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Church near our hostel Hello everybody,
I am skipping a lot by posting this particular blog. I still plan on posting the rest I just need to get this big one out of the way. This trip was kind of a last minute decision. My roommate Zak did a report on the Alhambra Palace in Granada while at his University, so talked about going to see it since he first arrived. I had initially wanted to visit Seville, but after some research it ended up being much cheaper to go to Granada with my roommate. We had another last minute tag along as well, a guy in our program named Nadir. We took our final for class on Friday the 25th, and our flight to Granada was Sunday morning. We arrived in Granada around 9 am. It was all pretty hassle free. I got the ticket on the internet, and when I printed it off the last name was "Loroa" instead of Lorona but it wasn't a big deal at all. The airport is super nice, I'm guessing built along with everything else nice in the city for the 1992 Olympics. The flight was smooth, despite the relatively low price of the tickets. The
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Cool looking building Granada airport has no terminals, so when the plane pulled up we just got out down a ladder onto the tarmac then walked into the baggage claim area. The actual city of Granada is a short bus ride from the airport, but there is a bus waiting for every incoming flight. It wasn't free however, and put us down three euro. When we got off the bus only Nadir knew where we were, because he was the only one smart enough to look for hostels before we left. It didn't take us long to find the hostel, and it ended up being really nice. It only cost us 12 euro a night, and if you look at the pictures it was well worth it.
Oh a little side note here, knowing that we would have to be awake around 5 am I did not sleep the night before. I stayed up and bid all my friends from the ending Summer 3 program farewell. When I arrived home around 4:30 am, my roommate was awake on his bed. He said he was shaking and couldn't feel his pinkie. Things just weren't going right for the guy. He got his eyebrow
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Cobble stone roads pierced just for the heck of it, and when he decided he didn't want it anymore he tried to take it out himself. This didn't work out so well, and as a result he had a persistent headache for about three days. On top of this, some food he recently ate didn't agree with him so he was having bad stomach pains and diarrhea. I proceeded to pack my clothes for the trip, while he contemplated whether it was a good idea to go. By the time I was done packing and ready to go, he was standing with his bags packed looking like he wanted to die.
Now back to point. The hostel wasn't ready for us to check in when we arrived, so because we were all absolutely beat we looked for a place to sleep. We spend a good amount of time trying to find a socially acceptable place to sleep, which is harder to find than you might think. We eventually just gave up, except for Zak who laid down on a bench outside a University and passed out. When we finally did get into our room, we all passed out for a couple hours.
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Our room at the hostel Not wanting to waste the day, Nadir and I woke up and decided to go out and see the wrest of Granada as we planned to spend the whole next day at the Alhambra. We tried to rouse Zak, but the guy was in bad shape and decided to stay in. You can see the pictures from our walk around Granada, including the gorgeous views from the Albaycin Moorish district of white washed houses. All the pictures ending with the ones at night are of our first walk though Granada. The Arabic influence on the city is obvious, not only in the people who live there but in the architecture as well. When we arrived back to the hostel, Zak was feeling a bit better and went out with us to watch the Argentina game and to have dinner.
The next day we visited the Alhambra palace. Zak was feeling much better so came with. The palace trip is hard to describe in words. Look at the pictures for a better description than I can put into writing. I'm not much of a history buff, so feel free to read the Wikipedia page on the Alhambra Palace before looking
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View from the roof of the hostel, we stayed on the top floor at the pictures. I'll admit I did before going to visit it myself. We ended that day with a tapas crawl during the Brazil game, which filled us enough to last til the next day. The last day Nadir left early in the morning on a train to Cadiz. Zak and I had to kill time until our flight at 8:55pm. All the pictures past the Alhambra are of our walk through parts of the town I had not yet seen.
When we arrived in Barcelona by luck we caught the very last train from the airport to downtown BCN. By that same luck we missed the stop we thought we were supposed to get off on, and got off on one that was actually close due to the fact the Metro had closed already. So to sum things up, my luck was great and Zak luck was shitty but in the end we average out to a neutral "just letting things happen".
I hope you all are enjoying my posts, and I hope that you all have a fantastic Independence Day. I wish I could be home for it more than anything! Light off some firecrackers for
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Same view me, I'm going out to find the rest of the americans in barcelona!
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I need to visit Granada!
these photos are stunning Shane! Especially the one of those poor two disfigured boys... how sad for them to have such strange faces! I am glad you have found good uses for your new waterproof camera. It looks like the day you were there was beautiful as well - at least from the standpoint of photographs. I pity your roommate. It is hard enough to be sick but sick in a foreign country is REALLY uncomfortable and scary. I hate to say it ( well, not really) - that' s what he gets for a hair brained idea to get a brow piercing for the heck of it! speaking of doing things for the heck of it, it looks like your hair has grown back pretty nicely! We had several people over for a BBQ and I heard it was cold in McCall, so you didn't miss anything here. We all wish we were there! Keep the postings coming... we love them.