Pt. 2: some vistas, some bad tapas

Friday I awoke abruptly from an approximately six hour sleep. Juanito, my two year old little bro here in Spain, was already lively and crying, running around and throwing toys seemingly all at once. After laying in bed for about an hour, hoping he would shut up, or that the paper thin walls in our apartment would magically become soundproof, neither of which occurred, I got out of bed. I had a resaca (hangover), but not a resacón (huge hangover). After a few hours I called Chris, found out why he and Maria had left Vogue so abruptly, found out a little bit more about what his puke consisted of, and then invited him and Maria to check out Carmen de Los Mártires later in the day.

The garden of Carmen de Los Mártires, situated conveniently enough for me just 15 minutes uphill from my neighborhood, is a truly wonderful place. The handful of times I’ve been there, it’s always been to relax, get a great view of the city and maybe have some “deep thoughts.” To top it off, the place is free, and open every day. I suppose I’d describe it as an almost labyrinth of deciduous, Mediterranean and tropical trees (they all seem to grow pretty well here), ponds, statues and pavos reales, or peacocks, but which literally translates to “royal turkeys.” There’re not many better places to be after a long night like the one we’d had. From there it was back down the giant, steep hill that looks over Granada and off to a teteria (arab style café). There’s such an abundance of these on la calle Calderería that we usually just end up walking up the narrow, sweet smelling alley and simply picking at random which one we’ll drink tea in this time. We settled on the one that looked the “most plush” to us, with pillowy seats by a window and a warm, dimly lit atmosphere.

Three cups of Persian tea was exactly what necessary to kill the hangover and regain the energy I’d lost walking all over the gardens. Chris wanted to show Maria the Alhambra, so we ended up heading back up to the Alhambra and gardens area to see if there were still night tickets. Sure enough, we ended up snagging some 12 euro tickets for an unguided tour of the Nazarí Palace, Palace of Charles V, other surrounding areas. On the way to and while walking through the Palace of Charles V, Chris and I occasionally traded off pretending like we knew the history of the place, throwing out disconnected pieces chunks of information at Maria about Carlos Quinto or the differences between Arab and Christian architecture that were probably only about 50 percent true. However, the three of us were pretty much completely silenced upon entering the palacio narzarí, immediately feeling the sacredness and beauty of the place. Although I’d been there before during the day, I’d been meaning to come again to see it at night, and so now that moment had finally arrived. It was just as wonderful as I had hoped. Walking through the pillared hallways and tranquil courtyards in the dim light or near total darkness really adds to the ancient, mysterious feel this nearly 1,000 year old monument . We passed through the room after room, walls lined with intricately carved patterns and poetry in white stucco. Like the first time I came, I once again found myself staring for what felt like a century at the stalactited, honey-comb like ceilings found in rooms of importance. I was in a daze...

From the palaces of the last Arab kings in Granada it was off to our favorite tapas bar, El Nido Del Buho (the owl’s nest) – a complete change of atmosphere but a necessary one, because we were hungry as hell from doing the sightseeing thing all day. The Buho is noisy, crowded, slightly dirty and strangely charming. You can never sit down immediately, but rather have to stand and wait at least five minutes or so until a table opens up in the cramped L-shaped bar. Once one does, fast action is the key thing, because it’s sort of a free for all as to who gets it. You must shout at the waitresses to order you drinks and tapas, and they sort of ignore you if you can’t pronounce things right or don’t spit it out fast enough, which caused problems for me a few months ago. The tapas are fantastic, and more importantly, huge. On this particular night, with my two euro beers I got avocados filled with tuna and mayo with toasted French bread on the side, and for round two a tortilla española with alioli. A lot of the tapas bars here baffle me as to how they stay in business giving out so much free food, but none as much as the Buho; it’s a feast. We ate two rounds there (which pretty much equates to a full meal), and then went two blocks down to another place Chris used to go to. This happened to be a bar that served – of all things – hamburgers with lettuce and onion as tapas. I downed one of those and then proceeded to attack Maria’s beef with red sauce and potatoes, which she couldn’t finish (I would pay for the amount of cheap, not necessarily sanitary food I had just eaten in the morning). We finished off the night at Loop, enjoying the good tunes that they invariably play there, and that was that. Waving goodbye, I felt like Chris and Maria had just gotten in. A fast 48 hours it had been indeed.

I woke up the next morning with something evil churning around in my belly, and it didn’t go away completely until much later that night. Bars like the Buho are great, but you’ve got to be careful, which my gluttonous self was not on the previous night. I suppose anytime you’re getting that much food for almost no money, something’s up. Anyway one day in bed and I was no worse for the wear.

Acción de Gracias/Danksgiving

Despite the fact that I was an ocean away from my family during a holiday that, more than any other, is all about family and togetherness, it ended being one of the better weekends here in Granada without a doubt. For one thing, the good people at CEGRI University had set up for us American students a thanksgiving feast, complete with a 16-pound turkey, stuffing, pies, mashed potatoes (although they were a bit on the runny side, como liquido), and bottles of wine. We’d be eating this wonderful feast in a little pueblo just outside of Granada, after a 15 minute bus ride. As if this wasn’t enough, Chris came to visit once again, and to take part in the CEGRI dinner, which he had attended when he studied there two years ago. Along with him he’d be bringing Maria of course, also one of my great friends from school. And so although I wouldn’t be with family on the day of many thanks, I’d be with people I’ve known for years and really care about, which was more than I could ask for. A good weekend it would be indeed…

Although none of the students were required to, we were all encouraged to get together and make dishes to bring to the dinner. And so naturally Eddie and I were scrambling around in Supersol (the grocery store in my neighborhood) about two hours before the bus left to the dinner, trying to find ingredients for our “dish.” But, naturally as well, we were not actually making a dish, but a beverage – alcoholic cider to be exact – as we figured there’d be plenty of food but, considering this was a university affiliated event, perhaps a shortage in the drinks department. We snagged some brown sugar, apple juice, cinnamon sticks, and coconut rum. We also picked up a bottle of wine for during preparation drinking. Next we headed to hipereuro, the Spanish version of a dollar general store, and picked up a plastic pitcher for 2.50 (this place almost always magically has exactly what you’re looking for, just of very low quality). We quite power-walked to his señoras, where we began preparing our concoction. We boiled it all up together, poured in all the rum (after taking a shot each), poured in a ton of brown sugar and, in a moment of buzzed spontaneity, peeled an orange and threw the skin and meat in too. The end result was, by our very low standards, a masterpiece.

