A Weekend in Granada

Happy Late Tuesday Everybody! (Sorry for the delay!)

It’s hard to believe I’ve already been in Spain for 3 weeks! It seems like just yesterday I was panicking in the airport wondering what the future held in store for me.

This past week, my grammar class went to go see a movie (“The Impossible” or in Spanish, “Lo Imposible”) in a mall. At first I was a little worried about being able to understand everything, but I didn’t have any problems at all. It was kind of reassuring to realize that after studying the language for 17 years, maybe I’m finally becoming fluent! After the movie though, our teacher just sort of left and we had no idea where we were. It turned out that we were in Nervión, which is in far east Sevilla. Triana, where I live, is in far west Sevilla, so it took me an hour and half of walking to get back home! This picture is of the mall.

I finished out the week with an intensive study session for my grammar final. These pictures are taken on the roof of the CIEE study center in downtown Sevilla with my friends right after finishing my final! From left to right there’s me, Jessie, Mattie, Carly, Mandy, and Laurel.

This weekend the six of us went to Granada! It was very nice to get out of Sevilla for a while, and it kind of felt like a sleepover getting to stay in a hotel with my friends. Our hotel was up on hill right next to the Alhambra. This is a picture of my first glimpses of the city from our 4 hour bus ride.

After we got to the hotel, we had lunch and siesta. After that, we went on a guided tour of the Albaicín, the old Muslim section of the city. Granada seems to have much more Moorish influence than Sevilla, and is also a lot smaller. (200,000 people, versus 700,000 in Sevilla). The streets are very narrow and twisty. I definitely would have been lost without our guide, Conso (short for Consolación). This is a picture of a square in the Albaicín.

Next we went to a mirador. I’m not quite sure how to translate that to English. It’s kind of like a scenic overview on a highway, except it’s usually for pedestrians. It’s basically a spot with a great view. We also got a few shots of the Alhambra. Laurel, Mattie, and I are posing in this picture with the Alhambra in the background.

Granada means pomegranate in Spanish, so I snapped a picture of this pomegranate sculpture. There are a bunch around the city.

The next place we went was an ancient church that was formerly a mosque (as is the case with many churches in Granada). Conso told us that several cloistered nuns lived here.

On the side of the church there is a small window. If you ring the bell above the window, the nuns will show you the sweets that they have to sell. However, since these nuns are cloistered, they can’t show their faces to anyone from the outside. It was very strange speaking to this turntable, but the magdalenas that my friends and I got to share were delicious! My friend Mattie is listening to the nuns in the bottom picture.

Next, we went into downtown to see the Capilla Real (or the Royal Chapel). It was SO COOL. We couldn’t take pictures inside, which I was super bummed about. The pictures below are of the outside, which is still pretty impressive. Ferdinand and Isabella are buried here! WHAT?! It was literally the coolest thing. The chapel itself is very small. There are a few rows of pews and in front of that is a large black metal gate. Behind the gate is the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella as well as their daughter Juana la Loca and her husband and one of their children who died in infancy. (Yes, that means Joanne the Crazy).  They have carved marble sarcophagi, but below lie their ACTUAL coffins. You can actually go down a small flight of stairs and see them. YES YOU CAN SEE THE ACTUAL COFFIN. It was so cool. Maybe I’m kind of a history nerd. Don’t judge me. The chapel also has a very impressive altarpiece and a small museum with religious paintings and the ACTUAL robes of Ferdinand and Isabella and the ACTUAL crown of Isabella. This is the same Ferdinand and Isabella who united their kingdoms of Aragon and Castile to basically create modern-day Spain. They were also the patrons of Columbus’ voyage to the new world, and their youngest daugher Katherine became Henry VIII’s first wife and the mother of Mary I, arguably the first woman to rule England without a man. She also burned a bunch of people who weren’t Catholic, convinced herself her tumor was a pregnancy, was the half-sister of one of the coolest women in history Elizabeth I, and was a little cray cray, but I won’t go off on that. Just know that it was REALLY REALLY cool. 

