Day Eleven and Twelve: In Which we Find the Gays and Mix a Daquiri with a Shirley Temple

So, there's a bit to catch you up on! We've been pretty tired the last two days so I haven't had a proper chance to write it all down.

Two days ago was Granada Pride Day! And we actually found other gays. There were lots of them. It didn't start that way though- when we got to the march starting place at 6pm, there were just a couple of other groups hanging around with rainbow items to tell us we were in the right spot. As the hour went on, more gays arrived, until there was a nice big crowd. We found our friend Nancy from the other day with the cancelled drag queen event (I had to ask her name again, turns out I had remembered it correctly!). At some point a lesbian drummer group showed up, and someone brought out two giant long flags (one gay one trans). We decided to help hold the rainbow flag cause they needed more people. The crowd was getting bigger and louder by the minute, but we weren't sure exactly what was meant to happen next. When were we going to start walking? Were there any floats in this parade or was it more of  protest march? If it was a protest, why were the police so clearly involved in clearing the streets for the march?

Eventually we started walking- for maybe two minutes. Then we stopped again, for no reason we could see. We'd start and stop in this excruciating way for maybe 20 minutes, which is when Rachel and I decided to abandon ship and go see what was happening at the front. We left our flag-carrying positions and walked to the front, where we noticed that the all-lesbian samba band group stopped every few minutes to do a choreographed routine, which was slowing down the whole procession. We weren't sure if this was a weird thing or if this was normal?? No one else seemed bothered by the very very slow pace.

We couldn't wait for the slow march, and we were getting overheated and hungry, so we walked a couple blocks away to Plaza Nueva and ate our snacks. When we came back about an hour later, the procession hadn't even made it to the turn off to city hall!!

We walked to the plaza the parade would end at and decided to meet it there. It arrived about 40 minutes later, all swarming into the concrete space in front of a large stage. Right, we thought, now it'll be interesting and fun. But actually people just started reading speeches in Spanish. Which might have been good had either one of us understood Spanish, but as it was we were hanging out in a very crowded square, being very tired, with nowhere to sit except the ground. There weren't even any food trucks or anything, the one thing that was there was a beer booth. So we were a bit confused- it seems like this pride march is frustratingly stuck between protest and festival? At least in Victoria it's clear it's a festival, and they provide resources as such.

Anyway we hung on for maybe 45 minutes, but we couldn't stay past then. We stumbled over to La Buena Vida, our favourite tapas bar, and got food. It kinda saved the day because we were so pooped. We got ice cream after and ate it at the viewpoint near our house. We could hear the tell-tale booming of a concert happening back at the square we came from.

But we were tired, so we headed home.

Thus we experienced Orgullo Granada, Granada Pride. It was neat to see all they gays in this city, but also it was kinda exhausting.

Food that saved the day:

---

Yesterday was a chill day - we wandered around in the morning, saw some parts of town we hadn't seen before. I found a studio ghibli t-shirt that I bought, Rachel found a good one-piece swimsuit. We are feeling ready to move on to the next leg of our journey, I think we're exhausting what this city has to offer for being a tourist here for two weeks. Paris should be good, also because it has an actual kitchen we can use which will help with meals.

Anyway we were looking for a queer bookshop-café in the hipster part of town, which didn't seem to exist so we went to a different place and got tapas for lunch.

After a long afternoon nap, we headed out around 11pm to try our luck at finding a lesbian club. Turns out we were still too early (there were like three people at the bar), so we hung out at La Buena Vida again. We got a daiquiri and a Shirley temple- neither of which were great, but together they were awesome. So we drank both through two separate straws in our mouths. And then dumped one into the other when we could.

After that we headed to the small nightclub. Most nightclubs are cozy affairs here- you walk in and you're just in it- one room, a bar on one side, and a raised section at the back. No bigger than living room size. We danced like dorks, interspersing swing, fortnite moves, cheesy finger guns, and disco moves. We stayed for about an hour before heading home.

It was fun, but if there's anything we learned today, it's that we are absolute goofs in both the mixed drinks department and the clubbing department. And I wouldn't have it any other way :)

Day Ten: In Which we Fail to find The Gays, and Everyone Claps

Yesterday there was a Granada pride event on, so Rachel and I headed downtown to try to find the Fuente de las Batallas. This was a fountain were supposedly there was a body painting and drag queen competition going on at 2pm, so we were very excited to see it!

We walked to the fountain, but nothing was going on… The only other thing we saw were other confused-looking gay people and couples wandering around. At one point a girl with rainbow eye makeup on approached us and asked if we were also looking for the drag queen competition and if we knew where it was? I only just understood that, as my vocab in Spanish is so low right now that only every third word or so gets through. We talked and walked for a bit, and she said we could check at the tourist offices nearby and they might be able to tell us what's going on. During the conversation I learned that she was from Honduras, but had lived here for a good couple years now. She had come down here expecting a pride event, but was equally as confused as us.

At the tourist centre, the people there tried to find anything online about the event being cancelled, or moved, anything- but the internet was bare of info. All we could find was the original event info, which was clearly wrong as nothing was happening out there… The employees gave us rainbow Granada Pride bracelets and sent us on our way.

The girl headed home after that (I completely forget her name!), and so did we.

We'll see if we run into each other tomorrow at the pride parade (if that's not also mysteriously not happening!).

We got some ice cream treats on the way home to cheer us up; we had really been looking forward to the mystery cancelled event. I got a mango slushie and Rachel picked out one of the five or so dairy-free options. They have AMAZING sorbet here, it just looks exactly like ice cream but tastes more like fruit and has no milk in it. They got lemon sorbet and I had a few licks- delicious.

