Spain: Granada and Valencia

The Albaicin

After a beautiful bus ride, we finally arrived in Granada at around 7 PM. After trying to find our way to the hostel in the Albaicin, the old Moorish part of town, we settled in and then headed out on a hostel-led tapas tour. See, in Granada, tapas come free with a drink, whereas in other parts of the country, you pay extra. We ended up meeting a group of guys currently living and working in Barcelona (but originally from London, France, Belgium, and Germany), and stayed out with them until 6 in the morning. It was interesting, to say the least. They were actually really nice guys. Anyway, we got back to the hostel, went to bed for about two hours, got up, found out that there was, in fact, no hot water for our showers, and went out touring anyway.

A Bridge in Granada

We walked through the Albaicin for a while, gradually making our way over to the Alhambra. Apparently, there's a saying that goes, "Si mueres sin ver la Alhambra, no has vivido".

Doorway to the Alhambra

Well, you could say that about a lot of things, and while the Alhambra was stunning, I'm not sure that you haven't lived if you miss it. Now, if you die without seeing, say, the Alps or Venice or something, I'd be much more likely to agree. This may be simply because I was exhausted when we went. Anyway. It was beautiful, despite the long walk uphill to get there. On our way down, we were accosted by a woman telling "fortunes" and handing out little bits of herbs. Catie fell into her trap and the woman read her palm very cheerily, until she found out that Catie had no change and I only had two euro to give her. Then she got a little angry, but nothing too bad--just the stink-eye. It made me angry, though.

The Alhambra

We also wanted to go visit the cathedral and the chapel, but they were closed. Catie was hungry, so we tried to stop for something to eat. However, by this time, we had left the touristy area, so fewer people spoke English and she had a hard time communicating with the waitstaff at the place we visited. Everything they had had meat or eggs, which she doesn't eat, which they didn't understand. So we left, called our hostel in Valencia to see if they had another open night, and caught and 8 hour bus to Valencia. I slept for most of it.

Valencia

We got in well past 1 AM. We caught a cab to the hostel, which scared me, because I was convinced that they were going to try to cheat us. But we got there all right, even though I left my sweater in the cab (and I'm still mad about that). Once we got there and checked in, we crashed. We got up late the next morning, too.

Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciencies

We spent most of our day in Valencia at their Science museum. That was pretty cool. We saw an exhibit on the sea where you could lift anchors, and I could lift all of them. We also saw Los Alpes on Imax. Watching that made me really excited to get to Switzerland, let me tell you! After that, we went to the cathedral, which allegedly holds the Holy Grail (really, they say it's the Holy Chalice, used at the Last Supper. Equally crazy, really. I've just realized, though, that if we had gone to the cathedral in Genoa, we would have gone to three alleged resting places of the Holy Grail). However, being rather slow people, apparently, we could not get out of the cathedral. They had locked the doors, and some guy tried to tell us this in Spanish (or maybe Valencian. I'm not sure, but if it were the latter, we have some excuse for not understanding). When we told him we didn't understand, he laughed at us and then just started shouting. Finally, he pointed to the real exit.

We ran to the grocery store to make soup for our dinner and went back to the hostel. There, we met an Australian guy who currently lives in Stockholm. I talked to him for a good two-three hours, just about travelling and politics. It was pretty cool. This is why, even though they can be obnoxious sometimes, I love hostels. I've met so many interesting people just by chance.