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……..
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……..
My next birthday party will be awesome, so you shoul come!!!!
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