Day Six: In Which we Relax and we Dance! (and tapas)

Hello loyal followers! (aka family and friends!)

I'm in a nice happy mood right now, just come back from a nice Sunday night out with my girl :) <3

I'm also happy because we just realized Granada pride is literally happening while we're here
(found out via a billboard in downtown), and that combined with realizing that the caves of San
Miguel and Sacromonte are a thing means that we've now got a tentative schedule for the rest
of our time here! I love being here so long, we can see all the cool things at our own pace.

Today was mostly a rest day, with a café visit and a grocery shopping trip to stock up on basic food
stuffs in the evening. In the late evening, around 9:30pm, we left to seek out tapas bars and maybe
a dancing nightclub if we could find one. This was not the first time we had tried to tap in (tapa in ;)
to the city's nightlife- the last two times we left way, way too early and everything was closed. To
get drinks and tapas, you really need to get to places around 10:30pm.

We found a place called La Buena Vida, and got some excellent mixed drinks and tapas, all for a total
of 8.50 euros. Very good value for money for two people drinks and light dinner. We were full after
that so we wandered around until we found what was probably the only open bar/club on Sunday
(it was tiny but PACKED.) They were playing salsa and Rachel and I danced swing, which seemed to
fit in nice enough! I was definitely a bit nervous but I calmed down after noticing our dance skills were
at least on par with everyone else's, despite being a slightly different dance style. A live samba band
(very loud!) took over from the canned music about halfway through. At one point a guy even noticed
us being fancy and clapped us along flamenco-style, something I didn't notice but Rachel picked up
on. This reminded me of clapping I'd seen earlier in Plaza Nueva when Rachel was stocking up on local
churros- there was a very talented busking group doing a beautifully improvised flamenco routine.

After the dancing, we bought some really good pomegranate
sorbet and hung out at the beautiful viewpoint of the Alhambra
near our hostel. It was a lovely end to a lovely day, and my feet
are tired but happy from all the dancing!

I feel like I'm really comfortable in the city now, not a local but
almost when it comes to street navigation. I'm really excited to
see the Alhambra in two days, and experience what we can of
the rest of the city.

Also, we saw more dogs today :) and some cool political graffiti which I'm making Rachel explain cause
they did the research.

Rachel's Comments:

Here I am explaining this at 3:35am… here we
go. So basically hundreds of years ago persecuted
people (ex. Escaped slaves, Jewish, Muslim, and
Romani people) retreated to the mountains and
dug caves to live in as a way of escaping their
oppression. For generations these caves have been
occupied (rent free) by people who have nowhere
else to go. The thing is people have gotten 'too good'
at it. People have created whole homes for
themselves complete with running water and
electricity, 'homeless' people actually get to
experience 'luxuries' such as privacy and furniture.
Basically, anyone with a shovel can create a place for themselves.

So of course the government wants to shut it down, evict everyone out of the caves and
turn it into a tourist attraction. Which is freaking ridiculous considering the place has been
actively serving the same purpose for hundreds of years.

The specific graffiti artist we saw has been evading the police and tagging key Granada
landmarks with the phrase 'the caves resist' for the past two years. The police have even
resorted to installing security cameras in the streets, without avail. The artist even taunted
them by doing a piece of a camera being smashed.

We're hoping to check out the caves later this week. We'll be sure to support the local community.