the really fruity types of wine, hence the reason I have not been a big fan of Sangria thus far.  That has changed.  The sangria I had at that little outdoor bar was THE BEST we'd all had in Spain so far.  Most likely that is because it was 80% juice and 20% wine, but it was still really good!

Just for Dad's info, the girl next to me here is Jill who is from Boston.  I love her because she has the accent and because she watches Bruins highlights in between class.  She's pretty darn cool.

I decided that my blog needed more video (since there is none) and so here I present....THE FIRST SPAIN VIDEO!  It's pretty self explanatory so enjoy!

THE SECOND SPAIN VIDEO!

So after we headed back down the hill and wandered around until it was dark and then went back to our hostel.  By this time the hostel was FREEZING so I cuddled up under the covers since I wasn't going out again, and my other roommates used their own means to get warm.  Here is the result:

With that I am going to bed.....as I was about to in the video....GOODNIGHT!  More on this weekend in a later post!