Granada

Granada=Amazing!!!

I don't know if I loved Granada because I could take as many showers as I wanted to a day( as opposed to the one I was "allowed" to take a day in Valencia) or because all of my girlfriends and I were together for the whole weekend without having to plan to meet in various areas of the city in order to go out to a bar/discoteca. Whatever it was I had a wonderful time! The people in Granada are used to American Tourists so, we weren't stared at as much as we were in Valencia.

The first night, we all met in the lobby of the hotel to go to a tapas bar. Tapas are basically little appetizers that you can purchase with a drink for less than 2 euros. It was cheap and pretty good. I believe that most people go to the bars and then go out to a discoteca for the night. We had to get up at 7am the next day since we were to visit La Alhambra, a palace inspired by Islamic architecture. The palace was beautiful with many gardens and breath taking views. Granada was the last Muslim capital in Spain so much of their influence is still there. After lunch I came back and took a looooong nap! When I woke up we had dinner and went out the club to dance. That was probably one of the best nights on my trip. The music was good and everyone had a really good time. The next day was the last day on the trip. We went to the highest point in Granada and walked down through many shops that sell many souvenirs and other little trinkets.

I honestly wish that I could give more detailed about history and architecture but I couldn't understand the tour guide. One thing I noticed was that all of the tour guides were speaking in English, if they had American tourists, but they did not have a great command of the language. I wish that they would have spoken to us in Spanish because I probably would have understood more of the history/ information. It's a shame that we expect everyone to accommodate us when we are trying to understand their culture/ history. I would imagine that speaking in the native language would allow many tourists to gain information which might be lost in translation.

My trip to Granada was a wonderful refresher weekend and it pushed me to make it through the next two weeks in Spain.