A Slice of Heaven on Earth

*This is a guest post written by my mom because I don't really have the time. I added comments throughout.*

Other than the sunshine and orange blossoms, the highlight of the trip to Spain was seeing the Alhambra. What an incredible place.

It is so popular! As I mentioned before we had to get up early to get tickets. It was like all those times we got up to go hiking in the pre-dawn morning before it got too hot, or so we’d have enough time to finish, or before Amy woke up, or for whatever reason. Anyway, I can’t remember what time the alarm was set for, but we had cleaned our room, packed our bags and completed a 25 minute hike up a steep hill by 6:50AM. I was prepared with my suspense novel and a pillow to sit on. Even at that hour, we were approximately the 40^th group in line. It was worth it—there was no second chance. It would have been a shame to come all this way and miss it. (Jeremy: Queues are a great place for people to smoke. There was one woman in line who smoked around 10 cigarettes in the hour and a half we waited in line. The Spanish like their cigarettes.)

After the line, we pretty much walked right onto the grounds. First, we went through the gardens and the summer palace, the Generalife. The sun was coming out! The gardens were lovely. One of the most impressive sights of the entire complex were the cypress avenues. There were rows and rows of passageways made out of trimmed hedges of cypresses (picture 1). They must be hundreds of years old to be formed that way. There were tunnels of green all over, punctuated by rows and rows of flowers. Many were already in bloom, and you could tell that later in the summer they would be even more stunning. The wisteria! Fountains and water were everywhere. It’s so interesting how they had water running down the middle of the steps and down the railings.

Next stop was the main event, the Palace of the Nazaries. Most of it was built in the mid-1300’s. Courtyards, cedar, stucco, ceilings, columns, arches, fountains, pools, filigree, calligraphy, views, especially the tiles. Everything was beautiful and my descriptions would not add. (Jeremy: Maybe mine would... Haha. There were two primary WOW spots in the palace. One was the Patio de los Leones. In the middle of the patio, there used to be a fountain with twelve lions around the outside of it that had water coming out of their mouths. The fountain is being repaired. The patio is surrounded by a walkway with over 100 slender, BEAUTIFUL columns (picture 2). So amazing. The other huge WOW place was the Patio de los Arrayanes (picture 3). It has a pool down the middle with a tower on the back. The reflection and sight of it was amazing! I loved it so much. Connected to this is the grand reception room where Christopher Columbus got permission to go to the New World from Ferdinand and Isabella (the ceiling of that room is picture 4).)

We climbed a tower, and then rested in a courtyard. The last amazing thing of many were the cherry trees. Every part was stunning, seeing the blossoms against the blue sky and the golden buildings, the shapes of the trees, the purple-pink of the blossoms with the canary forsythia (picture 5). Gorgeous! (Jeremy: I don't know the names of the trees or whatever but it was very pretty. The view from the towers of the Alcazaba (the fortress part of the Alhamabra) were amazing (picture 6). The sun and plants and everything was really astounding.)

The entire thing deserves the word amazing. Everyone who knows me realizes I usually reserve these superlatives only for things in nature. It is really something for me to heap this much praise on something man-made. The quote for the Alhambra in every travel book is this: After the Spanish have finally conquered Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors, the last Amir looks back at the Alhambra and sheds a tear for lost beauty, his unsympathetic mother shuts him up by saying, “Don’t cry like a woman for what you couldn’t defend like a man.” We also sighed as we had our last look at the fortress set against the snowy sierras and the green cypress.

(Jeremy: Our last view of the Alhambra was from St. Nicholas Square (picture 7). We could really see the snow-capped Sierra Nevada Mountains behind the Alhambra. So pretty. I can see why Bill wanted to take his family here. There is another old Spanish saying that goes something like "If you have not seen the Alhambra, then you have not truly lived." Frankly, I agree with that assessment. We left St. Nicholas Square and took the bus to the airport. We hung around waiting for our plane and then flew back uneventfully. I didn't get back to my flat until around 2 am. It was a great trip and I was glad my mom was with me. I need to mention that, if you haven't seen my pictures on facebook, you should see them. There are over 60 just from the Alhambra so check them out!)

