Granada (tierra soñada por mi)

I have learned from my travels that you can have relationships with places in much the same way that you do with people; you can be shy acquaintances, friends, indifferent brethren, enemies, tumultuous lovers.... with a city. For example, I merely shook hands with London and felt that it had a cold, firm grip. I think we will forevermore be one of those permanent acquaintances who share a mutual respect and speak well of one another, but we both know we don't have any intention of spending time alone together. Bruges on the other hand is like one of those sweet-natured, charming friends from way back, who you move in with during college - their little, repetitive habits and phrases quickly drive you up the wall, but you can't help but love them still.  

Granada is a perfect example of this personification. Granada is that friend you meet under some slightly unordinary circumstance (in a coffee shop, at the pump in a gas station), you hit it off, exchange contacts without seriousness, and you get to know them unhurriedly, patiently. You hang out when you both have the time, just to talk about nothing in particular (and this could go on for years), until the day you realize that this friend you've always taken for granted is actually your best friend. Even though they aren't part of your wider friend group, even though you don't see one another everyday, somehow it seems that you've known this friend your whole life,  and you love this friend because within its city limits, it makes you yourself. 

All of this is to say, I don't know if anyone I leave behind when I leave this place will know just how much I will love and miss them. I don't know if I could ever make them understand what a huge, life-changing impact they have had on who I am and how I see the world. Granada itself won't be aware of my absence. The bitter decorative oranges will go on ripening, rotting, and falling into the gutters; laundry will continue to blossom from window railings, dogs will go on pooping on the walkways; its citizens will slip all over the smooth, tiled pavement with each fresh rain; la Alhambra will still stand in all its knowing austerity. 

Seemingly every time I visited the famous mirador de San Nicolás this year, someone new would tell me how president I'm-not-exactly-sure-which-one (Clinton) once described the sunset over Granada as the most beautiful sunset he'd ever seen. That's great Clinton had aesthetic taste, but I don't care about that. I don't need for anyone to point out to me what a wonderful place this is. 

Maybe Clinton didn't even notice the swallows - hundreds of swallows, that cut through the sky above the city as the air burns warm, gold and pink each evening. But I have, I have seen that light storm of swallows, dancing in wide, circulating curves to accentuate the arch of the sky. I must have been here before, because it feels as if I have always known and understood the beauty that is this place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F9BiDAfpaA&feature=related

The Jamón Serrano Incident

Some random, category-less photos from around Granada:

Walking down the street after leaving my painting class yesterday evening, I passed a leg of ham, sitting alone on a bench, propped upright and half-wrapped in a plastic bag. When I caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye as I walked past, it scared me; so much so that I yelped and jumped away, almost running into a crowd of people who were walking down the opposite side of the sidewalk. 

Realizing what it was (a leg of dry-cured Spanish ham, not a preternatural cadaver), I began to laugh. I laughed so hard, I laughed all the way home. 

Oh Spain, how I shall miss you.

PUENTING!

So last weekend I went puenting. Puenting is Spanish for bridge-jumping - an extreme sport not unlike bungee jumping, except with a huge pendulum thrown in for kicks after the initial, heart-stopping drop. I took an earlier bus than the rest of the group and got to the bridge early. I confess: exhausted (running on 4 hours of sleep), sitting alone in the middle of nowhere (well not exactly, but the closest town was 10 km), under the hot sun, waiting for everyone, I was grumpy and kept thinking how I should've gone to the beach. Boy was I wrong. It was an amazing experience and I'm so glad I made that leap of faith.

You have to climb the ladder, stand on the railing of the bridge, and jump out.

Cheering squad waiting and watching from below (way zoomed in, just so you know) 

- we took turns, and the whole group (about 14 of us) all went - no one chickened out!

My face, when it really hit me that I'd be tied to the bridge by my ankles.

R and S were wonderful moral support!

It takes just one moment of bravery, and then you're committed. 

