Friday night I was sick...yeah...lame. So while I curled up and slept for 10 hours, the rest of the group went to a discoteca VIP style, and came stumbling back at 7am. Needless to say, I wasn't very thrilled about missing that.
So then Saturday, while the other 4 slept until 3pm, I met Kaitlin at the bus stop!! (My roommate from the last 2 years in college.) I showed her around Granada for a bit and introduced her to the wonderfulness that is Granada's free tapas.
Saturday night was spent botellóning at the house, wearing ridiculous wolf masks, and watching Xabi's friend Curro wear a Rick James wig and rock out to "Rain over me" by Pitbull. We were all pretty drunk...and I "dressed up" as a cat! Meaning I bought a 1euro headband with cat ears from a chino, and wore a black dress.
Our goal for the night was to have a "REMIX" moment...
I had been a little bit more drunk than I thought...since a lot of the details of that night are fuzzy. I do remember discussing how much I looked like Anne Hathaway from the Princess Diaries, which led the 3 spaniards to excitedly calling me "Princesa de Sorpresa!" which means Surprise Princess. When we said bye Sunday they all said "Adios Princesa de Sorpresa!"
On Sunday, everyone left except for me and Kaitlin. Xabi offered to give us a ride to our hostel so we didn't have to walk a mile with our bags. Which was super nice of him. Except there 6 people and only 5 seats in the car. So somehow, I, the tallest person of the group, wound up laying across everybody's legs with my coat over my face in case a cop happened to drive by. And then when we all piled out of the car we were at a red light and there was a car behind us. Yup, driver staring at us with a strange face, that just happened.
Kaitlin and I totally lucked out and got a room at the Oasis Backpacker's Hostel, which is right off Calle Elvira. Which means its right in the middle of the Arab markets, and at the bottom of Albaicín. Best location ever. We spent the evening hiking up to La Alhambra and hanging out at an Irish Pub with Shannon & Petya, 2 of the girls I studied abroad with, and a couple other Granada auxiliars.
Then Monday morning we woke up bright&early at 5:30am to hike up to la Alhambra yet again to wait in line for tickets. It was freezing cold and there were already about 100 people ahead of us in line when we got there. But good thing we got there when we did....Although there were 450 tickets available for the day and we were 100thish in line, we got 2 of the last 10 tickets available for the whole day.
What?? How does that work??
After we got the tickets I spent the better half of the walk down the hill cursing out the Spanish culture and people. But I digress.
Apparently, as the announcer decided to tell all of us that had been so patiently freezing our asses off for the last hour and a half, there was a bank of ATM's by the gift store where you could buy the tickets with your credit card. That prompted a rush of about 100 people to go stand in line, but since we were pretty close to the front we were reassured that we would get our first choice tickets.
Then over the next 45 minutes, we watched the line at the ATM speed on through and our line move nowhere. The little bell would ding and the announcer would repeat in Spanish, English, French and German that there were now only ( ) tickets available for the morning and ( ) available for the afternoon. At 8:50am, we finally pocketed our tickets and turned to leave and heard the bell ding for the last time. "The patronato of la Alhambra and General Life would like to inform you that all the tickets for the day are sold out."
ANYWAY! 3rd times a charm I guess, because the 3rd time we made the hike up to La Alhambra, we finally got in. It was worth it. It was so totally worth it, even though it was my 3rd time touring it. It never gets old.
And if you're still reading this, props to you, because this is one of the those 10 page long summary blogs that I promised to try to never post. Oops. It's gotta happen once I guess.
Monday night Kaitlin and I dressed up as "gypsies". Meaning we bought gypsy pants and a jangly gypsy belt from the arab market. We went to Hannigan's Irish Pub with the rest of the Americans in Granada and watched Petya, Shannon and Liz win first place in the trivia contest. Their prize was entering their names to win 26million euro, which....I'm assuming means they won lottery tickets? Really not sure though...
After drinking there for a bit and getting flaming shots, we made an epic hike through the Albaícin and Sacromonte to find El Camborio, a discoteca with incredible views of La Alhambra. It was a sort of closure for my study abroad experience, since I always heard stories from people who went there but I never actually made the hike myself.
After El Camborio we ate the most delicious schwarma I've ever had. It was from a Pakistani Schwarma place, where they actually grill the chicken and then add fresh tomatoes, peppers, onions and delicious sauce. I can't even describe how amazing it was, so if you're ever in Granada make you sure you find it! It's on Calle Elvira!
And then Tuesday I spent hungover and tired since I only got 5 hours of sleep and had to check out of the hostel by 11am. We explored some more of the Albaicín and ate Ice Cream and went shopping. And then I spent 5 1/2 hours on the bus to get back to Algeciras.
Overall, a fantastic weekend! I will update this blog soon with pictures to make it interesting!
yay, I'm glad you had fun.....and happy you liked the shwarma, I told ya, it's the best!
ReplyDeleteI'm sweet sixteen, next year I'll be... uhm.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, so funny!