Granada never sleeps...

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... at least we didn't there...

our homeless adventure in Granada:

My friends Amanda and Jamie and I headed to Granada for 2 days during one of the busiest times of the year, a holiday called Puente - Labor Day. Of course, we didn´t think of this ahead of time and didn´t book a hostel thinking we would just find one there. Big mistake. Once we arrived we walked around checking each hostel and even some cheap hotels for an open room. Nothing. We felt like Maria and Joseph from the Bible...

After a fruitless effort to find a place to sleep for the night we gave up and decided to wander the streets all night until it was time to wait in line for La Alhambra, the one thing to see in Granada. Since it was such a busy weekend we knew we had to get up really early to wait in line anyways.

So we began our evening without a home walking around and getting a feel for the city. We had dinner and checked my travel book for recommended places. The idea was to find a tea cafe or somewhere where we could sit for a long time without having to spend a lot of money. We exhausted our options. We did a walking tour, free!, had tapas at an outdoor place but it got cold as the night went on so we went to a warm tea place where we sat on the couches and fought sleep, then I suggested we go see a movie in the theater - that´s 2 hours of sitting time... Amanda took a long nap, it was the cheapest hostel we´ve ever stayed at, after the movie we decided to go check out this classy jazz bar that we had read about and had some champagne. We did everything we could think of to prevent sleeping on a park bench. As the night wore on I got so cold that I pulled out all the clothes I had brought in my backpack and layered them all ontop of each other. I think I counted about 6 layers of summery t-shirts, one long-sleeved shirt I borrowed from Amanda, a jacket and a scarf. I was still freezing. With my Birkenstocks on and growing more tired with each passing minute, the cold seeped in and stayed.

Around 4 in the morning we decided to start our journey up the mountain to where La Alhambra stands perched overlooking the city. It was dark and deserted and we thought we were the only ones crazy enough to be out at this hour, ready to get in line to buy tickets to enter. But when we got there a short while later there were already a few people gathering like sheep and looking dumbly for a line of people. It never occured to me that we wouldn´t be the first people there. None of us wanted to wait at the wrong door so we sat on a bench and waited, watching each newcomer run up the walk, realize there´s no line and then proceed to walk aimlessly seeming confused about where to start the standing that would last until 8:30 in the morning. Four hours we waited for the doors to open.

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