As we were finishing up, Eddie’s señora, Ana, showed up and immediately began laughing at the sight before her: here were two skinny Americans – both at least twice her height – hovering over a large, steaming pot with empty cartons of juice and brown sugar and empty bottles of rum and wine scattered about her kitchen. Thank God she has a sense of humor, and after a good laugh she immediately began helping us clean up and transfer the cider into the 2.50 euro plastic pitcher. She also helped us wrap foil and rubber bands around the top, because part of it had already broken off. Ana is the quintessential Andalucían woman, or at least what I think is the ideal of a typical Andalucían woman. She’s short, stout, has a surprisingly raspy voice and commands an incredible amount of energy, working 3 or so jobs and taking care of a foreign student. She’s got motherly instinct in spades, and seems to be always ready to aid Eddie in whatever way she can, whether that means making him more food or giving him a foot massage after he’s gone for a long run. Her three sons (the youngest of which is now approaching thirty) still make sure to take advantage of her endlessly giving nature, and come over often to eat dinner, make fun of Eddie (all in good fun of course), or ask for a ride to the bars. She’s also seems to have a very strong sense of that southern Spanish hospitality, and is constantly inviting me over for dinner, during which, on the one occasion so far that I’ve obliged, she made sure that I’d eaten enough sopa, lomo, pan y fruta hasta el punto de que no podía moverme. After straightening Eddie and I’s collars evenly over our sweaters, we bid her goodbye, but not before she invited me over for dinner once again.

Arriving at the bus stop, I saw that Chris and Maria had not yet arrived, and so told Yanira (my conversation professor) that I was going to look for them closer to the intersection and to wait for me. About five minutes late, my good friends emerged from the corner of Gran Via. I gave them an excited holler and led them to the bus. One again, the same surreal and altogether wonderful sensation emerged upon seeing friends from the states here in Granada. Dinner was a bang up success, and so was Eddie and I’s “cidra” which, after being poured generously around our table, had other students lining up to try the brown sugar and rum loaded libation. We feasted, caught up and killed two bottles of wine on top of the cider. After having a good hour or so to settle mountain of food and drink we’d just consumed (I was the only one to go for seconds, which felt a bit strange on a holiday where I’m used to seeing everyone go for seconds or maybe even thirds), we took the bus back down to Granada and headed to the discotheques to continue the mild amount of dancing that had begun at the restaurant. El club Vogue ended up being the choice, just of La Calle Gran Capitan. Waiting in line, I was pleased to see that not only the majority of the CEGRI students were in action, but a good chunk of our professors as well. I’d been out with Elsa (culture of Islam professor) a few times and Yanira once, but had never seen Nerea (escritura y gramatica) or Monica (arte y cultura) ready to rock before. After a bit of slightly uncomfortable milling around and conversing, Elsa resumed the dancing (not surprisingly) by taking over the empty dance floor and beginning a head-banging, hair-flying, limbs-flailing solo mosh to Rage’s “Kiling In The Name Of,” (a little surprising). I followed suit with my own nerdy hopping around and a few moves I’ve still got from my hardcore days, and before long almost all of CEGRI’s student body and at least half of my professors had taken over the dance floor, shouting and grooving in unison. So I guess that’s the difference between your relationships with your professors in the states as opposed to in Granada…

We spent the rest of the night more or less in this manner, although the music quickly took on a much mellower ambience, dominated by 80’s alt and new wave pop the likes of The Smiths and The Cure. AJ and I exchanged our best “Charlie Brown” dances for quite some time. At some point Chris and Maria disappeared completely. Chris had eaten “some bad salad” or something and had to very suddenly quit dancing and rush to his hostel to puke his guts out. Apparently, and slightly miraculously, Chris only vomited out the salad, and maintained most of his delicious thanksgiving meal where it belongs. Anyway, feeling a bit put-off (I only found out that they had left for this reason the next day), I continued to groove it down, take down Estrella Damn, and display my notorious fist-pump/foot-stomping dance moves hasta las altas horas de la madrugadora, o casi la madrugadora. Ben and I, the final two, ended up leaving the joint at about 4:30. True to the Spanish custom of partying very, very late into the night, the place was just getting cracking…

A few things seen and done in Liverpool

1) Cains Brewery: Described as "Liverpool in a Bottle" the brews have been served to Liverpudlians since 1850. The ornate red brick building on Stanhope St. was a great place to relax and soak in some brewing history.

2) Tate Liverpool Gallery: Right now they have an exhibit where you put on headphones queued up with old funk (James Brown, The Meters, etc.), while looking at modern sculptures.

3) Heebie Jiebies: Great bar with a really impressive layout - giant beer garden with a stage on first floor, arching, cavernous brick interior basement with indie and new wave music, and a richly decorated, chandaliered third floor with American funk and soul tunes. About 6 or 7 bars in the place in total - like discovery zone for drunks.

4) Cavern Club: It was very cool to be standing in relatively the same spot where the just starting out Beatles played weekly for about three years, but a bit disenchanting considering the place was demolished 20 years ago and then eventually rebuilt "to look just as it did when the Beatles played there."

