En la pasado yo escribo mucho para mi diario de la computadora, o mi "blog". Ahora es necesitario para mi escribo un poco. Porque? Yo tengo un tiempo poco ahora.
This morning I was pulled out of a half-doze to get dressed and ready. I had to pack and get dressed for the day in a short period of time and I ended up heading down to breakfast after Ahmee and Poppy had gone down. Since I was short on time, I wore the clothes I'd worn the day previously, I didn't jump in the shower (leaving my hair kinda greasy but not terribly greasy), and I hurried through washing my face and packing before I went down to eat a small breakfast with Ahmee and Poppy. The reason why we were in a hurry was we were told to be up at the Alhambra with our tickets by 9 o' clock, otherwise we wouldn't get in. Since we normally move rather slowly in the morning (we normally don't eat breakfast until 10 o' clock nowadays), it was somewhat difficult for us to get moving after staying up so late. We managed to get out of the hotel before 9, put all of our things in the car, and head across the bridge and up the hill. Unfortunately there was a fork in the road at the base of the hill where we got to decide which direction to go. We decided we'd take the better paved left fork, as we turned onto it I said, "This is definitely the road. They'd never make poor tourists climb up that hill on cobble-stones!" Since we've spent the past couple months walking on cobble-stoned streets (and since they hurt Ahmee's feet so much) this really was a sarcastic comment. It made Ahmee laugh.
We spent ten minutes walking up this hill (and waking ourselves up in the freezing cold) before we realized that we'd taken the wrong fork. We quickly backtracked and headed up the slick cobble-stoned street, all of us in a hurry since we were absolutely certain that we were running out of time. Each of us spread out. Poppy was up towards the front with the tickets, I was just behind him most of the way (until the cold air got to my ears and lungs and made both burn), and Ahmee was lagging behind. All three of us were breathing heavily and when I stopped behind Poppy on the steps to sit on the wall and fix my scarf he told me to wait for Ahmee and to come up with her. As Ahmee slowly made her way up to me Poppy took off up the hill (not running, just walking very very fast). I caught my breath at this time, wrapped my orange scarf around my ears and around my neck producing a look that was similar to the Muslim women's head-wear (part of my hair was showing), and got to look at the staircase ahead and the hill coming up. Once Ahmee reached me she said, "I'm actually pretty glad you're waiting for me. If I keel over you can run ahead and get help." She also chuckled at my new-found method of keeping warm, saying that it actually looked pretty good on me.
Once we caught up with Poppy we were both tired and trying to catch our breath. We were extremely happy to hear that we were early and that we didn't need to run so we could get in.
We walked into the office at the entrance to get audioguides and maps before we went into the Alhambra. While we were there I noticed the first of many odd looks. It took a while for me to figure out what exactly was so odd about how I looked, but when I did I couldn't help laughing about it. By wearing Poppy's green windbreaker and wearing my orange scarf and glasses I had succeeded (unknown to me) in making myself look transsexual. I could've been a boy or a girl and I confused a lot of people with the way I looked. First off, I had on an over-sized shirt that managed to cover all of my curves; and secondly I'd obscured my facial features by wearing my large scarf as ear-muffs and by wearing my huge sunglasses. If you think my mouth or the tiny bit of hair that could be seen at the back of my head gave me away then you're wrong. My chin had a fair amount of zits on it, my lips were chapped, and my hair was pulled into a messy, slightly greasy bun. Something else that probably made people conclude that I was a boy was in the way that I look when walking in an over-sized shirt. I have nice-sized shoulders that could easily belong to a guy, and when my curves are gone and it's difficult to see the tiny bit of a mince that I have in my walk, I all of a sudden take of the appearance of walking without much flair.
At the time I figured they were staring at my earmuffs, and I ignored them. Even when we walked through the park to the Alcazaba (a Moorish fortress that has absolutely no decoration and that overlooks Granada), and in the Alcazaba I was oblivious to how truly masculine I looked. I ignored the stares and listened to the audioguide and enjoyed the views.
I have to say that the Alcazaba didn't hold much interest for me. It's a fort that was very well built, had 3 large towers that formed a triangle within the fort, and the view from the top of the tower we were allowed to climb up in was stunning. From this tower we could see all of Granada and the mountains we would later pass through AND the mountains up behind the Alhambra. These mountains had snowcaps on top of them which showed that I'd been right in assuming the wind was the coming of a cold-front. The mountains had just gotten the brunt of the chill.
After spending about 30 minutes in the Alcazaba we went into the plaza where Ahmee and Poppy got me to take their picture at the Ponte Vino, the wine bridge, and where Ahmee and I went in to use the facilities. While in there I took a good look to see what it was that the elementary school kids were having such a good time pointing at. My appearance made me laugh out loud and made me change my scarf so that it was no longer covering my neck. I tied it tight so I wouldn't have to fix it later, still keeping to the style I'd had before. I then went out with Ahmee and Poppy to go check out the Palace of the Sultans.
