Give him a penny, woman, cause there is nothing worse than being blind in Granada!

This is really true. Granada in general, and the Alhambra in particular, have an old world charm that is partly caused by its layering of civilization. From the ground up, we have a Roman ruins followed by the Alcazaba, the old tower and fort that once defended the Muslims against those reconquesting Christians, the Palacios Narazies, the Sultan's quarters during the Moorish reign of Al-Andalus (Spain), and Charles V's palace, which he built over the Muslim palace after they were conquered. And connecting these parts, are the Generalife (he-ne-ral-eef-ay) Gardens, which put the Oregon Gardens to shame.

Ok, that was a lot of unnecessary history to tell you that the ALHAMBRA COMPLETELY ROCKED!!!! It was such an elegant, simple beauty with the main architectural features being marble, plaster stalactites, open courtyards, and water, which was upheld as the closest thing to heaven (and in a desert, believe you me, it is). By simple, I do not mean it was any less grand. It just had a more refined grandoisity to it compared to, for instance, the Royal Palace in Madrid, which is all showy and barroque. (And I always say: If it's not barroque, don't fix it!... ha ha..ha) I spent several hours wandering around like a pez dispenser and snapping about a million photos. Seeing the Alhambra was the single motivating factor in coming to Granada, as it is for most people. I was fascinated by the palace, and how it has survived over the years.

I spent the rest of the day walking and busing around the Old Moorish Quarters, dodging Roma women (or Gypsies, in colloquial terms) who kept accosting me with sprigs of rosemary and trying to seize me hands to read a fortune and get some cizash. Ana the Aussie said that she thought they were all nuns outside of churches who were collecting for the poor, and thus gave to them generously. Oddly enough, seeing the Alhambra today actually made me quite sad because it was so beautiful and there was no one to share it with.

Yesterday, as you may or may not have noticed, did not get a post. This is mostly because it was a horrible day. I'll give you the reader's digest version, becuase I don't want to rehash every gritty detail of the horrible nightmare. Let's just be vague and mysterious and say that I carried heavy luggage around for four hours, saw boring sights, almost got stranded and a random city until I ran after the bus and flagged it down, wandered the streets of Granada for hours...alone...at night...trying to find the impossible hostel (or should I say hostile) that no one had ever heard of because it was in a FREAKING ABANDONED ALLEY... Well, I am alive and happy, and learned a few lessons that day... such as: Don't follow directions from people who clearly don't know what they are talking about!

The hostel, upon second review, turns out to be wonderful. It is called the "Funky Backpacker's Hostel," and it is full of English-speaking travelers who came to Granada from all over for the same reasons I did. I met some very cool people that quickly brought me out of my loneliness. One fellow Adrien the Aussie (apparently all of my friends here are destined to be Australian) and I decided to see a flamenco performance at the Alhambra last night. It was quite an expensive performance, but the idea was to blend flamenco with more contemporary dance styles such as STOMP from New York. Although it was very good, it wasn't quite the traditional flamenco we were looking for, even though it did have elements of cante jondo or the "deep song" Roma roots to flamenco that is very pretty. Adrien is graduated and does "computer animation," which he described as making short movie clips "like Pixar." He kept comparing it to Pixar and then saying "but not Pixar" when I would get very excited that he did their short movies. Anyway, he just finished a project and is in month two of a TEN MONTH tour of Europe... and I thought a week alone was tough... We sat next to a Professor from Northwestern University and his nosy wife who managed to extract my entire life story in a few short minutes including the age-old question dreaded by all college students: "So what are your plans after college?" *Shudder*

It has been a wonderful day, mostly because I discovered the panacea for loneliness: making friends with strangers. Pictures will come soon, but I haven't uploaded from my camera yet.