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Published: November 17th 2006
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My whirlwind tour of Andalucia is whirling a bit faster than I’d planned. When I left Lisbon I had designs on a three-week circuit through the region, ending in the port town of Algeciras, where I’d catch a ferry to the North African coast. But Spain is starting to lose its hold on me; more and more my thoughts are turning to Morocco and Tunisia, to the sprawling souqs and soaring minarets and undulating dunes of the northern Sahara. I’ve trimmed my itinerary to the point where only Seville and Granada make the final cut. The
Mezquita of Cordoba, the beaches of Malaga, the dramatic scenery of Ronda: they’ll have to elbow their way into my next Andalucian adventure. By the time my train pulls into Granada, I’m less than a week away from the cool blue medina of Chefchaouen, sitting on its pretty perch in Morocco’s Rif Mountains.
There’s some anxiety at work: the past few months have been pretty smooth sailing, my threadbare Spanish graduating to a level of competence that would be the envy of any autistic eight-year-old. Even as I bumble through my verb tenses, I manage to get my point across - no small
consolation on foreign soil. But both my French and my Arabic are exactly where I left them a few days ago: sitting at the bottom of my backpack, beneath a pile of unwritten postcards and good intentions. What lies in store in the months ahead, I’m not entirely sure. But I suspect it’s not likely to involve many hot showers, and I’m more or less scalding the skin from my bones in a daily ritual of manic ablution.
Even before coming to Spain, my impressions of Andalucia were all sunny plazas and orange trees and flower-filled patios. It was scalding summers and sultry flamenco dancers:
caliente in every sense of the word. But then here’s Granada, with the rugged crests of the Sierra Nevadas stretching their snowy spine over the city. Already I’m digging out my fleece and blowing into the palms of my hands. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a tentative connection is being made between the words “Granada” and “skiing” - some long-forgotten memory that would’ve come in handy before I put on a t-shirt and a pair of flip-flops this morning.
It’s a cool, windy night when I arrive. I’m staying with
a pair of French girls on the outskirts of the city center, just shy of a neighborhood that my cab driver describes as “
muy peligroso.” When Anne-Sophie greets me with a pair of pecks on the cheek outside her house, I’m slightly set at ease: the girls live upstairs from an
armeria, and it’s reassuring to know that a full supply of rifles and hunting knives are just a few steps away. She’s bubbly and chatty as she leads me upstairs. Her roommate, Johanna - who I’d met through
CouchSurfing - is in Germany on business, and Anne-Sophie’s taken on the admirable task of welcoming this wandering American into her home. She offers me coffee - a quick way into my affections - and plops down in front of the TV. We dissect the sorry state of Spanish prime-time for a while, until her boyfriend, José, arrives from the gym. They lapse into conversation in rapid-fire Spanish, all the more impressive since Anne-Sophie didn’t speak a word of it when she arrived from France two months ago. Then José addresses me - slowly, self-consciously - in English. He’s a huge fan of basketball and the L.A. Lakers, and he wants
to know what’s wrong with my beloved Knicks.
They make an odd couple: José with his baggy jeans, knotty dreads and endless college career; Anne-Sophie with her neat clothes, tireless
toilette and proper job in imports/exports. The next day José offers to take me around town, happy for anything that might divert his attention from - of all things - chemical engineering. It’s early, and he’s admittedly lost for options at a time when he’s normally tucked under the covers. He offers a trip to the
teterias, which - if you’re familiar with the Spanish word
tetas - seems like an odd choice at half-past eleven in the morning (though decidedly less so when I realize it’s a teahouse). We walk down a quiet, cobbled street that’s typically thrumming with life when he visits. He points out his favorite bars and nightclubs: all shuttered and shielded from the mid-day sun. There’s a growing sense of panic on José’s part: just how on earth are we supposed to pass the long, bright hours until nightfall? He suggests we go back to his place to drink a beer and play darts; it seems like as good a plan as any.
We walk through sun-dappled plazas - student haunts for
botellones - where, even now, on a weekday morning, you can see a few crushed cups and beer cans littering the flower beds.
Coming from Anne-Sophie and Johanna’s very grown-up home, José’s place seems especially collegiate. There are stolen traffic signs in the living room and empty potato chip bags on the coffee table; loud, aggressive music is playing from a stereo. José’s roommate carefully tends to the marijuana plants on the balcony, whispering sweet little
nadas into the leaves. Plans are being made for a heavy bout of afternoon drinking: today is the festival for the patron saint of José’s academic department - further proof that the Spanish are liable to start drinking for the very dumbest of reasons. We sit in José’s room and listen to music. His roommate is teaching him to play the bass guitar, and they studiously dissect each riff coming from the speakers. Now and then someone will wander in, roll a joint and wander out. I’m feeling very much like a 28-year-old. I leave them for a few hours, happy to stroll around a strange city and breathe the fresh mountain air.
By the time we reconvene at a bar that night they’re pleasantly buzzed, along with most of Granada’s students. Young Spanish coeds are happily bearing their midriffs against a stiff November wind, and I can safely say it’s the first time in my life I say a thankful prayer to the patron saint of chemical engineering.
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