Adventures in Spain with Kaitie and Kelly

Well if you remember from my last blog post, my best friend has been visiting Spain.  And last weekend we had money problems, missed our train, almost missed our train again, and it rained everyday.  Our story continues with it still raining...

The week in Priego was pretty uneventful.  I worked.  My friend pretended she was somewhere on a tropical island.  We planned to head to Granada late afternoon Thursday.  There may or may not be a rumor going around that I'm fleeing Priego since everyone saw me running through the streets with two suitcases.  You see, my friend and her family are godsends and have done me the biggest favor by bringing home a suitcase full of my things since it would be impossible (and expensive) for me to travel around Europe in June with two suitcases.  And since she was departing from Sevilla which was our final destination, this giant suitcase joined us on our journey through Spain.  We arrived to Granada starving.  So after checking into our hostel (Granada Inn Backpackers), we headed out to the restaurant Babel recommended by the hostel staff.  At first glance this place seemed amazing.  We ordered a pitcher of homemade sangria and then a tray of seven different dishes from around the world. 

But as we were eating we watched the waitress take the orders of the other tables.  And for the "sangria" she took this bottle out of the fridge and poured it in a pitcher...

First off, this is not sangria.  Second off, this is not homemade sangria as stated on the menu.  Luckily for the restaurant, we're not picky when it comes to drinking.  But thennnnn as we were eating and still watching the waitress, we got a direct glimpse into the kitchen where we watched the chef take each dish from the refrigerator and put it in the microwave!  So basically we were drinking the bottled version of tinto de verano and eating leftovers from the previous night.  To sum up my friend's vacation, it was pretty much the series of unfortunate events from the get go.  But we kept on trucking and after our microwave dinner, we met up with my Spanish friend Igor who lives in Granada.  He brought us to a typical Spanish bar filled with lots of ham legs.  Our waiter was great and continuously joked with us.  He even ended up stealing my pink pen right out of my hand.  Eventually I coersed him into giving me another pen (since I actually use that one regualarly), and he in turn gave me a pen advertising milk.  We later moved onto another bar where the walls were covered in napkins.  The theme of the bar revolves around the horns of a bull.  If a person wants, they can draw something on a napkin following this theme and then put their drawing on the wall.  Being the creative Kelly that I am, I decided to partake in this activity and instead of simply drawing on the napkin, I turned it into a mini book.  My book was called "The Book of Horns." Unfortunalty I also had a blonde moment and thought that "horns" in spanish was spelled "huernos."  The word "huernos" doesn't actually exist (it's supposed to be "cuernos"), so my entire book was mispelled.  But it still got to go up on the wall! 

 Putting my book on the wall

 El Libro de Huernos

 Baellna con huernos

Elefante con huernos

 Cervesa con huernos

Flor con huernos

Tapas con huernos

El Fin

 

Sidenote: Granada is famous for their tapas.  Not only is the food free as long as you order a drink, it's also typically good quality.   Another thing is that you don't normally get to choose your tapa.  So the entire event is always a surprise.

And this bar had an amazing tapa surprise...

BAGELS!  Well really it was just bread in the shape of a bagel.  But a girl could pretend!
After feasting on our bagels and putting my book up on the wall, we headed out to another bar.  Before arriving in Granada, Igor had gotten us tickets to see a flamenco show.  And in typical Spanish fashion, we were running late.  So we ran, uphill (because of course the bar had to be at the top of a hill).  Wheezing and disheveled (I'm surprised they let us in), we handed in our tickets and found our seats.  Luckily we were placed in the exact center of the place so we had a perfect view.  For two hours, we watched two guitar players, a singer, and two dancers all collaborate together to form a wonderful flamenco show.

The view of the Alhambra from the Flamenco Bar

The next day, Friday, we had an early wake up call thanks to our "roommates."  These two girls seemed to have forgotten about hostel common courtesy because they were loud and obnoxious at 6am.  The one girl even stepped on my bed while I was laying in it!  After they left, I gave up trying to sleep and headed to the shower.  On my way, I discovered that the room attached to ours (a two person room) was empty.  I snatched up all of mine and Kait's things and moved it into that room to avoid another early wake up call the next day.  SCORE!    

After a hearty breakfast of toastada and cafe, we explored the streets of Granada for a bit.   Around 1:00 we met up with Igor again and his friend Ana at a bar.  Today's surprise tapa was paella!  Then at 3:00, Kait and I departed so we could head to the Alhambra.  With the Alhambra, you have to buy your tickets in advance and then you can only go at the scheduled time on your ticket.  To get to the Alhambra, you can either take a bus or you can walk.  We chose the latter thinking that the views would be beautiful on the way up.  Little did we know, the entire walk involved a drastic, uphill climb.

Note the bench Kait is sitting on.  This will give you an idea of how steep the hill was.

Once again wheezing and dishevled we arrived to the top.  We quickly made friends with the security guards because we ended up having to reenter the Alhambra, not once, not twice, but three times.  The first was because they failed to mention that the bathrooms were outside of the entrance.  The second was because they never gave us a map and we wanted/needed a map and the maps were once again outside of the entrance.  The Alhambra was a long five hours.  We walked miles around it.  And we didn't even see the entire thing because we were just too tired to continue on.  Basically it's an old Spanish Palace surrounded by gardens and a miniature city that the palace dwellers used to use instead of having to go into the center of Granada.   

