The hills are alive with the sounds of motos

Crazy weekend! On Friday I walked with my friend Karen (Dutch) way out past Sacromonte in search of the Abbey. (Previously thought to be the Monastery, as told to me by little-old-fountain-man). It was a gorgeous day and we ended up walking for several hours- way past the outskirts of town into a very rural area starting to climb into the mountains. We saw tons of farms, gardens, and quite a few goats, horses, etc. 

After a while we realized we had gone way past the abbey and had to double back and search for a road leading up towards it. We eventually found it! I am constantly blown away by the fact that buildings so old are still in use. This one was built in 1610 and still has inhabitants, as well as a loyal Sunday following. By the time we made it back into the city the sun was beginning to set. That night I went dancing with the girls, back to a club called Camborio up in the caves of Sacromonte.

Saturday was used in preparation for our big Melrose Party. The guys brought in all their theatrical lights (they were very impressed with my knowledge of Pars, etc) and sound equipment, as well as a few projectors to play 80’s movies on the walls of other buildings. We put little candles all over the roof, and had enough food and drinks for tons of people.

Just as soon as we had everything all ready, I snuck out to go and meet Gillian and her parents as they had an extra ticket for a flamenco show. As always, it was incredible. This one was a little different from the others that I’ve seen as there was a strong influence of classical ballet mixed in. I found it incredibly interesting. The back of the stage was all glass with a view of the Alhambra. I will never get tired of seeing it all lit up at night.

After the show I ran back to the party, which was in full swing. It was great to meet some new people, as well as practice my Spanish. Late into the evening a few of us ducked over to a nearby disco for some dancing.

Sunday I was picked up by a guy named Angel who works for the company that owns our building and is really good friends with the guys.  He had invited me to his mom’s birthday party the night before, and it sounded like it could be, if not fun, at least interesting. As it turned out, I had a fantastic time. We rode out of Granada on his moto to his parent’s place; a gorgeous large home situated beautifully overlooking the outskirts of Granada. A large table was set up in the garden and there were about 30 people there, a few of whom I had met before. Champagne was poured and rounds of toasts were made. Some of the women had made incredible food- little “croquettes” that were breaded, cheesy meaty things, a salad with several unidentifiable fruits that was very sweet and delicious, as well as a giant pot of some of the best paella I’ve tried. Everyone was incredibly nice, and I was surprisingly able to keep up with a lot of the conversation. After the paella, Angels’ father passed around the after-dinner liquors and desserts were brought out- bowls of fruit, home-made cream puff things, flan, and truffles. Delightful.

Later that afternoon, Angel and I headed off into the hills on his moto and I got to see some stunning views. We stopped at a property he owns and affectionately calls “The Hippie House”. This is a structure where some dirty-looking fellows and a bunch of dogs live and hangout. When we arrived there were several guys playing guitars and some in the corner playing with kittens!! It was really odd to see a group of men with dread locks canoodling with a whole batch of teeny little kittens. We stayed there for a few minutes and then headed back to catch some more sun while it was still daylight. I have to admit, as much as I have always sworn to hate motos, I really enjoyed riding around on one yesterday. Maybe I will have to change my opinion. 

 

SABES QUE…

The national anthem of Spain, La Marcha Real ("The Royal March") has no official lyrics.  In 2007, the Spanish Olympic committee asked the public to submit lyrics proposal so people can sing instead of just hum when the anthem is played.

Todo el Mundo es una Escenario...

If my neighborhood, Realejo, were fiction it would be located somewhere in between Sesame Street and Avenue Q. Its inhabitants range from families in big gorgeous homes to illegal immigrants overcrowded into one squished apartment (such as the building across our street). One of the main streets is called Calle Molinos, and very rarely can a person walk down it without bumping into someone they know, as well as waving at the local grocer and bar owners. At one corner of this street is All Time Café/Bar, which is where I come almost daily to sip coffee (or wine) and write.
Similar to both Sesame Street and Avenue Q, there is a cast of very interesting characters. I would like to highlight two of them for you: Georgie and Mr.PickerUpper.
Georgie can usually be found in a small plaza near a park and the SuperSol (groceries). He is so much of a dead ringer for George Clooney (in ten years or so, if things don’t go well for him) that the first time I saw him I think I gasped and squealed “GEORGE!!!!” Since then, he has gone out of his way to cross to the other side of the street when he sees me coming, but I still beam at him. Some days George feels fancy, and will sport outfits that would spin the head of any costume designer. One of these was big bright peach pants, no shoes, and a fantastic dark floral green “shirt”.
Mr.PickerUpper hangs out at one of the busier plazas, a curved intersection with one of the only stretches of two-way traffic on this side of town. He stands and scans the streets, searching emphatically for… something. Every once in a while he sees whatever he’s looking for and rushes (as best he can) into the street, oncoming traffic be damned, to pick it up. It takes him the better part of thirty seconds to lean down, grab the thing and then stretch back up, but before he will return to the safety of the sidewalk he always takes the time to hold his find up and admire it with pride. The interesting thing is, however, that his hands are empty. His thumb and forefinger looks as if there would be something the size of a penny, but there is never anything there. I won’t tell him if you won’t!