Arab Aerobics

*This is a guest post written by my mom because I don't really have the time to do it. I added in some comments along the way.*

To sew up the circle, back to Granada today. We took the bus and saw many white villages with a fortress or castle perched up on a hill. Jeremy unerringly led us to the hostel where we had reserved bunks. The hostel personnel, however, were not unerring. They were overbooked and we either had to sleep on the floor or they would find a new place. We opted for the new place. It was up a very, very steep hill, and I was pretty crabby about the whole thing. As I get older, more and more I find myself taking this irrational negative stance to change. More on this later. (Jeremy: I loved the countryside that we rode through on the bus. The fields were golden or green (picture 1). The towns were all on hills and every building was white washed with red roofs. So cool! Getting to the hostel was not easy because the bus station was far away from the city and we had to navigate some very small, very twisty streets. I was a little depressed about not staying at the Oasis hostel. This same thing happened to me and Vanessa in Rome and we got stuck in a pretty bad place as a replacement so I wasn't happy about the switch either.)

The main thing to see in Granada is the Alhambra, a Moorish palace built towards the end of the Muslim dominance in Spain. Granada is a city that seems to me to have two very steep hills—the one with our hotel and the other one with the Alhambra (picture 2 is walking down the steep hill from our hotel and picture 3 is in the valley between the two hills looking up at the Alhambra). We were surely not going to be able to get tickets to see the Alhambra today so we were a little bit at loose ends. We had a somewhat enjoyable walk around the city. It was cloudy and we had been spoiled by the sun. In order to get tickets to the Alhambra for tomorrow, we found out we would have to get up early and stand in line as if we were going to a rock concert. After walking around the city, I wanted to scope out the walk and where we would stand in line, etc. Did I say it was a cloudy day? Did I say we were pre-locating the queue for tomorrow? Did I say it was a very steep hill? (Jeremy: Those elements, I hate to say, put me in a kind of bad mood. Definitely the low point of the trip for me. It's dumb that I let it get me down (I was in Spain for God's sake!) but that's what happens sometimes. The walk down from the Alhambra was cool with a big red wall though (picture 4).)

The other thing we did was eat at Baraka. It’s a middle eastern restaurant that had a good review in one of Jeremy’s books. Yummy. We met some girls from the U.S. who had eaten there three times! One of them looked like a younger Giada de Laurentis. I can no longer find where it said so, but I read that Baraka means “fine and beautiful blessing.” They asked us to take their picture with the cook who was cute, unassuming and charming. We ended up eating there twice ourselves. (Jeremy: The restaurant was good and located on the Moroccan Market Street (picture 5). Those girls we met were pretty cute and nice. The funny thing was that we were in the small eating area (enough seating for about 10) and those girls walked in and sat down. I didn't say anything (I was bidding my time, or I was being shy, take your pick). Mom leaned over and said, "Are you going to say something to them first or me?" Haha. I immediately struck a conversation.)

We walked back to the hostel via a weird route by the old city walls. I would have totally been lost but as I continue to say, Jeremy got us right where we needed to go. We stopped at a grocery store (we never knew when they would be open or when they would be crowded). We had taken to always having a supply of crackers on hand in case we were desperately hungry. I purchased the best orange of my life in this store. Then we surfed the internet at the hostel. Remember my book problem? Here is the first good thing about the change of hostels. At this moment, while waiting for the internet, I found that a previous backpacker had discarded two suspense novels! Yes, I could get through the rest of the trip! If I were like Jeremy and posting a list of books I read, I would be too embarrassed to list them. Not exactly fine literature, but, yes, they were awesome!! This saved me at least 10 Euros as well. Okay, if you insist, one was called Tell No One. But I’m telling you I couldn’t put it down.

After this we walked out at night to St. Nicholas Square. We had passed it earlier, huffing and puffing (me, not JJ) on the way up to the hostel. I am sure Jeremy would have piloted us to this square anyway, but missing the old hostel and staying at the new one was very convenient for this opportunity. This is the second good thing about the change of hostels. It was truly one of the sweetest moments of the trip for me. We had previously noticed a weird, large red carpet in front of the church. Now, at around 8PM, a bunch of girls were sitting above the carpet chanting while a whole bunch of other kids were playing soccer on the carpet. The square was full, but not too full, of people listening to someone play flamenco guitar and watching the Alhambra (picture 6). And the Alhambra is something to watch, glowing away on the hill opposite our hill. The music, the view, the company—very sweet. (Jeremy: It's funny how on my travels here in Europe and in the US with Mom and Amy, the things that end up looking bad at first usually somehow turn into the best parts. It really was magical sitting in the square looking at the Alhambra glow while the guitar was playing.)