After that, we had the rest of the day to ourselves to explore. My friends and I went to Calle Elvira, a twisty little street filled with tiny shops selling lots of different things like clothes, lanterns, hookah apparatuses, mosaics, picture frames, and jewelry. We ate at a small Middle Eastern restaurant where we had things like schwarma and felafel that seemed very authentic to us. This is Mattie, Mandy, and Carly at dinner, and the second picture is of the ceiling of the resturant. After we finished there we went out to a bar and had drinks. A cool thing about Granada is that when you order a drink you get tapas for free! So although the drinks were a little more expensive than we’re used to in Sevilla, we got food to go with it!

The next day we went to the Alhambra. I really didn’t know much about it before I went, other than the role it played in English history (sorry I’m nerding out again). I thought it was one palace, but it’s actually several palaces combined in a fortress sort of thing. 

We first went in to the palace of Carlos V. Apparently, it wasn’t ever used as a palace because it took too long to build, so now it just houses some exhibits that we didn’t have time to go in. The first picture is of my friends and I peeking out behind the columns of the palace.

Next we entered the main palace. This first picture is from a room that was first used as a waiting room for people going to see the king. Although in later years the palace was taken over by Ferdinand and Isabella, they initially conquered it from the Moors who had built it. When Ferdinand and Isabella took over, they converted this room to a chapel.

This next picture is of the waiting room that Ferdinand and Isabella used. The palace is very angular and much of the designs on the walls are very geometric.

There are a TON of courtyards throughout the palace, almost all of them involving some type of fountain. These few pictures are from different courtyards around the palace.

Next we saw the King's bedroom. It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but the ceiling was really quite impressive.

Because the Alhambra is built on top of a hill, it afforded some great views of the city! Here are a few shots.

Another cool thing that happened in the Alhambra: Washington Irving lived here while he wrote his Tales of the Alhambra.

Before we left Granada, we also checked out the Generalife. This is the summer palace for the monarchs who normally live in the Alhambra. It's a little smaller, but it's just a short walk from the main palace.

Once we got back to Sevilla, we were greeted with this lovely sight. The garbage-people of Sevilla are on strike so they aren't picking up the trash. We're currently in day 8 or 9 I think of the strike. It smells really bad!

On Monday I started classes! I had my first two at the CIEE study center. (Pictures in a previous post) I'm taking the Psychology of Learning a Second Language, and Bilingualism, Intercultural Communication, and Plural Identity. Both of them have been very interesting so far. All of my classes are taught entirely in Spanish. Monday night I had my first interest group meeting (this is the group that I'm going to Barcelona with in April). Our first meeting was about different products from different regions of Spain. We tried aceitunas (olives), chorizo and salchichón (two different types of sausages), queso de oveja (sheep's milk cheese), vino (wine), and of course tortilla española (kind of like an omelet but usually made with potatoes. It's really good!)

Then on Tuesday I had my second classes at the University of Sevilla, which is GORGEOUS. It used to be a tobacco factory, the same one where the opera Carmen is set. I'm taking Contemporary Spanish Cinema (which is AWESOME) and Spanish Grammar (which is NOT).

After classes, Laura and I went to the Archaeology Museum which is located in the Parque María Luisa. It's beautiful on the outside and it used to be the fine arts museum.

I restrained myself from taking too many pictures, but I did take a few of the highlights. Almost all of the ruins found in the museum are from Itálica (where I went last weekend). This mosaic shows Dionysus or Bacchus in a chariot with his wife Ariadne (who was the daughter of King Minos of Crete and eloped with Theseus after he slew the minotaur. Sorry, nerd moment).

This mosaic is of the judgement of Paris. Eris, the goddess of discord threw an apple into the wedding party of Thetis and Peleus (the parents of Achilles) with a note saying "for the fairest". The goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite all thought it was for them, so Zeus decided that the mortal man Paris should decide between them. Each goddess promised Paris something in order to sway his vote, but in the end Aphrodite won. She promised Paris the love of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, even though she was already married to the king of Sparta. When Paris went to claim his prize, the Trojan war ensued.

The last picture is of a statue of the goddess Artemis, or Diana. It's one of the most well preserved pieces from Itálica.

That's all for this week! Until next Tuesday!

-Carly <3