The bridge the little person on the left of the photo is standing on 

isn't even halfway to the bottom of the canyon.

 

S.y. was the first one to go. Climbing up that ladder takes guts.

S doing some meditation before getting the all clear to approach the ladder.

R sang/screamed some Tom Petty while standing on the ledge, 

before taking this beautiful, bird-like leap.

Oh, K. Topless puenting? When I first met her this stuff surprised me. 

After the initial drop and violent up-swing, the pendulum like motion over that beautiful canyon was absolutely lovely. 

I was the second-to-last one to jump. The guy that put on my harness told me "No hagas como tus amigas" (Don't do it like your girlfriends). Most of the guys had jumped more or less quickly, but a few of my female friends (some of them legitimately afraid of heights) panicked and waited, standing on the railing for 5 or 6 minutes (there is about a 3 minute time limit within which you can jump, after that you are at risk of being unharnessed and losing your money). I knew if I paused to think even for a moment, I wouldn't get up the guts to jump until everyone was yelling at me to do it.... so I literally crawled up the ladder, stood up and leapt off.... K said she didn't even have time to get a picture of me standing on the railing, I did it so fast! The initial drop - eyes open, watching the tiny river far below quickly expand as I fell head-first towards it - was the scariest part. After that drop, swinging like Spiderman back and fourth as you are slowly lowered down, is when you are flooded with relief and euphoria. It is then that  I realized that, for just a moment I had conquered the world, because for just a moment I had completely conquered my self. 

It sounds super cheesy because it is, I know, but in a way, puenting is a representative experience for my year abroad. Not that I am afraid of heights (oh let's be honest - who isn't afraid of heights when standing on the railing of a bridge 110 meters above the ground?), but I don't know that I would've agreed to try bridge-jumping on a whim just 8 months ago. I feel that living here in Spain and all that it entails (immersion in a totally unknown environment, separation from my family and culture, a new language, brand new friends, etc, etc) has changed me in a way that 10 years of the same-old-same-old could never have done. I expected study abroad to broaden my world view (make me more considerate of other people's opinions and life experiences), but I confess that the enormous leaps of pure, selfish, self-discovery rather took me by surprise. I'm curious to see if my family and close friends perceive any difference whatsoever when I get back, because I sure do. Heck, I've jumped off of a bridge and survived - if that isn't outside of the pre-study abroad Kristian's comfort zone, I don't know what is.

Cadiz - final program trip!

I can't believe it. Our last program-sponsored trip. I can't believe it. For those of my friends who are returning directly to the United States when classes end on the 25th of May, this is their last trip, period.

Thinking about this upsets me so I won't write about it write now, but all I can say is boy does time fly.

On top of Tavira Tower, looking out over the old city with J. 

Memorial to the Constitution of 1812, signed in Cadiz.

Such a beautiful city!

View of the Cathedral from the waterfront. It was grey and raining cats and dogs Saturday morning, but shortly after taking these pictures, the sun came out and dried us off.

More of the panoramic view; this time with H. 

I will miss the wonderful friends I've made here.

Crazy tree. Looks like the one Rafiki lives in in the Lion King.

El Día de la Cruz

Last Thursday, the 3rd of May was Cruz de Mayo (Fiesta de las Cruces). As far as I know this religious holiday (mixed with more than a few pagan traditions) is celebrated exclusively in Spain and a few Hispano-American countries. Apparently it stems from the story of Emperor Constantine I, the guy who made Christianity popular in the fourth century. Before a battle with a whopping big enemy army, Constantine had a vision of a cross in the sky, and was told that with this symbol he would be victorious. You guessed it, Constantine wins, is baptized, and more or less institutionalizes Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. He sends his mom, Saint Helena to Jerusalem in search of the original, True Cross. El Día de la Cruz commemorates the day that she discovered said cross on Cavalry Hill.

