The Importance of Being Idle: Tell Me Moor Tell Me Moor

As much as we enjoyed Malaga, for the second leg of our Spain trip, Dave and I ventured through and around the city trying to leave. We trekked to a few rental car shops to compare prices only to end up booking our car at a random no-name place. So with our fingers crossed we hoped the insurance was legitimate and headed out to find our car which was parked literally on a street somewhere - we just had to look for the license plate in order to find it. We asked a guy on the next street for help with the car map, and he grabbed the keys to check out the license plate on the tag. While mid-thought of "he's trying to steal our keys!" he explained that he actually worked for the rental place and was on his way there. Turned out that our car was randomly, and luckily parked in a spot right near us.

After Dave got himself adjusted to our compact vehicle (props to the man - driving on the opposite side of the road, while sitting in the opposite side of the car, driving stick which he hadn't done in years, with the stick on the opposite side of his body), we promptly got stuck in traffic. You see, Malaga is in the running for the European Capital of Culture in 2016 so there's construction everywhere, which meant the GPS was of little help.

We eventually reached the highway to Granada, though the driving issues didn't end there. After missing our exit and turning around, upon entering the city we were completely baffled as to where the hotel was. We stopped off at a bakery where I had a ten minute conversation in Spanish with the manager (mostly saying "not ____" and "not ____" if I didn't know the word - process of elimination did actually work.) He called the hotel for directions which got us in the vicinity but didn't land us directly there. The street we thought we had to turn onto had a sign with a big red prohibited line, in addition to it being a tiny cobblestone street which we didn't even think our small car could fit down. We found a local garage (there is no street parking in Granada) with what seemed like an 80 degree angled twisty entrance and parked temporarily. We resorted to asking other hotels where ours was, and if we could even park in their garages (answer: a confused look followed by "No.") We finally found our hotel that confirmed we were to drive down that tiny "do not enter" street and into their 80 degree angled twisty entrance garage. The driving there made us nervous wrecks so we decided to extend our stay in Granada from one to two nights which I'm thankful we did.

We made it to the hotel just in time to hop on the small bus that took us up the mountains to The Alhambra. The easiest way for me to explain The Alhambra is that it's a Moorish palace/fortress/garden/small city that overlooks all of Granada. The first area that visitors walk around is called Generalife (pictured below.)

I'm obsessed with the views of the white houses on hills

The below pic is slightly reminiscent of this photo taken in Bath(Dammit, I never posted the photo I'm talking about, but a Bath recap is always nice.)

Little ~~pink~~ white houses for you and me

I can't believe we managed to capture these photos with no one else in themI swear we didn't carve this into the tree

The Alhambra and it's views were beautiful. The pictures of the detailing in the palace simply don't do it justice. This is a must to visit if you're ever in Southern Spain.

Another reason one should visit is Granada is for the FREE tapas! Every time you order a drink in this city, the restaurant brings you a small free plate of food. We knew that beforehand because we had inside information, but had we not, we probably would have blown an unnecessary amount of money on dinner. Instead, we spent a small amount of money on cheap drinks and filled our stomachs up on a lovely street of restaurants near our hotel.

I still don't know what the first tapa(s?) that came out was exactly. According to this website, perhaps it's a type of Montadito? It appeared to be a pate-like mush full of flavor on bread...I'll leave you to ponder that image for yourself, but it was quite tasty (in a good way.) Oh, I also removed the fried egg that came on top of it if that helps for identification purposes.

The second tapa(s?) was sausage on bread with a side of these tasty bean-type things that looked like mutant corn kernels. I saw the mutant corn-kernel bean things in a jar in the supermarket but couldn't decipher what they were. Ana - any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Third up were little franks in some sauce. Dave told me they were likely from a can but I'd like to think they weren't (although...how else would they come?)

We switched bars for the fourth drink and luckily didn't receive a repeat plate. At this place we received chicken croquettes with fries. I'd had this in Malaga and it was one of my favorites.

On our way back to the hotel we spotted a cozy tapas bar on that tiny cobblestone street where we were staying. One of the coolest things about Granada is that you would never know it until the evening, but there are charming little tapas bars that open up on practically every street. I think we fared best at this place - we were first given Spanish prosciutto (name?) on bread with a side of olives, and for round 2, a hard cheese with honey and dried cranberries on top.

Yum...cheese and honey tapasOh wine what you do to me

You would think that all of that wine would have made me sick. Well, it did! The next day we ventured out to grab food but I was feeling nauseous and had to head back to the hotel before truly starting our day. With me still feeling about 38%, we booked a bus tour around the city as I couldn't physically handle much more than that (let it be stated that I think I had a virus or fever and not just a hangover - there were chills and sweats involved.)

Our first stop was actually The Alhambra again. We drove up a different way which gave us another batch of beautiful mountainside views. I also don't understand how a bus that big physically made it up the side of the mountain but that's another story.

We passed the bull ring on the tour as well. Unfortunately no fights were happening when we were in town. I would have loved to seen one, but at least we watched some on TV during the trip - they were quite entertaining, though disgusting at the same time.

I don't know why this sticker was posted to this sign but I like it

After most of the journey, we exited the bus and walked around the area by the main church. I made friends with an ice cream cone that looked like a cartoon dog.