5) Walk to city center with the second half of Abbey Road on my Ipod: (starting with "You Never Give Me Your Money")

6) Bombed Out Church: St. Lukes Church, bombed by the enemy in WWII, still tands erect (at least its foundations do) and is used as an open air venue for galleries, shortfilms and other arts. Very cool.

Weekend in Liverpool

A lot of factors seemed to be drawing me to Liverpool before I finally gave in and booked my flight. There’s the fact that it’s the home of George, John, Paul and Ringo, creators of the music I’ve been raised on – and I really mean raised on. My mother’s been playing Beatles songs and singing them to me since I could hold memories. The group is literally such a big deal with my grand, Irish-Catholic powerhouse of a family that at almost all get-togethers, and especially at weddings, we gather round in a giant, swaying circle and shout the lyrics to “Rocky Racoon” from the bottom of our beer-filled bellies.

There’s also the fact that I happen to have one of my oldest and greatest friends living there right now, ready to offer me a place to stay and good company for the entire weekend. As I was debating buying a ticket I started to get wind of all the Beatlemania going on back in the states as well, sparked I believe by the release of Rock Band: The Beatles Edition. All the albums were being re-released as special re-mastered or anniversary editions or something or other. I got on to Pitchfork and saw that they had had the audacity to review these re-releases, giving every single one of them 10’s I think, but still, what the hell Pitchfork. I got on Facebook and saw that my closest friends from school were having a Beatlemania party, which I was very jealous of. Anyway between my family obligations, all this hype, and the fact that the one and only Molly Boyd was there, it seemed the planets had aligned – I was going.

Easy jet is not the classiest company to fly with; in fact, it’s not even PBR classy, which is cheap but nostalgic and vaguely hip and so somehow superior to other cheap brews. Easy jet is just cheap. So naturally, when you board the plane, you can sit wherever you want. I passed several aisles until seeing a good window seat next to a woman in her 50’s or 60’s and took it. Sitting next to this woman ended up being one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. As she got up to let me in I could see immediately how nervous she was about the flight. Her movements were terse, sudden, and a bit shaky. She wore little hiking shoes, jeans, and a nice white blouse, along with tons of bracelets and other jewelry. She had heavy make-up, and hair that would be grey but was instead dyed purplish-red. Her hands shook a bit as she reached into her bag to grab her pearl white rosary and ran her fingers through a few Hail Mary’s. I felt quite bad for her. Soon she spoke: “Sorry …. I get a bit nervous,” she said. I think I commented that “it was nothing to worry about.” I then commented on here rosary, and showed her the small St. Christopher necklace I had around my neck. She smiled and calmed down a bit. I told her about my life and my travels and what I was doing in Spain.

Apparently her pre-flight jitters were all pre-flight, because as soon we got off the ground and leveled out she was visibly much more collected. She offered me a Mentos, I took it. Five minutes later she gave me the rest of the package and wouldn’t let me say no. Five minutes after that, she handed me another package, this containing halls menthols. “It’s another kind of mint,” she said. Once again, I couldn’t say no. It got better from there. As the flight attendants began rolling their carts down the aisle, she began insisting that she buy me something to drink and eat (you have to pay for this stuff on Easy Jet, because you already saved a shit-ton of money on your ticket, and they need to stiff you any other way they can). I told her I guess I’d have some tea, but I didn’t need any food. She got my English breakfast tea and also ordered a can of Pringles and a Kit-Kat bar. She opened the Pringles, ate one of them, and then handed me the rest of the can. “I know you want to eat,” she said. “I have sons.” She then handed me the Kit-Kat, too. Each time, saying no was not an option. After landing and going through customs (the immigration officer had quite a few prying questions to ask about this “Molly Boyd” I was coming to visit), I ran into my stranger-turned-benefactor one more time. It had been a rather late flight, as it was now about 1:30 in the morning. She asked how I was getting to my friend’s place, and I said I’d be taking a bus. “Do you have enough money?” she said. “Yes, I do,” I told her as firmly as I could. She looked at me with a very concerned face, stuttered, and then shoved a folded up note of 20 pounds into my hand, which I had not seen her holding. At first speechless, I then simply shouted "thank you so much!" as she walked away. Thank you, you British angel you.....

Day one started off strong, and we began a bit of a day drunk in the early afternoon. It seemed I had brought a bit of the Spanish sun with me, as Molly and Constant commented that it was unusually nice weather for Liverpool. The sun was out, and the great white English clouds sat row after row above the buildings, looking slow and officious. Beer one was at the famous Cain’s brewery close to Constant’s neighborhood. The building was impressive – a red bricked building with a tall, almost church like tower that can be seen from miles away. Molly, of course, got a whisky and soda while Constant and I tried out their “Formidable Ale.” It was a bit like an IPA but sweeter and very, very smooth. Delicious. See it in all it's formidableness below...

Beer two was at a campus bar near Liverpool University. Another ale for Constant and I and another mixed drink for Molly. Our last stop for the afternoon was a “tequila bar,” where you could get shots for only a quid. The walls were lined with every flavor imaginable of tequila, which was fine with me, because the stuff straight up doesn’t usually sit well with me. For round one I tried “black currant” and for round two “Irn-Bru,” a popular soda in the UK from Scotland. By the end of this we were more than sufficiently “pissed,” as they charmingly refer to it, for the sun to still be up. However, this did not stop Constant from making a risotto when we got back to his place, and a damn good one at that. It consisted of Asparagus and red and orange peppers wrapped in bacon and drizzled with olive oil, and then some rice cooked to perfection. Although he said it was “so easy,” I couldn’t have made it, and so was impressed as well as grateful. As time rolled by at the apartment, Constant got sleepier and sleepier while Molly and I got more and more restless. Eventually he decided to just call it a night and let Molly and I have our own fun for the night. Understandable…Alas, he had had class that morning and Molly I had done, well, jack. Not much needs to be mentioned about our night; we did exactly what you would imagine two Irish, former Catholic grade school classmates who haven’t seen each other in almost a year or more, would do. Ales were drank, I think a little dancing to James Brown happened, and at one point, as I was getting a bit confused with the currency, I spilled something like 20 quid in coins all over the bar and just had the bartender take whatever the pint of Estrella Damn had cost, hurriedly shoving the rest back into my pockets. We had a fantastic night, but embarrassingly enough for me, it ended in incessant hiccups which I could not control. That was the sign it was time to go home I guess.

