Granada - A Holiday from my Vacation

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I´ve spent my last week and a half in Granada. It´s really a beautiful place to just relax and chill...or chillaxin´ as some might say. For the first week I did almost nothing at all. I really just needed to be quiet, read my book, hang out, sleep, and not see anything of any kind of historical importance whatsoever. I did decide to take some Spanish lessons hear at the hostel. They have been really good, and I can now actually say things and ask questions and pretend to understand the answers. Well, I get the gist of what´s being said. I´ve only had two lessons, so I think I´m doing okay.

My first day I got mobbed by gypsies. Yes, it was my first experience with the Roma. They´re very friendly, but very tricksey. Okay, well I don´t hate them, but they are tricksy. I was walking down the street, minding my own business, and then this smiling woman hands my a juniper twig, and I´m like "what´s this, I don´t need a twig." All of a sudden she´s reading my palm to me in Spanish and I´m thinking, oh shit, I´m had, I am undone. I had been warned about the exhorbitant costs of the palm readings one cannot understand. So I blurt out in panick "No Habla Español," which means you don´t speak spanish, which clearly she did. I should have said "No Hablo Español," which may have clarified things. But she had already asked my name and I replied and she knew I spoke a little. Damn their politeness and mine. So from what I understand I´m either going to fall in love with a very strong baby, or I´m very stong and love to make babies. The latter seems just as ridiculous as the first - I´m not strong you can see that by looking at my pipe(cleaner)s.

The whole thing was over in less than a minute and the price tag: 10 euro. I said, "No, es muy caro. Por una momento?" Which is not exactly gramatically proper, but it got the point across, and I had to fork out 5. It´s an expensive mistake, but I gathered I got off pretty well. Some others got cursed. I don´t need that shit. Roma curses are bad juju whether you believe it or not is not the point. But I´ve learned, now I repulse them with my hautiness, and the body odor helps the cause too. Hint: keep both hands full at all times.

Southern Spain is very interesting. Someone who was ill aware of Spanish culture might very well show up and exclaim, "holy shit, everyone´s gay here." But no, our stereotypes don´t hold up here. You see everyone can dance, and everyone talks with a lisp, and everyone is quite fashionable. It´s a great place, I would think to be in the closet, because everyone is standing in it with you. Actually the dancing is quite amazing, and everyone it seems really can dance. After one of the performances this flamenco dancer was bringing women up to the stage to dance with him and his first pick was this cute scottish girl who danced alright by my standards, and then he grabbed the Spaniards; holy shit. This one lady, who must have been about thirty got up there and started flamenco-ing and waving her skirt and flashing her ass. The others were just as impressive, but with less ass flashing.

The Flamenco is really amazing though, this guy, previously eluded to, was not pleasing even to the female eye, imagine Ozzy Ozbourne decided on a career of flamenco instead of Metal and Rodent eating. But the guy could move his feet like magic. I can´t make tapping sounds that quickly with all of my fingers working in tandem. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that he can put on such an amazing work-out for such a long time and still maintain a beer belly...that´s gotta take diligent work. Nevertheless, the dancing was truly impressive; there is so much raw emotion and power affected by the dancing that if you ever come to Spain you really must see it. The essential elements to flamenco, as far as I can tell are:

1. Ridiculously rapid foot moving, like tap dancing on speed.
2. A guitar player that inspires you to take up the instrument until you remember you suck and you´ll never be that good - must be humble.
3. Suggestive and decisive movement with the arms
4. If a woman, an enormous flowing dress that widdles away as the show goes on; if a man, either black or black and red ensemble with long hair or a black hat.
5. Singing so loud that the sound waves blast wrinkles from the faces of those in the audience. Starting abruptly which scares the hell out of people every time. (we actually thought the elderly fellow who was singing was going deaf, but other experiences have shown that this is an essential element to flamenco).

My first activity was to go hike in the Sierra Nevadas, which, I guess for obvious reasons, look remarkably similar to those in California; it´s probably why the Spanish named them that. They got their and said "Holy shit! How the hell did we walk all the way back to Spain? Wait a second, something´s fishy here and it´s not Cunsuelo (that´s for you Meeler - good times, good times)." They realized that it was just similar, not the same. Anyhoo...they made me feel like I was back in California which was such a nice feeling. I went and swam in a very nice lake, even after I saw a snake slither into it´s depths. I thought about not going in and then realized, oh yeah, I´m not afraid of snakes. That´s when it brutally attacked me, and engulfed my in it´s death grip. I swam for my life, but I couldn´t loose my self, and...wait, sorry, that was the movie "Anaconda." Los Siento, I was confused. It was a great swim and nice hike through California, er, southern Spain.

For the next few days I did very little, but I did manage to participate in a very fun drinking game called Kings. The game works as follows: With a deck of cards, you draw them to find out what you do:

1-5 = you get to delegate these number of sips to someone
6 = Person on your left drinks
7 = You start counting 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. But you cannot say 7s, multiples of 7s, and numbers with 7s in it . Each time you get to one you have to say bottles, and then the direction reverses. The first person to screw up has to drink
8 = Person on your right drinks
9 = You get to make up a rule (curse Rivka for her rule - everytime a girl has to drink the guys have to drink with her. "No Rivka, that´s a bad Rivka!") You break the rule, you drink.
10 = Lists - You get to pick a topic "types of trees, cars, words for puking, etc." The people who draw a blank first drink.
Jack = Thumb Master. Everytime, they put their thumb on the table, people must follow suit, last one in drinks - Only one thumb master at a time.
Queen - Everyone drinks
King - You have to fill 1/4 of the "King´s Cup" with whatever you´re drinking. Whomever draws the last king drinks the Kings cup.

