Granada Part 1

Do you like fried eggs? Do you like hamburgers? How about fried eggs on your hamburgers? Well thanks to Mabel, I thoroughly enjoy the combination. After a hearty dinner followed by strawberries for dessert, I finally have the gusto to sit down and attempt to fit Granada into a single blog post. Squeezing an ancient Moorish castle, cathedral, discotec and barrio into a paragraph of prose is no easy feat.

After class with Diego and the pocket twins (what we've come to call the Japanese girls since they're almost identical and are dwarfed by large toddlers), a group of 50 Americans boarded a bus to Granada. At our four star hotel, we split into groups of three or four and were assigned rooms together on the first floor. Management would eventually learn that putting that many gringos together in a combined space is equivalent to housing as many monkeys.

Our bags unloaded and our stomachs growling, we had a quick dinner at the hotel buffet and boarded mini buses headed toward the caves. Barreling down "two-way" roads with room for only one-way traffic, I developed a sudden fear of car travel. Apparently in the right hands, a mini bus can corner and handle like any BMW, but I still attest that there should be about four scraped walls, eight side-swiped vehicles, and three people in the hospital after our jaunt up through the city.

Upon reaching our destination, heart racing but car intact, we entered one of three white-washed Flamenco "caves". The rock crevices had been smoothed and shaped on the inside, becoming short tunnels bathed in shades of red, green and blue emanating from strings of lights hung from the walls and ceiling. The walls lined with chairs left little room for the dance floor. A hush fell over the chatty group of Americans as the performers entered. The guitarist began to pick at his strings, and a deep, murky voice began to sing slow Spanish that reverberated off the cave floor and walls. A dark señorita came forward, her face stony, black eyebrows creased. She started to dance slowly, the pounding of her heel punctuating the somber song of the cantor behind her. As the tempo increased, she was joined by a man who matched the passion in her face and feet with masculine moves of his own. The setting was so intimate that the students closest to the stage could see and feel the flying sweat of the dancers as they twirled and stomped. Eventually, the first pair was replaced by another dancer, then another and another. An hour and a half later, our bodies began to defy our captivated minds and a Gringo or two's head lolled on their shoulders. There would be no fiesta en la calle in Granada tonight.

The next morning, we met Cynthia and Armando in the lobby for a trip to a certain cathedral of scant importance. Armando waited until we had all walked there and gathered outside its vast doorway, bell clanging rhythmically overhead, to tell us of its significance. On this very spot, he told us, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand signed the contract allowing Christopher Columbus to search for a new route to India, consequently changing the fate of civilization forever. As we stood in awe, contemplating the magnitude of the event, we realized the meaning of the ringing overhead. The peals marked the death of an Español and we were standing in the path of a funeral march. A hearse rounded the cobblestone corner followed by a procession of mourners. The contrition we felt was immediate, and we felt the need to run from their path. Reverence for the deceased had us walking slowly away, sheepish that we silly tourists had been snapping photos while there were actual lives being led.

After a quiet walk back to the hotel, we had an afternoon free for shopping and preparation for the night to come. The Moorish influence was palpable in the souvenir district, hookahs on every corner, rugs for sale and incense filling the shops with smoke and smell. Shopping successful, we set out to find what the streets of Granada had to offer nighttime wanderers. Successful at this endeavor as well, we stopped at a kebab shop in the wee hours of the morning on our way home. Whether due to our current states or the expertise of the vendor, they were by far the best kebabs we had ever tasted.