When I woke up and finally checked out pictures from the night the next day, I had to laugh out loud. I had attempted to take several pictures of the Liverpool skyline at night from Albert Dock on the way home, and each one was blurred beyond recognition. I suddenly recalled getting the shot focused, holding the camera still, pressing the shutter and then violently hiccuping right before each picture took. Twas quite frustrating. Here is the hilarious result:

We got moving and checked out the Liverpool World Museum. After the aquarium and bugs/fossils, Constant and Molly opted to check out the space/galaxies exhibit, while I went to the Ancient Egyptian one (far superior). We saw this as an analagy for our takes on life: Constant prefers to peer into the wonders of the future and the infinite universe while I prefer to gain wisdom from the past. Anyway, ancient Egypt is cool, but standing in place to read exhibits while you’re achy, sweaty, and have a headache is not. Pretty soon we met back up in the lobby to head back to the docks/Constant’s apartment to rest up.

Saturday night was the big house/techno show at Chibuku, a very hip club in Liverpool with at least three stages of dance music on different floors. Earlier in the week Molly had miraculously bought the last three tickets for the show, and we were all pretty pumped to go. Shows like this are, for me anyway, a bit interesting. I can get into it, but not nearly as much as all the people around who are blasting off on rollers and uppers and whatever else, like the girl I met from Essex who insisted that a spider had been “dub step dancing” on her head, and warned me to watch out for it. Anyway we danced/sweat our hearts out for hours. I’ve been to big name dance shows like Daft Punk and Justice, and I’d say the quality of this one was somewhere between those and the discoteca I foolishly blew some money on in Granada. The headliner, Simian Mobile Disco, was pretty good, but I was a lot more impressed by the set before them, done by a group called Fake Blood. I had a great time, but didn’t notice any dub-stepping spiders in my hair.

Sunday morning brought about a truly exciting event, something we had literally been planning all weekend, a full, traditional English breakfast. Our limbs exhausted from walking around and dancing all the previous day, we sat down to fried eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, blueberry muffins, rye toast with butter, and even some store bought mince meat pies, which I ate but Molly and Constant passed on. After breakfast, we all went into food comas and slept for another few hours – a perfect Sunday. From here on out the weekend was way more laid back. We checked out more museums (they’re all free in the UK!) and saw a movie, Zombieland, which was all right, but certainly no Shawn of the Dead. I think the movie would have been a total bust if not for Bill Murray’s excellent cameo. The man could save any movie. I arrived at John Lennon Airport for my Monday evening flight to Malaga feeling like I had only just gotten there. I didn’t meet any charming British ladies on my flight who wanted to offer me tea and chocolate and money, but I guess that kind of good fortune only happens once in a lifetime, if at all. The weekend had been “well -good,” “mint,” “proper,” and all the other ways the charming folks of Liverpool have for saying a good time.

The Iberian Peninsula's Highest

Although I did bring hiking boots and a camelback (the camelback is now kind of ruined from me putting one euro red wine in it), I had no intention of doing this before I came to Spain. I did it on a whim, which is how all great adventures should be done. While hiking between the villages of the Alpujarra almost a month ago (which was the first time I’ve ever actually gone “hiking”), something clicked, and I found myself really enjoying the experience and wanting to return again as soon as possible. My friend Eddie shared the same sentiment, and we started making vague plans to come back, this time with our eyes set on something bigger. With the fall weather progressing further and further, we realized that our chance to conquer the mighty Mulhacen might soon disappear, at least without picks and spiked boots and real winter coats. In fact a couple people had told us that the weather was already too dangerous, could change dramatically at any moment while we were up there, and leave us in a blinding fog, sub zero temperatures or worse. Above all, we were more than once told that we should go with a guide. But to go with a guide – someone to make sure we always took the most direct, quickest paths and never got lost, someone to be able to see the signs early on of bad weather and keep us away from any chance of injury or fatal error – no no, that simply would have ruined the entire adventure. We took as many precautions as we could by ourselves: got a decent map, brought rain gear, more than enough food, lighters, a flashlight, and of course checked to make sure the weather would be clear, or at least was predicted to be clear, and that was it. I called and booked a reservation for the refuge the day before in broken Spanish, and we were on our way.

My mountain climbing comrades......

Edward Miller (right): in ROTC at U of I and will join the ranks of the few, the proud, the Marines after graduation in May. Has run marathons and climbed Mt. Fuji, and is by far the most in-shape out of the three of us. Reads the new Dan Brown with the cover off, so that nobody knows he’s reading the new Dan Brown.

Josh Clermont (left): calm, collected, French.

As for me? I smoke, sometimes a lot. I’ve gone to the gym before – almost out of feeling of sheer obligation because I feel like if I’ve paid that much in tuition money for the school to build a new rec center, than I’d better go use the damn rec center once in a while – but I never enjoy it. Needless to say, I’m not in great shape.