Bonus: A very very skinny street

That evening we were in for a real treat- El Templo del Flamenco. An amazing tapas dinner and a flamenco show at the same time. The tapas were great, and our strategy of both eating what we can worked pretty well until we got to the flan, at which point we both just ate it and felt a bit bloated afterward. But all of it was so good! My favourite was the potato, egg, ham, and green pepper dish.

The dancing and music was also spectacular! Makes me want to run away and do flamenco in Spain. The clapping was constant and it seemed like the kind of environment where we could join in, but I was too nervous to do much else than clap along quietly while leaning my elbows on the table.

You could tell that the band was very close-knit, because the reactions and communication on stage were very tight. The guitarist was very skilled, but there were parts where he dropped out and all you could hear were the taps of the dancers and the clapping of hands.

All in all, an amazing night, and a wonderful date :)

Day Nine: in Which Rachel was like "I Recognize that, It's From Open Face Beholding"

Yesterday we went and checked out the cathedral of Granada. I stopped at a street vendor on the way and bought some orange rooibos tea for my mom- I love how easy it is to find cheap, quality, loose leaf tea in Granada. They practically throw it at you!

The cathedral was very tall, and very large. One of the largest in Europe, the audioguide said. Inside were standard Catholic cathedral things: pews, altars, carved marble, carved guided wood, giant music books used for the choirs, two huge beautiful organs, giant fancy chairs and pulpits.

It was a no talking tour, so every step echoed quite a bit. The most interesting things to me were probably the side room with art, tapestries, carvings, and giant grandfather clocks in it, and the constant mish-mash of styles everywhere inside. The outside looked Romantic, while some of the gates and door carvings were clearly Gothic, and many of the altars were over-adorned in classic Baroque style. They also really love their Virgin Mary here, in all iterations. Every separate altar featured some version of Mother Mary, and I think there were actually more references to her than to Jesus (although there were also a lot of Jesus references).

The audio guide was helpful if not always entirely historically accurate. Definitely glossed over the whole Spanish Inquisition thing, saying only at monuments to its leaders "their great efforts to bring the teachings of Jesus back to Granada."

I found it interesting how the imagery here incorporated the imagery already present in Granada (the pomegranate) and combined it with Christian iconography to ingratiate themselves with the previously existing history of this place. They had many crosses growing out of the top of pomegranates. Classic Catholicism.

All in all, worth seeing. Lots of history there, some really impressive art, and interesting to see it through the lens of the Catholics are and always were right…

For lunch/dinner, we stopped at what is now basically our community pub, Bar Aixa. They know our coffee orders on sight now. No wonder cause it's just up the street from our hostel! Anyway I had some really great and well-priced ratatouille, and Rachel sampled some deep fried eggplant with honey. Both very good.

Then we headed home after a long day, but not before I picked up some artisanal hot chocolate for my favourite brother in the world who's name starts with a J. :))

Bonus: A dfab devil with angel wings and face boobs, found on the streets of Granada

Day Seven and Day Eight: In Which we Netflix and Make Fun of Ferdinand's Reign

Today was mostly a nice long rest day, which ended up coinciding quite nicely with one of the hottest days so far here. We went for a walk in the morning, exploring the only view point we hadn't seen yet. We wandered around for a bit exploring the parts of the city we hadn't seen, and ended up by the river buying some very fancy tea for a very fair price. Later in the afternoon we went grocery shopping, and since then we've mostly just been resting- driven back to our hostel as the sun really started beating down. We caught up on some Netflix and have been trying to beat the heat by staying inside, but I will say it's still quite hot! I'm sitting in bed right now just covered in sweat, and the sun isn't even up anymore. It's just one of those days. On longer trips there ends up being a couple of relatively chill recovery days.

Tomorrow is the Alhambra, should be nice.

--

Today was the Alhambra!

My mood has improved a lot since yesterday because it wasn't nearly as hot today- there was actually quite a nice breeze tonight. Also, the Alhambra was amazing!

I'd seen it before but I didn’t remember all the different rooms. The intricacy blew my mind again, and I liked not being with a school group like last time so that we could hang back and look at everything on our own time. Rachel got some beautiful photos, including one of stained glass windows projecting coloured light onto the wall. A hilarious detail I noticed this time around was that in one room, there was clearly a carving on the ceiling done by the Catholics after they invaded, and it was so much less detailed and impressive compared to the Muslim wall and ceiling carvings. Whereas the Moorish parts were small and symbolic, the invading Spaniards had carved a giant "F" and a giant "Y"- for King Ferdinand and Queen Ysabella (of the Spanish Inquisition)- right front and centre in their carving. It was almost like they were saying "see, we can do it too!" But not as well tbh.

You vs the guy she tell you not to worry about:

Another funny detail: people back then in this part of the world had no frickin idea what lions looked like. The carved statues looked more like dogs.

The gardens were lovely, I saw some cute koi and frogs, and I appreciated the trees on the way up and down the path to the palace. It made me miss the forests back home!

In the evening we went out for tapas once more, and tapas-bar-hopped to three different places to get a full of combined tapas. The quality and quantity varied greatly, generally the more there was the less awesome it was. But still a nice dinner experience for a very reasonable price!

After climbing up the hill (honestly, the equivalent of Mt Tolmie) back to our hostel, we are now just hanging out a bit before sleep. We might watch some season three of The Good Place- they have it on Netflix here!

Peace Out.

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.