It was a good time and I was a little happy after that game. You´ll rue the day Rivka.

When I finally got around to doing things, I went to see the Alhambra, the last bastion of the Moors in Spain. In 1492, Isabell and Ferdinand sent 150,000 troops to Granada and gave the Sultan a right kickin.´ Seven hundred years spent irrigating and beautifying Spain and that´s the thanks the Muslims get. Maybe it was their acceptance of the Jews...Catholics hate that shit, or at least they did; and so with the Moors out of the way, the Catholic counter-reformation could begin and the the inquisitions could be executed without interference, and whatçs more, the Spaniards could begin their genocide of the New World Natives without having to spend their military resources at home...Oh man, glory days those were. Like seriously, why they gotta hate?

They did, to their credit, keep the Alhambra intact, and it remains perhaps the most beautiful historical site I have ever been to. Granada is beautiful, but not mind blowing, but the Alhambra is. In Spain they have a saying: "You have not lived until you see the Alhambra." It holds water... jangly jangly.... it really does, and lots of it. They have another saying, that "if you´ve not gone to Seville, you haven´t seen the miracle, but if you have not gone to Granada, you haven´t seen anything." In your face that Seville - Snap! It really is amazing though, and for 10,50 (europeans use commas for their decimals) you only have to wait in line for 4 hours. Hint: Buy the Bono Turistico card if you come here for 22,50 and smile and wave as you walk past the line, and get tons of other freebies to look forward to.

I´ve also gone on a hike with a picnick with a great group of Aussies and a couple of Americans...I really have met some wonderful people here, and will surely visit them in Melbourne and Adelaide when I get to Australia. I´m calling them my Mel-burners (Eve, Rivka, and Mitch) and Ade-ladies (Kat and Renae). I´ve been playing some serious ping-pong with the guys. One from Toronto, one London (UK), and one from Ottawa. A French woman stepped up and she is maybe better than all of us, but I have come out the king so far. Which is good, because the Ping-Pong ball "apparently" hurts like hell when you have to lift your shirt and get a whacked with it for losing - I wouldn´t know ;) . Kieran did knock me off my thrown for a solid two games, but I rallied back to finish the king.

I´m also getting pumped up about future travel ideas... India and the Trans-siberian railway. Maybe that´s how I´ll get home from Japan. Oh man, I´m getting geared up for some serious travel. As you can see from the route map at the top, I have a good bit ahead of me in the next couple of weeks. I did not use my pass very efficiently, so now I have nine rail days of travel left and only 2 ish weeks to use them in. So I´m going to do a serious eurosafari in the next couple of weeks before either plopping down in the Greek Isles or Transylvania; I know they´re very similar places.

And now for something completely different:

My throat hurts and my eyes too, and it´s from all the smoke. Europeans smoke so much and it seriously pisses me off. I think that many smokers are among the most inconsiderate people on the planet. If you are a smoker reading this, "I don´t mean you, I mean every other smoker." Okay, before I get on my soapbox, I have to say that I have come across a few very considerate smokers on my trip (strangely they´ve mostly been from OZ). However, I´ve noticed that most do not ask if you care if they pump you full of some of the most toxic substances most people will ever come in contact with, and don´t give a shit that they are poisoning you. At least on their end they have a filter. Everone around them gets the unfiltered toxins without the buzz. The only thing I can think of to equate it with is a person with a cold, who walks up to people and spits in their mouths. Really. I mean if you like to smoke, fine, it´s a free world, poison yourself, but don´t make others suffer your addiction. Okay, I´m done. If I offend anyone, so be it. At least my verbal effluence is not full of toxic fumes. :)

And now for something completely different:

It seems my Canadian accent is coming back. I was identified by other Canadians as Canadian by my accent. I am pleased that I am reverting back to my former identity as unarmed American with healthcare. This is a good thing, because I would have ended up shooting myself in the foot then dying of gangrene.

Back to Granada:

It was a chilly 21 (69) degrees here on thursday, which may sound quite nice except that the mercury hasn´t dropped below 30 for me in the last 3 weeks, so it actually felt muy frio. So I decided to go to the science museum, which was free with the Bono Turistico pass. It was a cool museum, but it was mostly outdoors, but I figured a little water never hurt anyone. In a related story, I went and saw the Titanic exhibition being housed at the museum. It was, perhaps ironically, the driest part of the museum, but it was so interesting and they had a lot of first-hand accounts and personal stories which brought the overdone story alive in a very refreshing way.

For my last night in Granada, I thought it would be appropriate to climb up the Mirador de St. Nicolas to watch the sun set upon the walls of the Alhambra in all its glory. It´s a sight to behold and I will take it easy tomorrow before I begin my fools errand to hit up 9 cities spread across a continent in a little better than 2 weeks (see proposed, ie. probably not going to look at all like that) routes.

Finally, I had my ipod charger stolen. A few days ago, my watter bottle opened up in my bag and drown my ipod. Two days later it fixed itself, and then the next night the charger was ripped off. Shit. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something, like you´ll be killed in Romania for your ipod so don´t take it...So, I think by force of limited battery power and limited knowledge of the whereabouts of an apple store, and the general lack of time to search for one, I will have to leave it in Denmark for the duration of my eastern european excursion. Curses, I´m going to miss the Hip. I may have to send it home anyway, as the battery seems to be screwed, it loses it´s charge even whrn it´s not on.

Cheers all,
Cor.

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