The Alhambra and Fun Times in Spain

Yesterday, ISA, the program I am studying abroad with, took us all to the Alhambra. It is a palace constructed by the Moors in the 14th century. On our tour, they described it being like its own community within Granada. After the reconquista, the Christians took over the palace. It really represents a mix of religions: Muslim, Jewish, and Christians. There were so many beautiful gardens throughout the palace and we went at the perfect time because all the roses are in bloom. If you've ever even googled Spain you are sure to find pictures of the Alhambra. It is really one of the most popular tourist sites here and it was really cool to get a tour of a place with so much history and see it for myself. Stunning!

So last night was the start of my first weekend in Granada. My new friends and I decided we wanted to do something fun, so we agreed to go out for tapas (something very traditional in Granada) and go dancing. We met up at 11pm to start our adventure. I have to say, I was extremely excited to get a glimpse of Granada at night and spend some time with my friends. We walked all along this street with a ton of tapas bars. Here is the concept: you buy a drink and then you get your tapas, which are little portions of food and there is such a wide variety so I advice looking it up if you want a good idea, FOR FREE!!!!! Too bad for us we didn't know tapas are pretty much a before dinner treat...so by 11:30 there were no tapas left and every place was closing :( We found one place that was still serving so we went there. The man serving was from Argentina and we THOUGHT he told us there were tapas. Well, I guess it got lost in translation and he said they DIDN'T have tapas....our bad!!! So we sat there for a bit with our drinks waiting and waiting for the tapas to come. Truly though, this was definitely a live and learn experience. Something I have been trying to get the hang of here is to ask a question when I don't understand something. If you know me, then you know I don't really like to ask questions and I can get pretty shy. But really, simply asking the man to repeat himself or say what I thought was right to get clarification would have saved us that embarrassment. However, I still had A TON of fun!! We didn't go dancing either because the clubs here don't really get going until like...2 or 3 and we were tired from such a long week. Instead we got gelato (cheesecake gelato...so good!!!) and sat in a park and just chatted and joked around. A perfect Friday night for me! Tonight we are trying the tapas thing again. I will let you know how it goes. 

Oooo!! One last thing. Thursday night I went to a flamenco show in the Muslim district! It was so quintessential Spanish. The dancers were beautiful and had so much passion for their craft. Every 2 seconds they'd go "OLE!" and they even had the crowd join in. I was a tap dancer back in the day, so I have to say what they were doing was extremely hard! It was pretty legit. :)