Falling Into Winter

It’s been quite a while since I felt inspired to write a blog. To be quite honest, I am not feeling all that inspired now but I hate knowing that there is a huge gap in my timeline (also, there is a huge gap in my work day so I have to fill that, too). Therefore I will try to sum up the past month as concisely as possible.
Halloween consisted of very little for me. I wore a sweatshirt covered in candy corns, pumpkins and ghosts and spoke to a few classes about the holiday. As for celebrating, I skipped out: no costume, no candy. 

The first weekend of November I went with my friends Martina and Angela to a nearby city called Córdoba. We went by bus, stayed in a lovely hostel in the center, and ate way too much. Our stay was short but in that time we saw (and ate) a lot! Córdoba is known for its ‘mezquita’, mosque in Spanish, which long ago was turned into a church. We also went to some beautiful gardens and took lots of fun photos. The nightlife in Córdoba wasn’t very promising and so we weren’t the least bit sad to return to our lively Granada.

The best story from Córdoba is that when we returned from a night out and entered the building, an old man was standing in the doorway. He was mumbling to himself and he really creeped me out. So I entered first, cracking the door only slightly so my friends could slip in and we could shut this man out. Well, someone (I wont name names) let the man in the door and panic ensued. I assumed the worst and started to hustle up the stairs. Angela shouted “Ellie, don’t run!” and when the man also sped upstairs, Angela changed her mind, “RUN!” We fumbled for the key and I felt my heart nearly explode. Once we opened the door to our hostel, we looked down the stairs to realize that the creepy man was a resident in the building. He was just drunk and had misplaced his key to the front door. We let out a sigh of relief and laughed it off quickly. 

A few days later, I discovered the most beautiful place in Granada: Generalife. It is a recreational park where many people go to hike or mountain bike. The further up you hike, the less of the city you hear and the more you see. It is breathtaking and very peaceful. I have several go-to spots to hang my hammock now. When the city overwhelms me (which is very often), I try to go to Generalife or at least dream of my days off when I can make it up there. 

When I was in Ecuador, I met a fellow exchange student from Louisiana called Lorraine.  If you remember much earlier blog posts, circa summer 2012, you will remember that she and I traveled through Colombia together. Over a year later, it turns out that Lorraine was also in Spain. She had been traveling through Europe and decided to make a slight detour to spend a few days with me. Lorraine grew to love Granada and ended up staying three weeks.

In those three weeks we had lots of adventures, but the best one came first. On her first weekend in Andalucía, we went to a national park called Cabo de Gata. In order to get there, we got a ride to Almería where we met up with my friend Juan Jo, who was an exchange student at UNCW last fall and we studied Portuguese together. It was great to see him and catch up. The next day he drove Lorraine and I to the park and we spent the afternoon with him exploring. Cabo de Gata has it all: mountains, sea and dessert. It is a spectacular place with few residents and abundant breath-taking views. After lunch, Juan Jo helped us find an apartment, making sure we didn’t get scammed for being female foreigners. We landed the most amazing apartment with a view of the sea and enough room for six guests… all to ourselves! 

The highlights of the trip included waking up early for the sunrise, going to a local bar and dancing with the musician who was performing, and above all, our 4-hour kayak trip. We rented a double kayak and spent the afternoon paddling through the Mediterranean. The water was so many hues of greens and blues and, for the most part, calm. We encountered no other people until we were almost back to shore. At one point we pulled our kayak into a little cave and had our own private beach. Once we were back in town, we realized the sea had swallowed one of our life jackets. The guys at the dive shop weren’t too pleased but they charged us less than normal because the life jacket was old.

After such a magical weekend, it was a difficult transition back to work. 

The next weekend Lorraine and I stuck around town. We took advantage of Granada’s free tapas and spent time in Generalife simply relaxing.

One Monday, Lorraine and I went to tour the Alhambra. I had been before in high school but it was amazing to realize how much I had forgotten. We spent hours exploring the palace and its gardens. 

At the end, we were walking through a palace and we came across a security guard explaining a room to two other American girls. A second guard came along and said, “Don’t just tell them… Show them!” The first guard said, “I want nothing to do with this!” and immediately ran away. The four of us Americans looked at each other confused and shrugged. The second guard took down the rope blocking off the room and whispered, “Run in, run out.” So I did exactly that. I ran on tiptoes and looked around as fast as I could. We all had a good laugh and the guard just grinned. 

That weekend, we took a day trip to Málaga and visited the Picasso Museum. It was a nice museum, but to be honest, I enjoyed the exhibit of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint more than the Picasso exhibit. Unfortunately, we could not take any pictures in the museum. So I've snagged a picture from Google to give you an idea of her work.

Lorraine left the day before Thanksgiving and I immediately longed for my American companion. I worked all Thanksgiving Day and night so I had to postpone any celebration until the weekend. I spent the whole week preparing: looking up recipes, hunting down strange ingredients (pumpkin in a can & corn starch), and chopping up veggies. After being in the kitchen Friday night and all day Saturday, I finally made my first Thanksgiving. I invited my roommates, my roommate’s girlfriend, my landlord, and my friend Martina, who I owe a HUGE thanks for helping me make the meal. We ate turkey, mashed potatoes with bacon, green bean casserole, glazed carrots, stuffing, pumpkin cake, pumpkin pie, and trifle. The pumpkin desserts were an experiment and nearly a failure. The texture was not exactly as it should be but they came out edible and admittedly pretty delicious. I felt relieved after serving Thanksgiving dinner and spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and eating leftovers. 

I have only three days of school this week and then a long weekend. My friends and I have a getaway planned but I’ll save the details of that until after the fact. Until then, have a nice week!