The Palace of the Sultans had an incredibly long line in front of it. As we waited to get in we huddled with our audioguides to our ears, getting a preview of what we were about to see. Washington Irving and his descriptions of the Palace accompanied us throughout the tour. Washington Irving is a famous Native American author who stayed in this Palace for some time. As we walked through the rooms that appeared to be stone lace, I began to get a little jealous of him. The Palace was absolutely fabulous. The interior walls contained all sorts of carvings, ceramic tiles, and poems written in Arabic. The ceilings of these rooms contained equally impressive paintings/carvings on them. My favorite parts of the palace were: the halls that lined the outside which had tons of windows to display the view of the valley perfectly, the courtyards which always contained a pool or a fountain, the fontana de liones (fountain of the lions)-unfortunately this was under restoration so the lions were gone and the fountain was in a glass cage, and the carvings in the arches and on the walls. Some of the rooms needed restoration work, but even with these blighted rooms it was easy enough to get a small taste of how the Sultans lived and how their court lived (basically very very richly). One of the rooms we didn't visit however was the concubines quarters. Either that was under restoration or it was shut off for other reasons. It was fine by us because we really didn't want to see how the Sultans mistress's lived.
When we left the building we came to the start of a garden that consisted mostly of shrubbery. We walked through this to two rectangular pools similar to the ones we'd seen within the courtyards. Washington Irving told us (through the audioguides) that these were the pools that the Sultan and his court would supposedly bath in by moonlight. Being back out in the wind and the chill, I found it hard to believe because at night the air cools off significantly. It was a lovely picture though. Try to picture yourself bathing in a rectangular pool in the Sultans palace with the moon as your light and with candle light illuminating the splendid garden around you as you enjoy swimming, and looking at the night sky and the beauty shown to you through the light of the candle. Pretty fantastic picture don't you think?
As we walked through the garden and back to the main path we watched the gardeners work and enjoyed the view. I don't know about Ahmee and Poppy, but at that point I was definitely daydreaming about the palace in it's heyday. Servants cleaning, waiting on the Sultan and the royal family, officials walking around in their splendid clothes and talking to each other, royal ladies relaxing with each other on their cushions as they gossip, and splendidly rich colors everywhere.
Once back to the main path (lined by cyprus trees) we decided we'd walk back to the entrance and ask if we can leave to grab a bite to eat. We did just that. We went back to the entrance, asked the woman there if we could come back in later and where the restaurants were. She said we could leave just so long as we got back in before 2 and she told us there were two restaurants to the right when we exited the Alhambra (this was all in Spanish). We walked down to see if the restaurant we'd passed coming in was open and when it wasn't we went across the street and up the hill to another restaurant. Ahmee and Poppy went into the restaurant and got seats directly in front of the fireplace while I went up and asked a woman on the terrace where the restrooms were. These restrooms were clean, had toilet seats, and had a faucet that worked. They however lacked in one important thing: they weren't heated. It didn't take me long to get out of there and back down to the warm fireplace.
While inside this restaurant I took off a few layers, ate cheese with Ahmee and Poppy, ate and drank hot soup and hot chocolate, listened to the fire crackle behind me (I took the seat closest to it so I was three feet away), talked to Ahmee and Poppy about what we thought about everything we'd seen, and (unfortunately) listened in on the conversation that was going on in the table right next to us. The people sitting there were also from the United States (the time we were eating lunch was a giveaway-Europeans eat later, while there voices only confirmed our guess) and they were pretty loud if I could listen in on them. It was a great pleasure to us when we discovered that they had not realized that we were from the United States. We realized this when they started talking to another woman at a separate table who was from California. Of course, we've had people mistake us as Spanish citizens, and as Germans (this was in France though).
We got back into the Alhambra just before the 2 o' clock rush. We got to go in through the exit because the entrance had a line that just seemed to keep going and growing. We walked through the cyprus trees to the Generalife where I got to see a first hand example of what I call room gardening. The Generalife is a garden which has four different sections. There's the section that's on the lowest terrace. This one contains a portion that has shrubs that create walls or green courtyards that are incredible to walk through (through the center of this there is a long, thin rectangular fountain), and a portion that is along the cliff face which has arbors of climbing roses. The second section of the garden is in the courtyards of the two buildings (where the Sultan would get out of his carriage to walk to his palace) where there were multiple fountains surrounded by flowers and shrubs. The third section you got to by the water staircase, a staircase which has a small fountain on each landing, and which has water running down it's "railings". At the top of this staircase one reaches yet another terrace garden where one can view all of the other sections of the garden and the view of Granada beyond.
