July 15, 2007
spain 2
1/4/07 -- Granada
Sitting in a cafe near Gran Via de Colon, where I will get a bus back to the bus station. Protracted negotiations in Spanish (which I didn't understand) between a guy at the counter, a customer and me over whether I could charge my iPod on one of their outlets. I think the answer was yes, but I was given some advice by the customer that I couldn't understand.
Somewhat tired afer a night of middling sleep, probably due to the coffee I drank yesterday.
OK, I was interrupted there by the arrival of my breakfast -- tostade de queso y tomate, with a drizzling of olive oil. Tasty, though I felt myself getting too full. I ate it all anyway, aware I would probably not eat again for a while. Then a short walk to the bus stop. Rode the bus to the bus station. An American girl sat at the back of the bus yelling into a cell phone. "What?" Kept saying she heard the people she was talking to were having "a blast" on their "big day" and she was "bummed" she couldn't be there. The repetition became ridiculous. A little taste of home, far away. I have actually been pleased to see few American tourists. I don't know why they bother me so. I guess I don't like to feel as if I'm part of a gawking contingent of travelers. It's probably more about my own concern for my self-image than anything else.
Now I'm at the bus station, waiting for the bus to Madrid.
So to pick up from where I left off yesterday -- went back to Makuto and ended up walking in right behind Marissa and company. Their hostel seemed far more organized than Rambutan. The reception area -- there was one -- had a computer for business purposes, it seemed. Marissa and co. check in. Then we walk to the Alhambra -- climb a steep hill -- some difficulty figuring out where we're supposed to go. Stand in line for a stretch, waiting for tickets. We enter and walk around the Alhambra for the rest of the afternoon.
I would like to read more about it to understand what I saw. Wrote in my pocket notebook:
fact of sun,
air smoky from burnt brush.
God's presence is profuse,
plentiful, overflows in ornament
addition and crenellation.
Language as true. The use of Arabic script as a decorative element -- walls made of language -- language as a structural and generative concrescence, reinforcing its validity as proof of God.
I'm just riffing. My pictures explain it better.
Wandered the Alhambra, took in views, ate part of a disappointing apple. Hunger began to gnaw at me and I became tired. My attentiveness waned. At the end of the day stumbled back down the hill and stopped in at little shops. I didn't want to buy anything, so I sat on a stone bench in Plaza Nueva at the hill's bottom and waited for everyone else. After a while I got impatient and cold and started back up the hill, where I bumped into Jason and Kat, who had been at Rambutan. They had left the hostel earlier -- were staying at Plaza Nueva. Reported that Connor had left Rambutan @ 4 a.m. for Malaga without paying, causing much commotion. After a while the rest of my party rejoined me and we all went in search of food and drink. Settled on a Middle Eastern restaurant. I ate bland vegetables on a bland baked potato and bland broth and drank red wine. Enjoyed conversation with Nat, Serena and Jason. Jason seemed like a good guy -- earnest and genuine.
Kat and Jason left and we returned to Makuto, where everyone else dropped off stuff, picked up stuff, changed clothes. All but Phoebe and Serena set out in search of flamenco. The first place we visited was quiet, only a few people sitting at tables. We waited for too long for a woman who worked there to wrap up a phone conversation. I felt grumpy and wished we could leave. Flamenco wasn't my quest in particular.
A guy pointed us toward Upsetter, a club past Plaza Nueva, where we proceeded and for 12 euros watched the tail end of a flamenco performance in a narrow basement room. The whitewashed walls met in a low arched ceiling, and patrons sat at tables along the walls or in the back in solitary chairs and a few stood, including me. The oppressive cigarette smoke quickly got the best of me and I felt runny-nosed and nauseated.
Considering these circumstances I found it hard to enjoy the music, but after a while it took hold in my awareness, though sporadically. A man played nylon-stringed guitar and another clapped and sang. The guitar strings rang in what sounded like mostly minor chords, but a major chord would on occasion burst through. It was slippery quicksilver music, with no clear constant of a meter discernible, the vocal melodies rising and falling and betraying their Arabic roots (I supposed).
After a few songs a woman in a black dress, very pretty with long black hair and black eyes, took the stage and her voice was richer and more powerful and convincing than the male singer's. She also danced, flouncing her dress about, stomping her feet, exposing her thigh, and later brought other women on stage to join her, by what design I don't know. A young woman next to me ducked behind her shorter friend to avoid being seen.
The concert ended and we returned to Makuto, where I retrieved my bag and walked back to Rambutan. I got lost more than a few times and felt slightly scared in the spooky dimly-lit streets of Albaicin, no cars or people around for most of the time and my maps difficult to read in the partial dark. But I did make it back. The guys were in the common area and the chef related the story about Connor. I was more keen on going to sleep and did so, the Belgian girls already asleep in their bunks.
Posted by nedlog at July 15, 2007 1:35 PM | TrackBack