And then of course smack in the middle of everything we have Melrose, tucked away on an almost hidden street. Besides the usual cast, there are often guest-stars present on set. Last night, for example, some friends of the guys came over and we had another cookout on the roof- this time with Tex Mex!! One of the guys had just received a present from a friend who traveled to Texas with great spicy seasonings and recipes, and he was excited to try it out. So imagine my surprise when I climb up to the roof to find them making spicy Texas Fajitas!! The meal tasted fantastic- just like home. We also had SarahBrown-style Margaritas, crushed ice, silver tequila, a little lime and sugar. Fantastic. Just another evening at Melrose!!

SABES QUE…
The flattened shape of pints of whiskey were created to fit into the boots of cowboys. Locals made and sold their own whiskey and sold it to the farmhands and cowhands in the old west.  Hence the name bootleg whiskey.

-William Oberrender  Mental Floss May 13,2009

FUENTE DEL AVELLANO

Yesterday I woke up feeling ambitious and decided to go for a run. I ran down through Realejo along the river and Paseo de los Tristes and was about to head up into the Albaycin when a little old man called out to me“Pardon me, but I have to show you something”. Against my first instinct I went over to him (I almost expected him to pull his pants down, you just never know with little old men) but instead he whispered to me “Have you seen the Fuente del Avellano? I’m heading there now”. With this he caught my curiosity and since it was broad daylight and there were people in screaming distance, I decided to join him down a path that led up into a wooded area, towards the direction of the Bombero cave and the hill with the Alhambra. As we walked (very very slowly) he told me all sorts of things in his crackly murmured Spanish, some of which I understood and some that just sounded like wheezy gibberish to my straining ears.

He told me that this fountain was very old and everyone seemed to have a different story about it. It was made even more famous with a song by Antonio Molina in the year 1957 called El Agua del Avellano. He also told me that Fuente del Avellano to was one of three down the path, the other two are called Orilla and Salud (which means “health” in Spanish, the water from this fountain is believed to be restorative), although I only saw the Avellano.

This little old man, Jose, works at the cemetery up near the Generalife Gardins and goes way out of his way almost daily to rinse his face in the agua del Avellano, and told me that many Granadinos and visiting Spaniards do the same. (All of this is what I think he told me— there is a chance that he was talking about the roosters invading Portugal or how to make honey).

As we walked down the path that was along the hill on the right and overlooking the river on the left there were large white stones engraved with poems by famous Spanish poets (I spotted a few Lorcas that I was familiar with!). It is a beautiful path surrounded by green and flowers. When we arrived to the end it was absolutely gorgeous! We were almost directly under the Generalife Gardins. We both enjoyed the cold water on our faces and sat down to take in the view. There is an old inscription above the fountain that says 1827 but he told me that the fountain itself is much, much older than that. I asked him about a giant building off in the distance that I have been wondering about and he told me it is a monastery, still functional although it appears that parts are in ruins. (Maybe an adventure for an upcoming day?) After a few minutes of resting, we headed back off down the trail towards the city, him off to have lunch with his wife and me to return home after a very successful run.

El agua del Avellano

by Antonio Molino

Que fresquita baja hoy
el agua del Avellano
el agua del Avellano
que en grana vendiendo voy

Al pie del Generalife
en las márgenes del Darro
hay una fuente famosa
la fuente del Avellano

Todas las mañanas subo
caminito de la fuente
y así lanzo mis pregones
cuando paso por el puente

Que baja como la nieve
el agua del Avellano
que baja como la nieve
cristalina y con anises
fresquita no hay quien la pruebe
el agua del Avellano

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs80V7fnJRE

SABES QUE…
The Granadinos don’t pronounce Granada that way; they simply say “Graná”.