The journey began with a bus ride out of Granada all the way up to the last Alpujarran town before the path to Mulhacen, Capileira. How the driver was able to guide a two ton vehicle all the way up the winding, narrow mountain roads filled with blind corners, all with a stick-shift, I’m not sure, but it was certainly impressive. Once in Capileira, Josh and I waited up for Eddie (he had missed the early morning bus by minutes and so was now on the next one, scheduled to come about two hours later). We bought a map, had a local guide outline our course in highlighter, and overall just got as familiar with the trail as we could in a two hour time span, which was not very much. The guide told us it would take us five and a half to six hours to get to the refuge, but we had higher hopes than that. As soon as Eddie’s bus pulled in, we were off. We had to make the refuge by sundown on a trail we’d never been on, and it was already almost three.

After an hour or so on the trail we came across the first and most obvious landmark along the way, the abandoned village of Cebadilla. Once a small settlement for laborers at a hydroelectric power plant, it now makes for a ominous sight and novelty for hikers. The windows on the buildings are all long since broken through, and all that’s left of the interiors is graffiti lined walls and heaps of broken glass, old appliances and other rubble on the floors. A church loomed on the left side of the road as we passed through, cross still standing erect at its crest, but no trace of any stained glass or other adornments it may have worn in the past. I pictured this as the kind of place kids in La Alpujarra dare each other to stay the night at, and I’m sure countless legends surround the mysteriously abandoned buildings.

From Cebadilla we had to walk up through the old hydroelectric power plant, back onto a trail, and then begin gaining altitude, fast. This was probably the first really rigorous part of the trail, which consisted of about a half hour long, very steep and upward winding ascent. Once the trail flattened out a bit, Mulhacen could soon be seen in the distance, still very far away. We passed little huts here and there, some looking like they might be inhabited and others long abandoned. Finally we came across definite reassurance that we were going the right way, an arrow shaped sign that read “Refugio Poqueira” that pointed the way we were going. Pretty sure this was the only actual sign during the entire ascent to the peak. Instead, markers came in the form of occasional yellow and white striped wooden posts or tiny stacks of stones that other climbers had kindly placed along the way. And actually, those worked out really well. I think we only got lost once or twice, and not for more than 15 minutes or so. Soon after the sign we took a break in the river valley below Mulhacen, cool mountain water flowing around us as we dug into chorizo, M'n'M's, manchego, apricots, rasin’s, a spainish version of goldfish, peanuts, a fine spread.

After the valley the trail got steep, and didn’t let up until we reached the refuge. This two-to-three hour stint was brutal, and at the same gorgeous. Every time I’d feel my legs burning like hell and my heart pounding out of my chest, I’d look up, lightheaded from the thinning air and see a wild landscape all around me: dark clouds forming over Mulhacen due to the dropping temperature, trees and shrubs thinning and being replaces with barren rock, a sea of valley and hills below us stretching to the horizon. The beauty of it all allows you to push yourself much, much farther than you normally would. When we finally caught sight of the refuge, although too beat to show it, we were more than pleased. Mission accomplished for day one of the excursion. We had made the hike in about five and a half hours.

At the refuge we were each given a key to our lockers, which contained two wool blankets to keep us warm in our bunks. Once again, we feasted on the groceries we had brought. Feast appears here....










We fell asleep to the sound of freezing wind whipping around the mountain bed….


Woke up around 7:00 am, paid for a five euro breakfast of cereal, coffee, toast with cheese or jam or meat paste (which was actually really good) and set off. The trail was gorgeous. We followed the "rio Mulhacen" all the way to its mouth, which lie to the west of the peak. From there the trail was at its most brutal – a zigzagging climb that seemed almost completely vertical on delolate red and brown rock that made it appear as though we were on some other planet. It seemed like we were taking breaks every five minutes to catch our breath. Small patches of snow began appearing on the path as we got close.

After three hours, we summited, and beheld all the spoils that come with it. Looking down we could see a thin layer of clouds below us and smaller mountains all around us. Granada was smaller than my thumb. Already at the summit was a duo of Polish travelers, whom we had met the night before at the refuge. Warm handshakes and congratulations were shared. Soon thereafter a Spanish couple, Miguel from Granada and Teresa from Portugal, summited from the other side of the mountain. Miguel shared with us some fruit very typical of Andalucia, called higos, that he had brought up with him. After the Poles descended, another group from Gibraltar soon came up. It was incredible. Here we were on the top of Spain, trading stories above the clouds with people from all over the world. Quite possibly the quickest hour of my life so far.

Afternoon at the Bullfight

This will come of as naive, but up till the very moment when I saw the torreros stabbing at the big beasts with colorful staves with ribbons on them, I had no idea they actually killed the bulls at these things, or at least I had no idea that that was pretty much the sole purpose of the event. Needless to say I was a bit shocked when, because the first bull was a bit too stalwart, or perhaps had not been stabbed precisely in the right spot by the fighter, a torrero had to repeatedly raise a knife in the air with both hands and slam it down onto the bull's skull until it stopped groaning and twitching. Yes, this was the most violent thing I had ever seen with my own eyes.

I was shocked, but not offended. For as much violence as there was, there was just as much or even more art, sport, and culture along with it. And did you know that, although a rarity, when a bull acutally succeeds in evading the fighters stabs for long enough or actually injures the matador to the point where he can no longer fight, the bull is considered the victor and gets to spend the rest of his life mating with loads of female bulls, spreading his seed to make future champion bulls? Either way, whether the animal goes down in a colorful spectacle of gore and applause or dies from old age and a way overworked libido, I'd say his end was way better than that of the countless other cattle that are routinely slaughtered daily and unceremoniously.

