Alhambra, Shopping, Flamenco...Ole! (Granada, Day 2, Part 3)

Hello Everyone,

Ok before I start my soapbox on the rest of the day, I'm gonna finish up the Alhambra photos...

I cannot remember if this was some sort of bath or where the workers lived...bug difference, huh?

I think this was all part of the Alcazaba

this was a bathroom

This reminds me of a lollipop...

notice the star?

Finally inside the Palacio de Carlos V

I could tell you all about the type of columns these are and how it probably was not finished because there are usually 3 levels of columns all of different types, but I will not bore you by going into any more detail...however I do love my Art History class for teaching me all that!

Church...we stepped inside for about a total of 3 minutes...just for a few photos

Baroque art!

This walkway was so cool!

tree-hugger

Ok now for the rest of our day...

As we were walking to find a restaurant for lunch, we saw a few streets full of merchandise...like a mini Rastro, but with the Muslim influence, of course!  We both wanted to check them out (but after eating of course because we were starving). So we shopped for an hour or two after lunch going up and down these streets and hitting up all the cute shops we had missed and the merchandise they had displayed on the streets.  Then we went back to the hostel to figure out what to do next...

As we sat on the terrace and read from my travel guide, what stood out to both of us was a flamenco show, but Katie did not want to spend too much (due to how much money she had brought) and so the 24euro  show was out (even though that's super cheap for a show.  So we saw on in the book for 12 euros and decided to ask the front desk if they had heard of it.  They had not, but the girl manning the desk told me about an 8 euro show that night and when we said we wanted to go, she wrote down the name of the place and showed me approximately where it was on a map and then proceeded to call and make the reservations for us!

As we had a little extra time, we both napped for about an hour before dressing up (we wanted to dress up and get a nice dinner - paella of course) and heading out.  We went back to the plaza and finally found a paella place that wouldn't break the bank.  It was Katie's first time having paella here, and she liked it a lot, but I personally thought it was not so good at all (I'm becoming a paella snob because I am so spoiled by the wonderful paella Mari Paz makes us). 

Afterward, we set off walking to the flamenco show...but we could not find it at all.  A Syruan guy asked if we were lost and offered to help (mind you, he was also offering us a drink of his coffee and totally flirting with us...obviously tipsy at least).  After directing us (in the wrong direction I might add), he proceeded to ask if Katie was my mother....hahahahahahaha!  Best laugh of the weekend!  Even though that means I look super young, I think it's funny that he thought Katie looked old enough to be a mother to someone almost her height!  She will never live that down...hahahahaha!  Hysterical!  Anyhow...after that unhelpful encounter, we continued to look and ask around with no luck, and it was getting close to the time we wanted to be there.  So we finally took a cab to a spot near where we thought it was...and looked some more.  Finally we asked a storekeeper who actually recognized the name of the place and told us where it actually was. 

Yay!  We made it there at last!  It was a little hole-in-the-wall place, called Le Chien Andalou (which, we realized after looking at a poster of pictures, was the title of a movie we had seen in our Culture and Civilization course). Then the show began.  Flamenco is strange...at first it was just the singer and the guitarist...and it seemed like the guitarist keep a sort of rhythm but the singer burst into song randomly.  Katie told me that flamenco is so hard because the dancer's feet provide the rhythm and so the dancer has no rhythm to follow.  When the dancer finally came out, she did lots of clapping to set the rhythm and danced less that I would have liked, but she danced beautifully and for an 8 euro performance, I was satisfied.

Then we taxied back to the hostel and crashed.

Before the show

The movie...it's as strange as it looks

There were very few opportunities to actually capture the dancer mid-dance without the photo being totally blurry.  I did take some videos though.

Peace and Blessings,
Melanie

Spanish Words of the Day:  Ir de compras = to go shopping, comprar = to buy, bailar = to dance (but I think I've used that one before...) :)