Shameless Plug

Like what you're reading? Feel free to drop a buck in the tip jar:

Dia del Carne at Melrose

At Marly's request...

The other day was Dia de los Cruces, which meant the entire city was filled with giant crosses built with carnations (and occasionally other materials) and everyone dressed in traditional gear- colorful flamenco dresses for the ladies and long striped pants with suspenders, a red sash and a hat for the men. It was really cool to walk around and see everyone dressed like this, in addition to random people dancing and singing all over the place. I also was a big fan of the men riding around the city on horses.

We’ve moved into a new place (number 4 for me in this country) in a neighborhood called Realejo. We wanted to live here because it is nice and quiet and a good part of town. So we looked at probably 25 different apartments and weren’t able to live in any of them due to neither Carol or I having proof of a job in Spain. (Neither of us receive steady pay slips for selling paintings or teaching private students.) So we were getting fairly desperate when a friend of a friend of Carol’s mentioned that his building had an opening. We went over the next day and pretty much signed right up. It’s not our ideal- a basement with no direct light- but it's new, clean and will be cool in the hot hot summer. We also love most of our neighbors. Upstairs across from the courtyard live Jaime and David and the top two floors are taken by Javie. These guys have named the place Melrose, and have created such a fun and comfortable environment. We all eat together some days on the roof terrace outside of Javie’s apartment (whether he’s here or not) and we have no qualms about inviting ourselves to sit down in someone else’s living room. The other night we had a lovely dinner with meat and wine from Portugal that Javie brought back. He and David have a music or event production company, so they have all sorts of cool music and lighting equipment. Jaime is a pharmacist. 

Yesterday we had Dia del Carne in the small courtyard (not really the right word for it- just the open tiled area in the middle of all our apartments) with various meats from here, as well as some TEXAS BRISKET that my dad brought me!!! Everything was delicious. We were joined by some of their friends so there were about 8 of us total. After way too much meat and cerveza we packed a nice little tea party and walked to the park nearby to sit in the sun and play chess and backgammon (I was the undefeated backgammon champion!) It is a rough life. I love being able to hang out and speak so much Spanish too!

The only problem at Melrose is the apartment directly above ours. It was taken (the day before us) by a couple with a two year old- and the woman is 8.5 months pregnant. These people NEVER sleep. The kid runs up and down the halls at all hours screaming – seriously until about 3 or 4 in the morning and then starts back up at 6. We’re also pretty sure they have a bowling alley set up up there. It is still phenomenally better than our last place though.

We had only been moved in for a few days when my parents came to visit!!! I was so excited to see them, even though it was only for two days. We had a great time- mostly just walking around the city and seeing all the important stuff like the Albaycin and the Alhambra. We had one really delicious dinner, but for the most part didn’t get the chance to sample the tapas. They left from here to Rome and then Prague to see my dad’s family there.

On Friday night I went out for the first time in ages. We went to a couple of our usual bars and then ended up at a bar/club in sacromonte called Camborio. It was really cool, the top floor was way up and completely surrounded by glass on the inside with a large terrace on the outside all with incredible views of the Alhambra lit up at night. Claire, Alessandra and I danced until the wee hours.

SABES QUE...

There are no tooth fairies in Spain. Instead, there is a tooth mouse named Ratoncito Pérez.


Good Cultural Fun

This was a great week full of Spanish and mini-excursions. We visited the monastery in town: Cartuja de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora, which was pretty cool. We had actually stumbled across it one of my first weekends here but didn’t know what it was and didn’t go inside. There were several galleries with huge paintings, mostly depicting Catholic priests being tortured by Protestants. This got to be a little over-the-top after a while. After more than our fill of these galleries, we went into the very last one which turned out to be the most elaborately decorated chapel I have ever seen (including ones in Rome). Every single inch of this enormous Baroque chapel was carved into elaborate images, some laced with gold and/or painted.

Another exciting excursion was to the childhood summer home of Frederico Garcia Lorca(1898 – 1936), one of my very favorite Spanish playwrights (but more famous for his poetry). It is in the middle of a park not too far from my house (but was outside the city limits when his family lived there). 

It was incredible to touch his writing desk, see handwritten pages of first drafts, and see random sketches from his good buddy Salvador Dali.

Last Sunday was another fantastic little trip-let to a small pueblo called Alhama (pronounced “a-llama”). It is a tiny little white-washed town on the edge of a cliff in the middle of beautiful farming country. 