Like I said before, besides the gore, there really was a lot of sport and athleticism to this thing. Typically, there are a total of six fights, four of which we watched at this particular event before my friend Meg said she had had enough. Like me, I don't think she was all that offended, but after seeing four bulls stabbed to death, she simple didn't desire to see anymore. I don't blame her. The most impressive fight by far was the second, in which an apparently quasi famous matador, dressed in very flashy orange, white, and gold, did the fighting. (Naturaly, neither Meg nor I recognized or remember the names of any of the fighters). The guy without a doubt had the skills to back up his audacious outfit. Several times, rather than wave the red flag standing up, he got down on his knees and waved it out in a totally defenseless position. Had the bull for some reason found his orange outfit more enticing, or had he not waved the bandera with the correct motions, he would have been trampled for sure. At one point he allowed the bull to pass by him not once but two times in a row in this position before standing up. At another point he brought the flag in a little closer to his body and, rather than pull it up and allow the bull to run past him, kept it at his side so that the bull continued to circle him over and over, grabbing the beast by the neck as he spun with it in tandem. Eventually, the bull did for a moment get the best of him. As the matador attempted yet another athletic feat, or tempting of fate, he was tripped up and fell over. The bull seized the opportunity and charged the fallen competitor. The matador instictively and wisely grappled the bull around the neck with his body, so as not to be gored. Although the bull bucked and reared, he couldn't shake the fighter, and within seconds four or five torreros came out to distract him with flags from all sides. The matador apperently knew it was now safe to let go, and sure enough, the bull entirely forgot about him and charged at the array of colorful new targets around him. Next came a truly symbolic and romantic moment in the fight. The slightly trampled matador, now visibly bleading through his orange tights/pants from an injury his lower leg, wrapped a tourniquet above the wound and called off the other torreros. He walked back out to face the bull again. Blood ran down his leg from the bull just like blood ran off the bull's back from his knives. In a rather ballsy display, the matador continued to play with and tease the bull with his flag, rather than kill him right away. But eventually, an end had to come. As the bull charged for the last time, rather than meeting a raised red flag, he met the matador's rigid sword, thrust perfectly through the top of his neck and into his vital organs. The bull staggered for what seemed like a minute, unable to move, and as the matador motioned wildly with his arm, as if telling it to die, the beast reared upward and collapsed on to the ground, dead on the spot. The matador's one thrust had really been perfect.

A quick not about the people in the seats around us at the event: They were almost all American, which I guess wasn't too surprising since we were in the cheaper section of the stadium. Besides their clothes and language, something that distinguished them as fellow americans was the fact that they had brought snacks. No sooner had a group of guys sat behind us than they began eating family sized bags of sour cream and onion lays. Some girls that were with them also began busting out cookies and chips and all sorts of junk. It got weirder...... While blood was at the same moment gushing from the back of a freshly stabbed bull below us, girls to our left were talking about what kind of sandwhiches their host mothers had made them. "Is that chicken?" a girl asked in the most nonchalant voice possible to her companion, who had just unwrapped the foil from a sizable bocadillo, as a bull below us, already with several knives stuck into his back, is being continuously stabbed to death. "O no, it's an egg and cheese sandwhich," she says after taking a bite. "So good!" she adds. I think they would have offered some snacks to their other friend, but she was too busy crying her eyes out at the amazing brutality taking place before her. I guess she was a bit more sensitive.....

*The photos for this post were taken by the very cool, very talented Meg Anderson, all rights reserved, etc., etc. If you are impressed, as you should be, you should totally give her a job. Just sayin.*

Weekend with Deboo/Day of Gustation

It’s difficult to describe the feeling you get when, after spending a month submerged in a new atmosphere with total strangers speaking a totally different language, you see a familiar face; but it’s a good one. Yes, it had only been a month, but I believe that even in that short of a time you can begin to forget your home and your friends – how the people close to you act and what it is about them that makes you smile and laugh. Anyway, seeing Chris this last weekend was a very welcome reminder of home and the people I’m starting to miss. The feeling was almost surreal, seeing him standing there in Cegri’s courtyard as I walked out of class on Thursday, like a piece from the wrong puzzle now suddenly transposed into the picture before me. We spent the weekend in pretty regular Granada style, eating a lot of tapas, walking around a lot, and visiting his old haunts from when he studied here two years ago.

Thursday was basically recap time. Neither of us felt great, myself a having a little esfriado and he being a little travel weary, and after some tapas on Calle Navas, ended up spending the remainder of our night at Bar Loop, a fantastic bar right on my street that sells records and literally never plays a song I don’t want to hear, except maybe when they played “Times Like These,” by The Foo Fighters the other night – o well….. We spent about two hours there, recapping, sharing Granada impressions, and drinking Bud diesels (something else that reminds me of home).

Friday night Chris’s travel weariness and exhaustion from having a bit of a day drunk caught up with him, and he ended up staying in. A professor at Cegri, Elsa, who had gotten to know Chris pretty well two years ago, was graciously putting him up until his flight on Tuesday. As for me, I met up with some fellow students, and headed up to the Albaicin. We first went up to the Mirador de San Nicolas, which had been my plan, but unfortunately by the time we got up there the bars were closing. I guess the view had been worth the climb up there? So it was back down the winding streets of the Albaicin to Gran Via, where we knew of shop still open to buy litros de Alhambra. We picked up our litros, and I was the only one to pick up two. (This made me feel like more of a drunk than my companions, but proud at the same time?) We strolled up to another vista, one that we know of in the Albaicin from which you can also see the Alhambra, but not as high up as the Mirador. We spent the night chatting and getting buzzed underneath that massive, ancient monument.