After I got home I read that former President Clinton brought his family to St. Nicholas Square to share one of the places he remembered fondly from his student days.

Beinvenido a Espana

That means "Welcome to Spain". No, I didn't know how to say that. I looked it up online. I hope its right. That would be kind of embarrassing if it wasn't.

Mom came over and we both got our one backpack completely packed (we didn't check any bags). With our backpacks, we took the bus over to St. Paul's Cathedral so we could walk over the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern. We went inside and walked around to each of the four galleries. It was kind of tough work lugging my totally full backpack around (I'm a wimp) so I wasn't too interest. Plus I was kind of tired for some reason so I sat one a couch for a little bit with the two backpacks while Mom walked around. I had been there before so it wasn't essential for me to walk around. Anything that I recognized or knew something about I showed to her.

We left the Tate Modern and took another bus over to Victoria Coach Station so we could get to Stansted. We bought our tickets after waiting in yet another line. We didn't have any reason to wait so caught the first bus there. The bus took a different route than it did the last time I was on it (the routes are different depending on when you ride). This route went near Wembley Stadium and through a lot of green fields which was kind of weird. We got to the airport and (you guessed it) waited in line to check in. We did that without a hitch and then went through security. It was about 4 pm and all we had eaten was a couple PBJ sandwiches so we had a couple snacks before getting on the plane.

Mom wanted an aisle seat and I wanted a window seat so we sat across the aisle from each other (Two rows of three seats, Mom sat next to the aisle, I sat three seats to the right against the window). In between us were two people wearing the same color shirt. Actually, there were 15 people on our flight all wearing the same shirts. It turned out they were all visiting a friend of their's who is studying in Spain this semester. Anybody back home want to do that for me? Haha. They talked the whole flight and I read for most of it. It was nice. The landing was not so nice. I was looking out the window and the runway kept going by. I thought, "We need to touch down soon..." All of a sudden, WHUMMP! We dropped a good couple feet and touched down. It was kind of freaky. We grabbed a bus into Granada.

Granada is in Southern Spain which is commonly referred to as Andalusia. It is an area affected greatly by the Muslims who ruled over it from about 720 to 1100. We got into town and found our hotel. We went out to try and find some place to eat and ended up finding an ice cream shop which was very near to the Cathedral. It was located in a square with a cool fountain (picture 1). The ice cream was SO DELICIOUS!!!! Truly some of the best ice cream I have ever had. Mom had Dulce de Leche and I had an almond flavored one. So good! I don't even know what else to say about it. Just great. We walked around a little bit more along the main street, Gran Via de Colon, which had really cool street lights (picture 2). I knew we were in Spain when I saw an orange tree outside the cathedral (picture 3).

We made our way back to the hotel and went to sleep. I didn't take very many pictures (only like 10) today because it was dark while we were in Granada and night pictures are hard. Also, I have a lot of pictures of the Tate so I didn't take any of it. The rest of the day was spent on buses or airplanes which didn't really warrant pictures to me.

Never Been to Spain

*This is a guest post written by my mom because I don't really have time.*

Jeremy and I ended up in Spain for three main reasons: It’s the only major European country I’d visited, the flights were cheap, and I hoped against hope at least it wouldn’t snow there.

Here we are! Now I can’t sing that phrase from the Three Dog Night song any more!

Jeremy and I spent the night at a small pension in Granada after our flight landed. Since it was going to be dark by the time we got into the city, I had looked very carefully on the internet for a map so that we could find it. We didn’t really know when to get off the bus, but we ended up making a really good guess. The stop was right by an enormous orange tree behind a beautiful wrought iron fence. The oranges were glowing in the streetlight. It had to be the place! (It was where most of the other people got off, haha.) With Jeremy navigating, we found it with no problem. Then we went out for a bite to eat. We ended up having wonderful ice cream. I had Dulce de Leche and Jeremy had Almondrina. We both thought it was the best ice cream we’d ever had in our lives. It helped the taste that we had not eaten well for two days, and yet this was probably not the best nutrition under those circumstances. It was lovely to be in the warmth and already we were experiencing one of the best parts of the trip for me, the smell of the orange blossoms. The man at the hostel was so helpful and nice that I couldn’t bear to tell him we were leaving right away the next morning for Seville. He gave me lots of information (that we used when we returned on the last leg of our trip).