Granada, walking home.

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I love walking home from Spanish class. My teachers’ building is old, like everything in the Albayzin and the stairwell has the rich earthy smell of centuries of damp. The front door is heavy. There is dog shit dotted among the cobbles but I’m getting better at dodging it all. I wind onto Calle Teterias and the incense-seller with the big smile says hello like I am an old friend. I pass the woman who will draw henna on your hands, the man who will write your name in Arabic on pretty paper, past rows and rows of shops selling baggy pants, leather bags and trinkets. I pass the many teterias with their hookahs and silver pots of fragrant tea. I pass the Arabic supermarket that sells cheap tahini and fresh Moroccan bread. Just after this shop I pass the stall of the grey-haired man who always says hello and looks like my Dad would look if he was Moroccan.

From Plaza Nueva you cross the road, never waiting for the lights, the traffic is slow here and the lights take forever. I cut through the little street with the internet café on it. If I go in the young guy who works there says; “You want to skype no?” with shaky English and a cheeky smile. Hoy, no. I pass the statue of the man in golden slippers holding a scroll, my Spanish teacher told me he is a Jewish scholar, marking the entrance to the old Jewish neighbourhood of Realejo. I pass Rico Rico kebab shop, a few Irish pubs and lots of artesan shops. I walk past the gelato place that sells lemon gelato so tangy it makes your lips pucker (in a good way) and smile at the owner, who likes Mel Torme and stands outside his shop in his crisp white uniform all day. Then there is ‘Pan y chocolate’ with its delicious pastries and “M’encanta” pizza where you can get Roquefort cheese on your big square slice. I cross the curve where the road turns into Calle Molinos, dodging oncoming motos, the red #30 bus, dogs and pedestrians. There is the green grocer where scrappy young people converge at 2.30 every afternoon to get the produce they are throwing out. There is the Coviran with its surly staff who seem personally affronted when you want to buy something. I smile at the curly-haired owner of Papaupa, the café/bar where I sometimes sit and use the wifi. I’m glad to see that it has become more popular recently. The shops along Calle Molinos seem to be open very infrequently, meaning that most of the time I get to admire the graffiti on their shutters, most of them in the iconic style of El Niño de las Pinturas. Maybe I’ll pop into ‘Alimentation Fortuni II’ for some groceries, it always seems to be open; until 1am, during siesta and on Sundays!

I keep walking down the road, passing old ladies walking their obese dogs and school kids snaking all over the path. The School of Modern Languages looms to my left, a beautiful old white building with orange trimming and orange trees dotted over its lawn. These trees are actually all over the city - they planted sour oranges because the flowers are prettier, however the fruit is totally inedible. About half way up Calle Molinos I can see the Sierra Nevada in the distance, blue and brooding behind the buildings.

But my favourite part of the whole walk home is when I come to the end of Calle Molinos, just before the corner with the giraffe graffiti. Here, absorbed in my own thoughts I look up and suddenly I can see the highest layer of the mountains, the snowy peaks white as a fresh sheet of paper, dwarfing those first mountains that had seemed so big. It knocks the breath out of you every time; these ancient mountains watching sagely as normal people live their little lives.

And here is my street, the walls of the school coated with graffiti that drags tourists out of the city centre. There is the man with a grey beard playing his violin, the eucalyptus tree, the laughing face, the sleeping homeless person, all etched artfully onto the old crumbly walls. White blossoms as light as foam blow off the giant old tree next to the school, landing in your hair and shooting up your nose if you breathe in too suddenly. I stop at my green front door to fish out my key. Opposite me, bougainvilleas spill over a wall, above graffiti of a little boy and another old man playing violin. As my key turns in the door I hear Tani (the dog) yelping hysterically inside and Cote cursing at him. I am home.

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