Melissa's Travels

On our way to Barcelona from Sevilla we had a 3 day stopover in the Andalucian town of Granada. Our early afternoon train ride was filled with moments fit for journaling, reading or siesta-ing. Trains are certainly a romantic way to travel (unless they take place during the night, more on that later). However, I always find myself feeling a little guilty for watching the countryside pass by in such a cushy setting. Shouldn't train travel epitomize the Kerouac experience? I should be traveling lighter, playing my harmonica, stowing away in a freight car, downing whiskey to keep warm amongst my newfound friends. I certainly should not be drinking overpriced cafe con leches in the dining car or watching my fellow travelers type away on their macbooks or play away their afternoon on their DS. But as someone recently told me, "Melissa, we are not living in the 60's anymore" (which I suppose rules out the 40's and 50's as well). Still, bound for Granada I harbored a hope that I could briefly escape from the 21st century before setting foot into the storybook setting that awaited me in Southern Spain.

Once in Granada, there were no time for siestas. I had to hit the ground running, first stop:: The Albaycin. I was a little doubtful of my ability to lead the group through the winding stone walkways towards the Mirador de San Nicolas (St Nicolas' Lookout), but after a few wrong turns (and reminders to the students that this was not the neighborhood to head to if you had any sort of time commitment. Getting lost is inevitable), I finally heard the drums and guitar that characterize afternoons in this plaza and followed my ears. And there, to our right sprung the magnificent Alhambra, former residence of Granada's Muslim rulers and our main reason for visiting the city. There were the necessary photos to be taken amongst the other tourists as stray dogs (and children--parents have no fear of losing their kids here in Spain) scurried through the plaza filled with mini drum circles and craft selling locals. One of the students inquired with a tone of disdain, "Do a lot of hippies live here?" to which I gleefully responded, "Yes!!" The lazy meandering streets of the mellow Albaycin, where most locations are impossible to reach by car, is the perfect setting to kick back and pretend that the 60's are alive and well. I briefly considered resigning from my job as a T.A., renting out a second story flat in a white washed building and sending notice to my parents to ship my record player over to my new residence. I'd have easy access to incense, tea and all things "hippie" right at my backdoor. And maybe I could start playing the tambourine or become a water color master? Maybe I could set up an illegal counseling business for homesick tourists? Or open a hostel? The options were endless, but I knew my sister would kill me if I bailed on our plan to meet up and travel through Italy in June so I had to snap out of dreamland and get back to work.

Probably the very best part of Granada was that I was able to experience it free from strep throat. Last May I took a weekend trip there with my friend Liz and I awoke the morning of our departure with swollen glands and the telltale white spots. Hiking up to the Albaycin and Alhambra with a fever was far from the highlight of my stay in Spain. My 5 weeks spent on the couch recovery from my tonsillectomy never seemed so worthwhile when I was forced to awake on Day 2 in Granada at 6:30 for the walk to procure tickets to The Alhambra. The prof refuses to buy tickets online so it was my job to recruit two students to join me on an early morning hike to secure tickets for that afternoon. Unfortunately, our hostel was so far away from the city centre that by the time we'd made the 45 minute walk into town we were dangerously close to running out of time. We decided to cough up the money to take the bus (later the prof would scold me for not doing this sooner), waited in line for almost an hour and with tickets in hand made the steep journey back into town. Granada is a town famous for "tapa hopping" (basically bar hopping, but you get a generous plate of food with every drink) and with it only being 9am we decided to put our own spin on things and try out some "breakfast hopping" on the walk back to the hostel. After weeks of cornflakes, warm milk and stale bread (the hostels in Spain have obviously never heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day), the fresh squeezed orange juice and chocolate pastries were a welcome respite. I have yet to find another breakfast in Spain quite as delicious. Four hours after we'd set out to buy tickets we finally returned to our hostel. For the rest of the class the day had barely begun and we had already had an adventure that we'd appropriately deemed "epic." Needless to say, a siesta was in order.

Post-siesta it was time to head back to The Alhambra. I'd insisted that we have at least an hour to travel before our entrance time, but unfortunately my words of warning were ignored and we all wound up waiting at the bus stop restless and nervous that we wouldn't reach the site by our scheduled time. We couldn't come all the way to Granada and miss The Alhambra! We made it in the gates with barely 10 minutes to spare and all set out on our separate ways. Halfway towards the palace it suddenly occurred to me that the time on our tickets was not to enter the main gates but to enter the palace. I shared my realization with the 3 students I was with and we quickly wound through the masses of tour groups slowly making there way down the pedestrian paths. We reached the palace 25 minutes after our scheduled time, but I used my meager Spanish to convince the guard to give us "VIP treatment" and escort us into the palace. Once inside we breathed a sigh of relief. However, it was short lived when we realized that the rest of the class would likely not have the same luck. As it turned out, this was exactly the case. I had failed my job as the T.A.! We had traveled all this way to see this UNESCO World Heritage site, only to be denied entrance? Thankfully my students accepted the disappointment well and no fingers of blame were pointed in my direction. The fact that this was my 3rd trip to The Alhambra and I didn't remember this small, but significant detail can certainly be blamed on the fact that the first trip I was merely playing follow the leader and the second trip my logic was stolen away by strep throat.

It always surprises me how quickly you can adjust to a new place while traveling. Within 2.5 days I made the 45 min trek to the center of town multiple times, discovered my favorite internet cafe, best place for tapas, the best gelato outside of Italy (seriously--THE BEST), oriented to the bus system and discovered which intersections to avoid for crossing the street. And getting cozy in a place means that I will inevitably have a hard time saying good-bye. I spent my last day in Granada mourning the fact that I wouldn't be able to siesta and trying to fill the time between breakfast and the overnight train that awaited us that evening.  Once I'd resigned myself to spending the day shopping and eating (with a fair bit of wandering inbetween), the hours did pass reasonably quickly and we were headed to the train station.

And finally I can rant about the hell that is overnight train travel. I have vague memories of my group in '05 complaining about the terror of overnight trains, but I had no such memories of my own discomfort. One of my friends from the trip assured me that this time it would be great and that we'd just had the misfortune in '05 of having the heater broken on our train. However, once I stepped onto the train I discovered that the sweltering, stuffy quarters were not a result of a heater malfunction. The next debacle to deal with was the fact that our travel agent had failed to consider the school's "Lifestyle Expectation" rules when making our reservations and had booked two girls and two guys in the same sleeping car. Most of the female students were eager to "take one for the team" and stay with the guys, but this would not fly with the prof. In the end myself and another student were the ones stuck being relocated to another car with a stranger. During the middle of the night the student awoke me with terror in her voice, announcing that someone had just been in our car and that we should check our belongings. Half-asleep I mumbled that I was sure it was fine, and fell back asleep. It wasn't until the morning that I realized the significance of what she'd seen. As it turns out, during the night someone had wandered up and down the halls of the train, creeping into unlocked rooms and digging through people's valuables. Luckily the student had scared him away, but one of the students wasn't so lucky. His entire wallet was stolen during the night. By now the damage has been taken care of, but this certainly didn't help to leave anyone with a good first impression of overnight trains.

And now here we are, Barcelona. The metropolitan city of Gaudi. Where Spanish is of little use as Catalan is the official language and most people speak language. I'm sure the nearness of the beach will keep us all sufficiently distracted from this disappointment.