Carol, Diego and I walked around the town and then went hiking for a few hours outside of town before settling in for a FANTASTIC authentic Spanish meal. On the way home we stopped in a small town called Santa Fe to sample some of their famous desserts- little cakelets called Pirononos. It turned out that there was a Medieval festival going on smack in the middle of town so we enjoyed walking around and looking at all of the boths set up for that. There was also an orchestra playing in a beautiful plaza, and random bagpipers strolling around. We did get to try the Pirononos and they were no disappointment.
When we arrived home from Alhama we discovered that we had a new roommate- Marco from Italy (but lives in London now). He is fun, we have all taken turns cooking food from our countries this week.
Other than that we have just been incredibly busy with hours of apartment-hunting every day. What fun to do this process for the 4th time. 
Ciao!

SABES QUE…
According to the S. Pellegrino World's Best Restaurants, Spain has 3 of the top restaurants in the world! (#1, 4 & 5)

www.theworlds50best.com

Semana Santa

This past week was a very important one in Spain: Semana Santa. Basically this entails tons of Processions- Parades that are serious religious trecks through the city, with all of these people (“Nazarenos” or “Penitents”) dressed in long hooded robes that resemble the KKK (but are much much older, but still have that connotation for me and I find them a little disconcerting) that walk very slowly. Some of them are barefoot and some have long candles or other fancy things, representing different things they are repenting. Other than them, there are women dressed all in black with tall comb things in their hair covered in long black lace, also carrying various crosses, candles and things. Each procession also has two “trunos”, or enormous float-like things that are carried by "costaleros"- men of the brotherhood (each procession is done by a different brotherhood) underneath it, resting on their shoulders. Each procession has a vision of Christ (depicting various stories from his life) and each has a Virgin. These figures are reused every year and some of them are incredibly old and well preserved. 

Each procession also has a brass band with tons of trumpets and drums, as well as gaggles of children. They all last for hours and each has a different route- including up in the Albaycin where the lanes are incredibly narrow, slippery and steep.
I saw several of the processions- and had three favorites. 1. A procession in the centre of town where Jesus got stuck in a tree and removing him became quite awkward. 2. One in the Albaycin that we all watched from the balcony of Rafa’s apartment and were just an arm away from the floats. 3. The Gitano procession, in Sacromonte (the gypsy side of the Albaycin, where the caves are) that lasted from 10 p.m.¬- 4 a.m. and included the singing of Saetas and a swift run up one of the steepest hills in town- Very impressive.

We had a day off from Spanish classes on Friday as it was a national holiday, so I joined my friend Diego for a roadtrip. 

We drove a few hours to the province of Almeria and then all along the coast. It was Absolutely Gorgeous!!! These beaches were so pristine and surrounded by rolling hills and small mountains in the distance, and the Mediterranean was so clear, I felt like I had left real life for a while. A lot of the landscape in that region is similar to parts of Africa so it is also used for a lot of films. We went to the beaches where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed, as well as the scene from Indianna Jones where Sean Connery is shooing all of the birds away with an umbrella. We saw some more of the coast on Saturday, including San José, La Cala Amarilla en Monsu, Cabo de Gata, and Playazo before heading up to Murcia, Diego’s hometown. We spent most of the day with his family at his older sister’s house. This was insane! 

The entire giant Spanish Catholic family all talking very quickly and at the same time- I was more than a little overwhelmed. That night he gave me the tour of the city and I sampled all sorts of delightful food typical of Murcia. We spent all of Sunday with the family again- a far cry from my family’s awesome traditions of Easter Margaritas and tipsy easter egg hunt/race (my favorite Svoboda holiday tradition, maybe tied with our annual Halloween pumpkin carving). I am pretty sure I ate more food that day than all of the last 4 months combined. There is no telling a Spanish woman that you are full and couldn’t possibly eat any more food. There were even several points where she got up and made plates especially for me and plopped them down in front of me. I have to admit they were all delicious, but I was miserably full for the rest of the day. 

I really did enjoy being in a rural Spanish home though, and particularly bonded with a 6 year old named Carmen. I had only a few language mishaps- they asked me what I liked best about Murcia and I (thinking they had asked what I liked better than Murcia) said “Nothing, of course!” They also apparently invited me to stay for the rest of the week and one of them would bring me back to Granada at some point, to which I replied “Thanks so much!” (thinking they had said something along the lines of ‘you’re welcome to return any time).After the meal (which lasted hours) we headed back to Granada where I had a FANTASTIC phone date with Cara and Marly. All in all, a wonderful week.
SABES QUE…
Spain has over 8,000km of beaches.