Saturday, por suerte, Chris was ready for action. Since Thursday we had been on and off discussing a trip to Almeria to see his old friend Xavier, an Almeria native who had been studying in Granada at the same time as Chris. However news of shitty weather and more shitty weather from Almeria and the southeastern coast made us finally decide to forget it. Cabo de Gata would be incredible, but a lot less incredible during a torrential downpour, and Granada surely has enough going on by itself. We met up sometime in the early afternoon at a very nice bar off Calle Darro. It happened to be Elsa’s birthday, and I entered the bar to find him carousing with her family, all of whom seemed to be as open and funny as her. A day-drunk ensued. Plenty of beer (and later tea) was drank, probably the best tapas I’ve had here so far were eaten – compliments of Elsa’s family, and cigarettes were chain-smoked by all. They were really great people, and had some pretty interesting local expressions to share, for instance:
1) De Puta Madre (fucking awesome) – For instance: “!Estas tapas son de puta madre!”
2) Tiki Tiki (sex) – Example not needed…….
3) Si, y una Polla (very rude way to say no to someone if they ask you for something, not sure exactly what it translates to, but I think it’s vulgar) – I’ll have to remember to use this one on the bum in suspenders who walks into cafes unnanounced
to demand a cigarette from people.
We parted ways with Elsa and her family and, a little dazed, headed to catch a bus to the other side of town. Chris had some stuff to pick up at the hipercor, a mall type building with a silly amount of floors and departments and merchandise – almost like walmart – and then some. We sampled wine from a very rotund, slippery sort of man in the gourmet foods section. When he asked me what kind of wine I’d like to sample, and I responded “lo mas seco,” I was not expecting of the tannish coloured, brandy tasting business that he ended up filling my glass with, but I drank it just the same. I have no idea what sort of food you would “pair” that stuff with – very intense. Chris’s wine was also intense, although a bit more normal looking at least.
Now it was off to continue the marathon of eating and drinking at a nearby tapas bar. I can’t remember the name of the place, but it had a very Latin feel to it, both with the food and the atmosphere. We got two round each of canas y tapas. My first was pretty de puta madre, a mini pork chop sandwich with some red sauce while the second, some small mushy spinach empanadas, were not as de puta madre but still edible. Now it was time for the mother of all tapas bars, and el mejor by far – El Nido del Buho. A bit of a trek from the neighborhood we were currently in, but no matter. We needed to work off a bit of the beer and tapas we had been consuming all day anyway. Once at the Buho, Chris ordered the tuna with red sauce and I got the stuffed avocados. We then each swapped half of our plates for the others. Cute, right? The Buho is this weird/beautiful enigma in Granada where the tapas are somehow able to be 4 times larger than tapas at any other bar, and yet the same price of 2 euro with your wine or beer. The amount of food they give you for next to nothing actually kind of scares me, but hey, I haven’t ended up having to kneel at the toilet after eating there yet, so I trust them so far.
After the Buho it was off to a teteria to relax and settle our bellies. My tea, “Mil Flores,” did not taste like a thousand flowers, but rather peach rings – an old fashioned candy that used to be one of my favorites – in liquid form. Chris’s was a little less sugary and tasted a lot like the green tea with honey you can get back home. Soon enough we met up with Eddie, grabbed litros de Alhambra, and spend the next few hours at the Mirador smoking and drinking and staring at the Alhambra (not the beer, but the ancient Moorish monument in front of us). I think I spend too much time drinking beer in plazas here……..

The Españolification of English Words

Agh....the very excellent bar I've discovered in my neighborhood, Pícaro, where I've been coming to for café con leche and internet that thus far has played excellent soul tunes, the likes of Ray Charles and Bill Withers, is now playing live Sting. I'm listening to this tantric-sex-having idol of wealthy housewives around the world singlehandedly destroy his own songs, which were groundbreaking 20 years ago and are now being reinvented as slowed-down, smooth jazzy mush. I feel utterly betrayed. But hey, I guess nobody's perfect. I'll let it slide for now, Pícaro.

Anyway enough of the Sting rant. Here's something I though was blogworthy, or at least mildly funny: Tons of words here, being English in origin or from American pop-culture, are here in Spain used with the same spelling and meaning, but pronounced Spanish style. I guess this is bound to happen, because there are vowels and consonants in English that people are just not accustomed to here at all, but sometimes it sounds pretty hilarious. Although I shouldn't make too much fun, considering when I try to roll my "rr's" I often end up sounding like I'm choking on something.


Whip Express (Beep Express)
Club (Cloob)
My Morning Jacket (Me Mourneeng Chocket)
Jazz (Chozz)
Michael Douglas (Meekol Dooglos)

La Alpujarra

The villages of La Alpujarra are like giant staircases on the mountain faces. Each step is another row of white stone buildings and churches, one on top of another. Laid out ingeniously, they have for a long, long time provided proper dwelling for communities in an area that, if I understood the guide’s Spanish correctly, has not one but five separate climate zones in the 30 miles from the mountain villages to the sea. Hiking the area, I found myself actually getting high off thin air and mammoth landscape. One section of path would feel like hilly areas in northern Wisconsin, with pine trees and familiar shrubs, while another would feel almost tropical, with trees that had giant bright green leaves and rushing streams. Every now and then I’d look up and see yet another small white village, perched securely near the top of a mountain face. How many of them there are extending from the south of Granada’s city proper to Spain’s small eastern coast, I’m not sure.
There’s not much else I can say about the place that would make much sense in writing. Some friends and I are already cooking up plans to return, this time climbing one of the highest peaks in the area, with little equipment and probably no guide.
A bit reckless? Perhaps.
But worth it? In every way.This was my first taste of mountain climbing/hiking, and I can already see why for some people, this becomes an addiction and life pursuit……

Nerja

Thoughts of getting myself to a pool, beach, mountain spring or any source of cool aquatic relaxation have been floating through my head pretty much as soon as I landed in Granada. Although not very humid due to the dryness, this place is hot, with temperatures that hovered around the hundreds for the entire first week here.