This garden delighted me in so many ways. It was incredible to walk around in this garden, admiring all the plants and flowers, and then stop and realize that you're viewing all this in November. It's like I've stepped into a fairy-tale (particularly the story of Beauty and the Beast). I enjoyed the fountains, the flowers, the buildings of plants (I've fantasized about these for years), the sunshine (was warm!), and I enjoyed the general peace of the garden (even with the chain saws in the background it was peaceful). If I had to pick a favorite moment while in the garden I have to say it'd be when I first walked into one of the "rooms" on the first level of the garden. The hedges were towering over my head, the pathway of well laid out pebbles created circles and patterns in the walkway, and the only plants within the garden were roses. This might sound fairly simple. My Momma would probably be surprised about my liking this simple rose garden, and even how I liked the roses (I find them too picky to grow and I also am pretty picky about them). The instant I stepped into this garden I was back at my fathers house, drawing a fancy mansion and a garden for the family there. So often I wanted to give my dad and his family a slightly larger house to give all those who live there a bit more space. Most of my drawings of homes occurred at my fathers house, and I wouldn't be surprised if I've drawn hundreds of different homes there. The difference with this particular sketch was that I was drawing it on a sunny day when I wanted to be out gardening. I drew one of the first homes for my dad's family that had a garden. Within this garden I made sure to try and draw a section for my dad. My father loves roses and I put his rose garden at the very beginning/end of the walking trail. I had envisioned a tall hedge creating a room for these roses, I envisioned the roses in a circle within this room, and I envisioned a fancy pathway. Basically when I stepped into this room I walked right into a part of one of my fantasy gardens. How does one act when one steps into a fantasy? How would you act if you set foot into a world that you thought you'd only imagined? How would you act if you stepped into a portion of your own heaven? I couldn't stop myself from smiling and gawking. My feet kept moving, urging me to find out if I'd find another section of a dream. The rest of the garden was indeed spectacular, and even though I had never envisioned the rest of it I was still excited the rest of the time from that one room.
When we left the Generalife we headed out of the Alhambra to walk back down the cobblestone street to our car. We had a fun time talking the whole way, laughing at the faces of the confused tourists (who saw me and didn't bother to hide their confusion), talking about the splendid Alhambra, and talking about the car ride back. Once back in the car we turned up the heat and made our way back to the diagonal and out of town. We had to take the backroads to get to the Diagonal and we had to turn around in order to get back to a place where we knew where we were and which way to go, but we eventually made our way out. I had a splendid time watching the action on the streets and the cars and in the shops. I never get tired of seeing this and I was definitely grateful I didn't have to pull the computer out because when I type I miss out on the countryside. I pulled the computer out a bit too early though and ended up messing my stomach up.
I gave my stomach half an hour to get back in shape and then I got to work.
Before heading back to our room we grabbed a bit of food at the grocery store (we were in a hurry because we were hungry). For the most part that night we did nothing most people would find special. We were goofy, we ate, and we talked about things we liked.
Ahmee and I had one of our goofiest moments on this trip just before dinner. I'd just taken my large orange scarf off and I was playing with it like it was my scarf from show choir. Ahmee and I ended up playing bullfight with my scarf. Ahmee would be a cow and she'd run at me (the matador) and my orange scarf. Then I'd be the heifer and I'd run at her while she played the matador. Ahmee said I wasn't much of a matador, and would run at my feet. After a certain point I gave up waving that scarf around and I just threw it and ran around the living room squealing while Ahmee chased me. It was hilarious. Poppy got to see a replay once he got downstairs (while he was up there he thought Ahmee was tickling me).
During dinner we talked about our plans for the next day, about what we loved about the gardens, and about what we loved about Granada. We were looking forward to relaxing on Thanksgiving; pigging out on pineapple, watermelon, and chicken (our mini turkey); walking on the beach; and writing (me). We also looked forward to spending a day in the IKEA store (this would be the day after Thanksgiving). When we got to talking about the gardens we decided to get out a piece of paper and a pencil to draw what we'd like to incorporate into our yards. While eating dinner Ahmee told me about her grandma and how she had been a master of: gardening, cooking, and sewing. Ahmee's momma had not been into gardening so much, she was like my sister Emma is now: she loved to cook. Ahmee told me about her grandmothers extensive garden and I was shocked to find out that her grandmothers garden sounded incredibly similar to the one I had in mind for Ahmee and Poppy.
The conversation was wonderful, the food was great (I GOT OREOS!!!), and we all left for bed shortly after we ate dinner. I had a slightly better time staying asleep this night.
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