Granada take 2

I had a very monumental last few day, Anna and I took a trip to my first Spanish home, Granada. It was interesting to compare how I had remembered the town, explained the town to others, and now saw the town upon my return. It was a quick trip (36hours more or less) but enough to be reminded of what life is like down there and why I prefer Madrid 1000 times over without hesitation.

First, I want to give an update for my other granaín@s that are reading this - most important change, La Senda de Oro is no longer operational. It has changed to Jazz Pub. Disappointment grande. Otherwise, ust about everything else is identical. It was a bizarre feeling to know exactly where I was going only by intuition and familiar alleyways. The women with sprigs of rosemary still lined the turistfares by the cathedral offering their "gifts" which they subsequently expected you to pay for if you accepted them. The viejita that ran the alimentación on Elvira is still truckin´on in her litte shop, though I didnt see her annoying yapping dog (thank god). The gente are still of the malafollá, the streets covered in dog poo, and te rastas run amuck along with the genie pants. The schawarma was still mind-blowing and my favorite pakistani schawarma stand is actually doing quite well by the upgraded look of their locale. The treehouse teahouse is still as amazing as ever, and El rincón de Lorca continues to offer swarthy yet friendly staff that serves a mean taza of cafe con leche.

Anyways, Anna has more pictures of our trip (along with the video clips that we are going to compile into a homemade music video) since my camera ran out of batteries about 3 hours into the trip. We did the Alhambra, the Albaicin, the Miradores, the mini graffiti tour of graná, the "Elvira experience" as I have decided to dub it (Granaín@s think of Animal the dog, the two lesbian owners, any sketch guy trying to sell you drugs, hippies, schawarma, and boatloads of tourists and foreign students getting ripped off at the various shops selling middle eastern themed items).

One last story the I think is my favorite of this trip is that of the bus ride to Andalucía. We board, the bus if chock full of foreigners chatting in various languages aside from Spanish and the driver starts to tell us safety precautions and such: he informs us of the need to wear our seatbelts at all times, to not take our shoes off because it gets really smelly and that "the bathroom is in the back of the bus.. Or rather, toward the back of the bus in a specific room" he added that he wanted to be very clear about the difference in case there were "very literal people on the bus". The Alsa Bus PSA was then concluded with "I don´t even know if you guys understood me just now..." Most didn´t but Anna and I giggled at this comment, an act we would later be repremanded for. So we stop at the rest stop and the driver tells us only the back door is open yet a dumb-ass dressed in pink tries to literally pry the front door open, setting off an alarm. The driver doesnt realize this until we get to Granada and makes an announcement "más grave" that the front door emergency alarm has been set off and the door no longer opened. Anna and I, knowing the source of this trouble laughed thinking how ridiculous the entire travelling experience had been up to that point. The driver heard us and on the loudspeaker commanded seats 11 and 12 (us) not to laugh because "this is a very serious matter for the safety of all passengers". Dude, its funny!

Ok, Im off to run. The three cups of coffee and zero amounts of food have me in a jitter that needs to be sweated out. Once more I will remind everyone to let me know if they want something from España (bc im coming back to CA over xmas).

Un besazo a todos,
Matt