Clinton Approved

Well here I am trying to get back into the blogging groove after weeks of traveling, midterms, and teaching!  I am happy to say that I find myself feeling more and more at home in the beautiful city of Sevilla :)  Now before I forget I have a trip to blog about! 
A couple of weekends ago (I'm terrible, I know) I went to Granada!  I was so relieved to be traveling inside of Spain in a country where I at least sort-of understood the language and culture.  After Morocco I really needed that!  Also, unlike Morocco, the trip was extremely relaxed with lots of free time. 
But actually the night before going to Granada I did something I had never done before.  In Spanish the slang for pulling an all-nighter is empalmar.  But you have to be super careful with the word because there are uses of it that have a sexual connotation.  I haven't figured out exactly what it means yet but I'm working on it.  Anyways I went out with Rosie and Sarah to hang out in the Spanish dorms with Sarah's Spanish friends.  They were super nice and we were having a really great time!  Unfortunately here the metro closes at 2am, and we had to take a metro because it was so far away.  We were going to leave at 1:30 because we had to leave for Granada at 8:30, but we were having such a great time that we decided to stay and spend the night.  At first we were hesitant because we were afraid we would miss the bus, but they told us the metro opened at 6:30am again and we could just get up early and get ready for our trip to Granada.  WELL, we stayed up later than planned needless to say, and when we headed to the metro full of...dread and excitement, we got a surprise.  On the weekends the metro doesn't open until 7:30.  Now normally this might not appear to be a problem, but the metro station was a half-hour walk from our houses, and we hadn't packed yet.  So we sucked it up and paid 30 euros to take a taxi back.  And I actually made it through the day just fine!  So first empalmar party night went well :)

Creme puffs, chocolate sauce, and rice pudding :) Yum!

Now for Granada, I loved it!  On the first day we got there at lunch time so we experienced our hotel buffet, which was amazing.  They had paella, so I got to try that for the first time, and pasta with real tomato sauce, fruit, dessert, soup, it was soooo good! 
 After lunch we went to the oldest neighborhood in the city and we got a cultural tour.  During this tour we went to the site where Bill Clinton won the heart of all the Spaniards in the world.  He went to this lookout point during his campaign back in the day and said it was the most beautiful view he had seen in his entire life.  Must have been before he met Monica.

The Alhambra from our lookout point

Rosie, Eve, and I in Bill Clinton's favorite place!

The revolving nun/muffin door!

After that we went to a cloistered convent where nuns put muffins on a spinning door thing and sell them to people without showing their faces! 
We then visited the tombs of the Reyes Catolicos, Isabel y Fernando, and the tombs of Juana la Loca and her husband Felipe.  I was such a huge dork about it because I was so excited!  I mean hello, these were the people that funded Christopher Columbus and made our lives possible.  And Juana la Loca? Who wouldn't want to see that cooky lady's grave?? So of course me being me I took a butt load of illegal pictures to document the occasion :) 

These statues were made by a student of Michelangelo

Their actual bodies!!!

After the tomb trip we went to a Moroccan tea cafe (just what I needed).  Although I wasn't thrilled to be reminded of the previous trip, I had an amazing strawberry and chocolate crepe that just made my day! 

The next day the only thing we did, but in a last-but-not-least kind of way, was visit the Alhambra.  The style and architecture were a lot like the Alcazar in Sevilla, but the magnitude of it and the beauty of the location in the mountains was amazing!  The out-door patios were my favorite part.  I also got really excited because I saw a frog and a lizard!  All-in-all I had a really great visit to Granada!

My little lizard buddy enjoying the sun

A patio in the Alhambra