Reliving the Dream: a Granada Reunion

After a week of solitude and settling into my new housing situation, I got away to Granada this past weekend to relive the debauchery that was abroad. A couple friends from Denison that also studied with me in the Andalucian city were meeting me from Cordoba, where they too are teaching English. It was a long wait in the Madrid bus station followed by a grueling 5-hour bus ride until I arrived. The feeling was surreal. Gill and Brian (in addition to some of their friends from their program) had arrived a few hours earlier so we dropped my bag in the hostel and headed to a bar. Granada is one of the last cities that still honor the old Spanish tradition of a free tapa with a drink; however, there is a very important difference between tapas bars, those where you can choose your tapa and those where it is random (and can be as simple as a shitty piece of cheese on a cracker). It was incredible how our knowledge of the city has not diminished much; it took very little time to find ourselves back in the barrio where the tapas of choice are free individual pizzas with a beer (for 2,70 euro).

Because we only had a short 40-hour stay in, without question, the most incredible city in Spain, if not Europe, we made sure to hit all of our favorite spots. After a few tapas bars, we made our way to Botellon. Botellon, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botell%C3%B3n) for those that have not spent significant time in Spain is a giant tailgate….for nothing. Granada is a student town, with close to 70,000 people coming to the city starting at the end of September, the majority of whom will start their night at Botellon. Before going out to a club, the Spanish youth congregate at the Hipercore/Corte Ingles (think a combination of wal-mart and Bloomingdales on steroids) parking lot and proceed to get inebriated. We ended up at a club called Camborio, which may be home to the greatest location of a club in the world. Imagine leaving a danceclub that is situated in a group of caves above the city and, as you exit at six o’clock in the morning, your view consists of the sun rising over the Alhambra.

Shockingly the next night consisted of much of the same, including a stop at the famous shot bar, Chupiteria, where every shot is only one Euro. We did do a little sightseeing too, although we had all seen it many times, by walking up to the vista overlooking the Moorish castle Saturday afternoon. All in all it was an awesome little get away before my job started and an even more surreal feeling to be back. While I was unable to see my host dad (I did stop by Cosme’s palace of love), I was able to get his number and talk with him…a reunion will be in the cards before I return to the states. Por Granada, Para Siempre.