So last weekend, the dream became a reality as the other students in the program and I headed for Nerja, a beautiful costal town about two and a half hours south of Granada. The bus ride, although a bumpy one, was gorgeous. I was thinking the other day about weather, and how it never seems to change here, and how in the Midwest it changes constantly, with beautiful storms that roll in and change the color of the sky to a deep gray or sometimes even red hue before unloading all that wonderful water. I miss those storms, but as I looked out my window on that bus ride through the Sierra Nevada I realized something this area´s got that at least makes up for if not totally dwarfs its lack of weather; as you move through the landscape, it actually changes, dramatically. Hills unfold into more mountains, mountains unfold into more mountains still. Small villages of whitewashed homes and factories pepper the hillsides. Soon the landscape descends lower and lower until you can´t see any more peaks out in front of you, and suddenly, there´s the sea staring you in the face. Ya, there´s not anything happening in the sky, but who needs to look at the sky with such an incredible landscape around you.

Upon arriving in Nerja, we realized right away that out of the 15 or so of us on the trip, none had bothered to check out a map of the place, and where our hostel might be on that map. Responsibility did not just diffuse with numbers in this case, it straight up disintegrated. Anyway somebody called the hostel, and we met the guy who runs it in a plaza nearby.

The proprietor of our hostel turned out to be a bit of a sight for sore eyes. He had bleached blonde hair, very casual sort of hippie-sheik clothing, and pale skin. He was American, raised in the Midwest even, and talked with that sort of outer planetary, “I’m not gonna come down to earth cuz I’m on a higher plane man” sort of drawl that you only hear from the headiest of heads back at American music festivals. I liked the guy. He began calmly explaining to us that, due some sort of loophole or flaw in the online booking system, we had somehow booked the hostel for about twice its capacity. But apparently this wasn’t a huge deal, as he soon began leading all of us there anyway. The place was nice. Everything was clean, there were two bathrooms, a large outdoor sink (we used it as a shower as well), a back patio with mosaic tiles on the wall, and a decent sized terrace up top. Although at first we thought some of us might have to look elsewhere for a place to sleep, we managed to make it work, with all the girls sharing twin beds (thanks girls), and the guys sleeping on whatever else was available: a cot in the laundry room, two mattresses on the terrace, the sofas in the front room, etc. The place was definitely over-booked, but we made it work, and surprisingly with little discomfort for all parties involved.

I'll say a little bit more about the proprietor/manager of the hostel, and the life he leads, or at least appeared to have led during our brief 3 days and 2 nights there. However I’ll preface this by saying that I did like the guy. He was genuine and nice and everything, I just would never want to live the way he lived. To start, I never once saw him leave the hostel, and I don’t think anyone else did either. Not only that, but he never really left his table, on top of which was always a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, a mamouth work of objectivist philosophy and fiction, rolling papers, rolling tobacco, and a hash pipe, which he was perpetually smoking, day in and day out. Next to him was an I-pod player that perpetually played Grateful Dead, or offshoots of the Grateful Dead post Jerry Garcia’s death. At one point I made a reaching comment along the lines of “O! Nice. Grateful Dead huh?” and he was quick to inform me that it was not, in fact, Grateful Dead, but Bob Weir’s (rhythm guitar, backing vocals for the Grateful Dead) band, who were also “very excellent.” The exact same thing happened to a friend of mine the next day, except this time he had to inform her that it was not Grateful Dead, but Phil Lesh’s (bassist of Grateful Dead) band. Whatever, the player was always on, and I’m almost dead positive that nothing else was ever playing besides something with at least one of the members of the Grateful Dead involved. Someone said that he played a Beatles song at one point, but I’m pretty sure it was the Grateful Dead covering the Beatles. A bit strange, but then I guess I can think of worse, a lot worse, bands that I could have had to listen to for 48 hours straight. When I said this guy perpetually smoked his hash, I meant it. It was very much a non-stop process. At one point someone apparently told him that he did so too much, and he apparently replied that he had to, because when he didn’t, he didn’t like people. And that was it. Don’t know how he ended up in Nejra as a manager of a hostel, or for how long he’d been spending his days on a strict diet of hash, objectivist philosophy and Jerry (I never saw him eat anything either). I couldn’t live that way, but I respect what he does. He keeps a clean establishment and everything for travelers from all over Europe, and is certainly friendly enough, and I’d recommend his hostel to anyone.

We spend the days in Nejra roasting it up on the beaches and cooling off in the Mediterranean water. I don’t really have too much to say about the beach during the day. I’m not really the biggest beach guy, and get tired of the hot sun pretty quickly, but it was sure as hell relaxing.
The highlight of the weekend for me was definitely the “secret beach.” It so happened that at the hostel, I was sharing a room with a really kind gentlemen from Manchester. After little chatter, he told me that not too far off the beaten path of the main beaches that we were at during the day, there lay a few, as he put it, “private beaches,” that were ideal for bringing a few bottles of wine and good friends to during the nights. I went downstairs, confirmed the existence of these elusive beaches with the hostel manager who I've just finished describing, and he even showed me where they were on a map. After at least 10 collective bottles of wine on the terrace with the group, we decided to go find the “secret beach,” and headed out equipped with still more wine and vodka. The journey was pretty quick. I think for a fleeting moment I began to worry that I was leading everyone to a place we couldn’t actually find, or didn’t exist, but it was very fleeting. I was already too intoxicated to be all that concerned about it. After heading east along the beach and climbing over and around a few large boulders, we found ourselves in a truly picturesque place. Totally enclosed by mountain and rocks on all sides except the sea, it truly was secluded. The night was still as could be, with only the slightest breeze coming in from the sea. The waves whashed up against the shore like a quaint symphony. The moon reflected brilliantly off the water. We were there. We opened our bottles, toasted to the view, and had a ball on that tiny little beach out of sight from anyone or anything. Everyone was in their element, totally content, and I don’t know how you couldn’t be in a place like that. I could have stayed there for a lot, lot longer….