Alhambra

Hola chicos y chicas! A beautiful day in sunny Granada (though may be clouding over now....). A quick update on our visit to the stunning Alhambra (where we met our first Canadians!!). For those that checked it out on the Internet with the link sent in a previous email, you have an idea of this place. Savannah and I took a bus up the mountain to this old fortress/city and had a look at how the rich and powerful lived beginning in the 9th century. There was always a battle between the Christians and Moors over who ´lived´there but all that matters now is that thousands of tourists like us get to pay 10 Euros to wander around the massive and impressive grounds, pretending to be queens and having servants fan and feed us olives while we lounge in the gardens.

While we were there today, we talked about some of the downsides to Spain: I guess there has to be some. The worst, without question, is the smoking. It´s everywhere. Anywhere you can imagine going to, smoking is allowed. EXCEPT for the one and only vegetarian restaurant in the Moroccan area of the city. So nice to eat without breathing in your neighbour´s cigar or cigarette. And so nice to have food choices besides ham. I´m realizing that the smoke is impeding my social nightlife as I can´t stand to be in the pubs or bars here for more than a few minutes. However, the tapas and wine somewhat make up for this. Come January 1st, the EU is ápparently´banning smoking in public places. We´ll see.

The second thing is the poor customer service you receive at tourist sites, grocery stores, or in some restaurants. With respect to restaurants, it could also be that there is usually only one or two people working the entire restaurant and they just don´t have time to try to understand our butchered Spanish. The service at the Alhambra (a National Historic site and listed as one of the places to see before you die in some guide books) is atrocious. We were shocked at this - no bilingualism, no help, very few signs, not telling us we were headed in the wrong direction, thereby missing our brief window of time to see the most famous palace on the grounds. None too impressed ;(

Lastly, until you are introduced to someone (then everyone has been very nice) no one smiles at you, looks at you, acknowledges you in anyway. Actually, that´s not entirely true. Some men will gawk (leer) or make comments but not knowing what they are saying is kind of nice. Ignorance is bliss!

That aside, most everything is else is good. Our somewhat solidified plans are to head to a coastal town called Nerja early next week. We´ll scope it out for a couple of days to see what the work situation is like and then likely head further south to Malaga or Cadiz (closer to Portugal) if prospects don´t look great. We´ve heard Seville is beautiful so we may go there.

That´s about it for now. Will update soon!