Casa

I’ve officially left Spain, and am now sitting on an eight-hour Aer Lingus flight with just enough room to open my laptop half-way and bang out my last blog entry until I head back to Europe. Other than the screaming two year-old two rows in front of me who is doing a marvelous job of enraging the young couple with their chairs in my lap who keep are actively attempting to start a family of their own, the flight’s been pretty uneventful.

As you may remember, my friend Steve finished up his work at Oxford about a week before classes ended in Granada, so he paid a quick visit to the south of Spain. The first two days he was with me, the weather was the coldest it’s been in Granada since 1951; I know this, not only because it was in the paper, but also because the three old men waiting with me in the barber shop the other day couldn’t come up with a more interesting topic to discuss. The last day there, though, was marvelous, and after finishing my last exam, we walked around Granada in 60 degree temperatures, up towards the Alhambra, around the palace where the wild peacocks roam, and then out onto the terrace of the Alhambra Palace Hotel, built in the early 1900’s as the place to stay in Granada, for one last café con leche. It’s gone down hill a bit, but the lobby is still stunning, and the views out back overlooking the Mediterranean, the snowcapped Sierra Nevada and the sprawling architecture of the city simply can’t be beat.

Then, of course, it dawned on me that I actually had to leave the city, so I literally ran back to my apartment (stopping by two separate bakeries on the way for Christmas goodies for home) to finish throwing stuff into my suitcases. My señora made us each a bocadillo for the road because she had become so enamored with Steve the two days he was over for lunch, so that bag, in addition to my three suitcases, backpack with dangling running shoes and bagful of assorted footware required me to enlist Steve’s help just to make it to the elevator – and I don’t want comments! Most of my luggage was taken up with presents! After hitting my señora with my running shoes and dropping several bags, we were out on the street. Then it was into the taxi and to my program’s office for the goodbye party. (To be honest, the whole week had been filled with goodbye parties for those of us who weren’t waiting until the last day to leave; I just couldn’t make it to any of them with the exception of the last night, when we all went out and then studied for our EU final with the help of some good Spanish rioja, a very effective European study technique.) We weren’t at the goodbye party two minutes when Steve realized that he had lost his passport at some point on our walk. I was on the phone with several hotels and park management services while Steve contemplated calling his local members of congress – you must realize that this is happening just over an hour before we’re to leave for Barcelona. We decide to go to the airport anyway after a series of rushed goodbyes to everyone in the program and a farewell shot of the Spanish holiday liqueur of choice, anis, where Steve manages to get onto a plane using his military ID and birth certificate, before he finds his passport in his pocket.

We made the most of our night in Barcelona, though paid 20E for a two-minute taxi to the hotel because it was so late. After checking into our hotel, finding the room they had given us in shambles due to construction, re-checking into an upgraded “Elite” suite with the largest bed I’ve ever seen in my life because we managed to charm the check-in girl, we got another taxi and headed over to La Sagrada Familia, the famous church in Barcelona that Steve hadn’t yet seen. It wasn’t lit up (strange…) but it was worth it. After being cursed by a Slavic man, accosted by prostitutes and avoiding beer-sellers on Las Ramblas, we made it to the Hard Rock Café (why, I don’t know), where I paid 13E for a chicken sandwich at around 1:30 in the morning.

And here I am. Our flight was delayed, so at the moment I’m about 4 hours into the 7 hour flight. See you soon.