In Spain, most people get the afternoon off of work, and each city has its own unique way of celebrating. Granada is particularly famous for outdoor festivities and numerous crosses hung in decorated courtyards, shop windows and plazas; the most beautiful arrangement wins a prize. I had a wonderful day walking around with friends to see the crosses and enjoy the ambiance. The streets were filled with colorful, traditional Spanish costumes, people dancing Sevillanas (flamenco-inspired dance for the layman), horses, and merry making. My fantastic group of Spanish friends were so warm and inviting to my American friends that joined us, we had a great afternoon! 

An apple with scissors stabbed into it is at the foot of every decorative cross represents an interrupted "but"... as in, someone is commenting on the beautiful arrangement, how many flowers there are, etc. etc. "but it is missing a..." or "but the one down the street is prettier". No buts about it, there is the but, rammed through with a pair of scissors. I asked half a dozen Spaniards - so how is a "but" an apple? 

Ni puta idea. No effing idea. Quite charming, though.

Me with A in her beautiful dress!

1st prize winning cross in the Albaicin!

Amongst my friends here I am infamous for creepily taking pictures of other people's children. 

I think this is the best one I've taken all semester.

J and A danced for us whenever the music permitted Sevillanas... such an elegant dance and such 

talented dancers!

Horses, horses everywhere! (I couldn't help myself.)

Basically every girl under the age of fourteen was wearing a flamenco dress, and plenty of adults and little boys were dressed up in colorful, traditional costume, too.

Ah España, te echaré de menos. 

Lisboa, te amo - espérame, algún día te volveré

I have knocked out quite a few European cities in the last seven and a half months. London, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Bruges, Dublin, Rome, Berlin, Munich, Seville, Belfast, Madrid - to name a few. Since last semester Paris and Barcelona had been tied for my favorite European city... and now, all of a sudden, Lisbon has come at me from out of left field and clamored to the top rung. This just might be it. True love. In six days I cultivated an affection and admiration for this beautiful city that rivals my pedestal for New York. This is the first European city that I could actually imagine myself living in. Maybe I'll make it back there one day to try it on for size.

Lisbon took me by surprise. Or I should say, everything about Lisbon was a surprise, and perhaps it is for this reason that I fell for it. Hard. I had uncomfortably, reluctantly turned down a trip to Morocco to save money and missed school days to go to Lisbon, but because I had no idea what to expect, and because I didn't really know what made me want to go there in the first place, I had begun to think that I would regret the decision. That was until (after an 11 hour overnight bus ride) we arrived in Lisbon.

Knit cozy for the signpost. 

This was the view from the window of our hostel; the old neighborhood, the Alfama district, with the Castelo de São Jorge on the hill in the distance.

Graffiti of the emblematic electric tram, as worn by an octopus.

Got a little excited about taking pictures of colorful, crumbling architecture.

It's officially called the 25th of April Bridge... but we just called it Golden Gate.

Monument to the Discoveries

There is something so beautiful and charming about the colorful, dilapidated buildings and brightly patterned tiles that line this cobblestone labyrinth.

Hieronymites Monastery

Sailboats. So sexy.

Belém Tower - J was under-impressed, but it's quite pretty, and it has a draw bridge.

A 45 minute train ride from Lisbon, Sintra was beautiful and furnished with a fairy tale collection of palaces and castles.

Palacio da Pena

Oh, Lisbon.

View of the Atlantic and Lisbon from Sintra.

We rode the famous eléctrico 28 until they kicked us off.... 

way more excited than anyone else on the whole tram.

At Pasteis de Belém - the monastery and tower were cool - 

but mostly we trekked to Belém for these pastries. Mmm.

It is hard to describe just what it is that I liked so much about Lisbon. I understand that much of our perceived enjoyment of any one thing comes from circumstances; I traveled with two wonderful friends, we stayed in an amazing hostel, the sun was kind to us, no one lost their passport, etc... But there is something deeper than that, something of the city itself that bewitched me.