Granada May 17-20
The train arrives at 10am. At the alhambra, you are given a "à minute slot where you are allowed to enter, and mine is 12-12;30. I booked a hostal across the road from the alhabra on the internet in Seville before I left, but the bus doesnt come for an hour, which leaves me 30 minutes to check in, get changed and get to the gate, which I do. What can be said about the alhambra. If you havent looked at the link on the other page, go here - http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=alhambra%20granada&sa=N&tab=wi . I can only say that, as a place where successive rulers built their palaces over 400 years, there a some of the best examples here of the architecture, gardens and grounds we have travelled Asia and Europe for 6 months to see. There is a 400 year old Islamic palace that rivals anything in India or Turkey, a medievval palace and classical palace, huge gardens, water features and on and on. I was there for 5 hours and could have spent 5 more and not done it justice. It certainly makes it into the Top 3 sights of the trip.
That night is the final of the Champions League which also has a Spanish team in it. 2 soccer finals in 2 nights in Spain with Spanish teams playing, drinking Spanish beer eating tapas. Heaven. The atmosphere is again electric and colourful and when Barcelona win I sms Beck, who is in Barcelona, to expect not to sleep thqt night from all the noise. She responds that its already started. Get back to the room about 11pm and sleep for 12 hours, catching up from the travel to get here.
On the 18th, I pack for international museums day where many are free. I visit many that day and get a good immersion in historical and modern Spanish art. As I head to the train and bus stations to get info to get to Barcelona, find that trains are full so it will have to be 20 hour bus. I notice that I pass quite a few university campuses and decide to put up posters to see if students will be interested in exchanging Spanish for English conversation classes when I come back in August to learn Spanish. I havent decided on where I am going to do that and I like the feel of Granada. I go to a photocopy shop, do my best to make up a sign in Spanish, copying from other similar posters I see, make 50 copies and start to put them up. Find out while putting the first one up that I used the Spanish word for female when describing myself so had to amend the posters by hand. I go back to the hostal and ask how much they would charge for a single room for 3 weeks in August and they say 12 euro which is very, very cheap, about 20 oz dollars. I make a salad for dinner and eat it by the pool on the roof of the hostal watching the Granada skyline, thinking about being here leqrning Spznish for 3 weeks. IT feels very good.
The next day I check the Lonely Planet web site. Travellers are able to put questions on it and other travellers who have the answers give them. I put a question up about ways to learn Spanish in Spain without having to do a course. By the end of the day, which I spend looking at more museums, and putting up more posters, I receive 3 responses, referrring me to 2 websites where Spansih students put requests to exchange English for Spanish, from all over the country, which gives me lots of choices, and a third site for a Spanish company that offers services to big companies in Spain, like Microsoft, airlines, banks, etc to send their executives to a 4 star resort to spend a week with English speaking people, and they are looking for volunteer English speakers to spend a week at the resort, all expenses paid. I apply and within an hour am accepted. I AM GOING TO TEACH ENGLISH AT A SPANISH RESORT FOR A WEEK!!!!!! yaayyy!!!!!!!!!!! I catch the bus to Barcelona that night very excited, and wouldnt have been able to sleep anyway as the bus stopped every 1-2 hours to let people on or off and the lights were on all the time anyway. I get to Barcelona at 11.30am, and there is Beck waiting for me. I sense she is a bit distant and she confirms she is - a bit cautious to see how I am - happy or grumpy. I feel great and am excited about evrything that is happaning, especially being with Beck again. She looks refreshed. It was a great idea for her to come to Barcelona, which we can now exploire together.
posted by flamethrower77 at 3:44 PM
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