Exploring the City

Sangria in a tapas bar in the Albacyin

I love this city. Granada reminds me of a mix between Florence, Rome, and Istanbul—three of my favorite places I’ve ever been.

Our official EAP program started on Friday afternoon. We checked into the residencia, where we all get our own room and individual bathrooms (which is a luxury in and of itself, but coming from Isla Vista it’s a miracle). There are fifty of us on the program, and so far everyone seems so nice. I’m definitely reminded of the first two weeks of freshman year, where you ask and repeat everyone’s name about thirty times before anything sticks.

After putting our stuff away we had free time, so a bunch of us went out to explore the city. We walked to the center of the city where the Catedral is located, and then to the old Arabic quarters, called the Albacyin. This is generally considered to be the most beautiful part of the city, with its cobblestone alleyways, middle eastern shops, and gorgeous views of the Alhambra. I fell in love with Granada after seeing this neighborhood!

The great thing about this country is that any time you get hungry, you stop in any restaurant and order a drink (soda or alcohol) and automatically get free lunch or dinner. Sometimes it gets a little tedious, like when you want two glasses of Sangria but not two full rounds of food. Good luck finishing three or four drinks and all the accompanying tapas!

On Saturday we took a language placement test, and then met our monitores, our student guides. Mine is a really nice guy named Javier, who is the nephew of the program director. The monitores showed us some places in the city, and then took us out to tapas. Later they will help us buy cell phones, search for apartments, and hopefully introduce us to their Spanish friends!

In the afternoon I took a long walk by myself through a lot of the city. Granada is the perfect size—it feels like a real city but it is very walkable, and probably takes an hour from one end to the other on foot. Also, for the whole month of August all the stores have incredible discounts on clothing before their Fall styles come in, so we got here just in time!

On every street post and fence there are hundreds of fliers for pisos (apartments) to rent, and it is very overwhelming trying to find an apartment to move into after the stay at the residencia. Especially since I don’t have a cell phone to call any of the owners. I would most want to live in the Albacyin district, but this is recommended against because it has the most robbery. This is also where the gypsies tend to hang out, and they are very skilled pick-pocketers. One tried to distract me with some rosemary plant today while her friend snuck behind me, but I didn’t fall for it.

Last night some of our monitores took us out to dinner again. The meal timing is pretty hard to adjust to. We had lunch at 2 and then dinner at 10:15, and needless to say I was starving in between. Buy a snack, you say? Too bad all the stores close for siesta from 2—6! But I’ll get used to it I’m sure.

We went to a bar where the soccer game between Granada and Sevilla was playing. Spaniards are very into futbol. We got tons of tapas and everything was delicious, until later in the night I was sick for five hours because I’m not used having everything I eat be either fried, mayonnaise-smothered, cheesy, or full of red meat (and having it come all at one sitting!). But it’s the price I must pay for deliciousness. 

Exploring an old Arab bath



A distant view of the Alhambra