After the Alhambra, we trekked back down the mountain to head to the hostel to freshen up.  On our way, we kept passing people with ice cream.  Upon seeing the place where all of these people kept getting their ice cream, we stopped in and got ourselves a cone for one euro.  And we also happened to stumble upon this lamp store...

By the time we were finished changing clothes and shoes at the hostel, we were starving.  So we headed to a really good tapas bar that I had tried back in October when I last visited Granada.  Being that it was early for dinner in Spain, we were the first ones seated in the place.  We ordered our drinks and got our first tapa...

Pot Roast style meat with three boiled potatoes, vegetables, and bread

Then we got our second...

Skewered shrimp with potatoes and vegetables


And third...

Octopus with seasoning over potatoes


And fourth....

 No picture for this.  It was a meat sandwich

Fifth...

 No picture for this one either.  Some sort of pork dish with potatoes and veggies

 

And finally, our sixth tapa...

Warm Brie on bread drizzled with balsalmic and covered in veggies.

 

By the time we were on our sixth tapa, we were told that we broke a record.  They had never seen two skinny white girls eat so much food before.  They prepared us a special tapa just for us since no one ever makes it to the 6th, and they were so impressed.  The greatest part about all of this was that it only cost us 15 euros each (including drinks)!   If you are interested in eating like a king for cheap, I highly recommend this bar Chantarella.  We were so full by the end of our meal, we almost had to call a taxi to drive us the five minutes back to the hostel

The next day, we had ourselves another lovely breakfast of toastada and cafe.  We checked out of our hostel and left for the train super early this time so we wouldn't miss it again.  We boarded the train, stored our luggage, found our seats, and were ready to relax for the next three hours.  Unfortunately, the black cloud that continues to bring bad luck to this trip followed us, and our relaxation was quickly interuppted when the guy came around to scan our tickets...

In Spain, the dates our backwards so for April 5, 2014 you would write 5/4/2014.  So while my ticket had the correct date, 5/4/2014, Kait's had 4/5/2014.  Being that she had bought her ticket in the United States, we figured that maybe they just printed with the date written the American way.  The ticket scanner guy had never heard of the American date being backwards so after a little debate and discussion he moved onto the next set of tickets.  We thought we were in the clear until he came back again and looked at Kait's ticket.  But then walked away without saying anything.  Eventually he came back once more and this time he explained that Kait needed to re-buy a new ticket because hers was for May.   

Once we arrived in Sevilla, Kaitlin wanted to try and get a refund for her ticket.  So we headed to the ticket office and of course on the way, my suitcase wheel broke.  I mean why not.  After explaining and having the ticket guys laugh at our situation, they eventually gave Kait a form to fill out for a refund.  But knowing Spain, the processing of all of this might take months before Kait ever sees the money again.

Finally, with a broken suticase in tow, we were on our way to the same Airbnb place we stayed in at the beginning of this whole trip.  I should mention that this place was amazing.  The owner Brad is originally from New York, so he spoke perfect English, he was really funny, and his apartment was beautiful.  It was in the center of Sevilla and literally next door to the famous ice cream shop "Rayas."  Brad lived in the apartment too but he gave us full permission to do whatever we wanted in the place.  We had our own room and bathroom and full access to the kitchen, living room, and balcony.  He even provided us with a daily breakfast and a TON of snacks for our room. 

After catching up with Brad, we headed out for some lunch.  We were kind of over Spanish food at this point, so we switched it up and headed to a sushi place nearby.  To say the least, the place was filled with spaniards.  And while the sushi selection was somewhat limited, it was really good!  After lunch, we walked around Sevilla to do some souvenir shopping for Kait's family.  And of course we stopped for ice cream at "Rayas."  We also may or may not have inquired about renting a moto... Later that night, we headed back to a restaurant we had tried the previous weekend per Brad's suggestion.  We had enjoyed the food and the atmosphere of the place plus the waitstaff was extremely friendly.  After our meal, we walked around some more and stopped at an outside bar right near Brad's.  We made friends with the server and the people sitting next to us because this was clearly a place tourists didn't go to and we stood out.  I also received my first tapa consisting of candy...

Eventually we called it an early night and headed back to the apartment to pack up our things.   

The next day, I had to leave first to catch my train back home.  I said my final goodbye to Kait who was leaving later.  I made it to the train station without anything bad happening, checked through security, and found my seat.  I was seated with a family of three.  The mom/stepmom/girlfriend (not really sure of what her role was in the family) was from Slavakia while the dad was an officer in the U.S. Navy and traveled around the world.  The daughter was around age 12.  While the Mom lady tried to tell me that the American teachers aren't good compared to the rest of the world, the Dad tried to convince me to join the Navy.  And when I explained that I don't do exercise he eventually moved on to convincing me to work in the education system for the military...

After a forty minute train ride and almost forgetting my jacket on the train, I made it to Cordoba where I waited for my bus to Priego.  The bus came.  I got on.  We drove off.  And for about an hour we got stuck driving through a bicycle race.  After navigating at the speed of a snail, we eventually made it to Priego where I placed my first food order over the phone.  I leave you with the fact that delivery in Spain only costs 1 euro!