Word Association: Granada Edition

After the fun time in Sevilla, Carolyn and I headed to Granada for a couple of days to meet up with Carolyn's gracious friend RJ. I honestly didn't know anything about Granada before I went (except for the answering machine song in The Simpsons), but quickly learned a very important lesson in word association: Granada = free tapas!

More Flamenco dancing we saw due to the Corpus Cristi festival.

RJ told us that Granada was unique in that whenever you ordered a drink, a free tapas would always come free with it. Now, I'm not really a big drinker, but with this kind of motivation, I had to step up my game. Before we met up for tapas, RJ took Carolyn and I to an area of Granada influenced by the Moors known for tea and hookah. It was a really nice area to walk around and also get a beautiful view of the Alhambra (more on this in a bit).

Tea and hookah with RJ.

Awesome view of the Alhambra.

After our tea and hookah, RJ and his girlfriend Anna (a very lovely girl) took us out one to try a few of his favorite tapas places. The first place we went was Poe, which was a very unique tapas place in that the owner and his wife were British and African, respectively, so the tapas they served were a fusion of a lot of different cuisines and were so good. Again, I'm not a big drinker, but one drink I did enjoy was called clara, which is a mix of lemonade and beer. Along with my drink, I got a couple of delicious, small rice dishes: one with spicy pork, thai style, and the other a saucy chicken dish. The second place we went to was known for their seafood. Along with our drinks, we got some cucumber with vinagrette, deep fried cod, and a really good octopus salad.

Tapas from Poe.

Octopus salad.

A naked dude we saw in the streets. Not tapas.

The night continued when we met up with a RJ's friends Flora and Esmeralda and went to a giant fair to celebrate the Corpus Cristi festival. The fair was outrageous. If the Puyallup Fair was Nate Robinson, the Corpus Cristi festival was Shaq...on steroids. Pretty much everything was on steroids. We had to call it quits at 4am, but there were still tons of families with young kids out when we left. They even had clubs at this fair! We rode a few rides, but the best part of the night was at the end when we got some churros dipped in chocolate. One order of churros came in a giant swirl of deep fried doughy goodness, but because the guy liked us, he gave us one free. We shouldn't have eaten the second one, but of course we did.

At the fair!

Churro madness.

Like I've mentioned before, it's always nice to balance fun/eating with some culture, so Carolyn and I went to Granada's most famous sight, the Alhambra, a Moorish palace built in the 14th century. It was beautiful and probably the most well-kempt and scenic palace we'd seen on our whole trip. There were a lot of pristine gardens as well as gorgeous views of the city from the towers. Along with getting a dose of culture, I also thought it would be a great experience to attend a Catholic mass in Granada's largest cathedral. Never having attended a Catholic mass before, I was pretty sure I'd be a little confused, but then I remembered it would also be in Spanish, so being confused twice would cancel out. Right? Right. Because of the Corpus Cristi festival, the mass was special and ended with a giant float-type thing being carried out of the cathedral by 20 or so boys into the streets while music played. Definitely a very interesting and unique experience that I was happy to be able to see.

The open air hall.

The lookout for the army.

Where's Waldo?

My first experience at mass.

One last note about my time in Granada. I'm sure most of you who have seen some pictures of me on the trip think I look slightly to extremely homeless. Well, in Granada I finally got to play the part. The owner of our hostel was kind of a grumpy old lady and not very accommodating, so when I asked to rest in the hostel lounge after we checked out (I was a little sick), she of course said I couldn't, so I had to find an alternative place to rest for the day. To the park! I found a nice shaded park not too far from our hostel and made camp for about five hours. Finally my facial hair and sleeping situation was in concert. Thanks, Granada!