Granada

     The first day in Granada began at 5 o'clock in the morning where we had to go to the airport to fly into Granada. When we arrived, we took the public bus to the plaza where our hotel was located because it was cheaper than taking a taxi but hauling my gigantic suitcase onto a public bus was close to the worst thing ever, aside from working at Mcdonalds or something. We finally got to our hotel but we werent allowed to check into our room yet because it was still obscenely early, so we went across the street for breakfast instead. We then went to the hotel to get clothes out of our suitcases to change into for the day which involved awkwardly unzipping and scrounging through my suitcase to find some shorts (because it was 8,000 degrees) in the middle of the lobby. When we were changed and returned our suitcases to behind the reception desk, we took the local bus to this area of town called Albayzin which is known to be the old muslim quarter of Granada. It was across a valley from the famous Alhambra and had a stunning view of the historical monument. 

    We wandered through the area filled with locals who went to the market to pick up their daily meat to cook dinner, it was adorable to see all of the hobbling little spanish women passing each other and say hi to everyone. It was a cute little local area and it was refreshing to not be surrounded by white tourists. 

   We then took the public bus back down to our neighborhood and had lunch and sangria in a local plaza. Being in Granada is a nice relaxing break from all of the insane walking and pretty sights we have been taking in.  We got off the bus and on our way to lunch, we stopped in a church that was dedicated to and housed the crypts of Princess Isabella and Prince Ferdinand (the people who funded Christopher Columbus' trip). It's nice to see so much history around and mom was incredibly happy to be living everything that she teaches to her students.

    After lunch, we strolled through the plaza and peeked into the street shops full of random spanish souvenirs. We headed home for our daily siesta. After waking from our siesta, we went out for tapas and more sangria at a recommended restaurant around the corner from our hotel. By the way, our hotel is pretty cute and it has a balcony with a view of the Alhambra where we can watch the sun both rise and set.

   After our tapas dinner, we went home to get ready for our nightly activities. We were going on an adventure to see flamenco dancing in the very same place where Michelle Obama herself watched flamenco dancing. We got all dolled up and went down to the hotel lobby to meet the woman who escorted us to the tour bus full of an array of people from different areas of the world, however the majority of the people on the bus were from Asia and had their mouths covered with the kindof masks that only doctors dealing with diseases should wear. We were on our way to the flamenco show in which a complimentary sangria was provided, win. This show had some of the most talented and amazing dancing I had ever seen and we were sitting so close to the sweaty performers it was intoxicating. The show lasted for about an hour and was extremely fun to see and it felt like a necessity when visiting Spain. 

Clearly, I was made to be a Flamenco Dancer

  After the wonderful show and getting a wonderful view of the Alhambra lit up at night, we went home and went to sleep because we are now permanently exhausted.