Seville, Spain

In the beginning, God created the world by means of divine incantation, and on the sixth day, he created man to be regents over his creations.  He granted his first man a partner and planted them in a garden east of Eden, which was to be paradise.  Apparently, and I've recently discovered, this paradise spoken of in the book of Genesis, is Al-andalus, or Andalusia in southern Spain.

What a fucking place this is, and what a fucking place it's capital Seville is.

For two months, It is only sunny and hot everyday.  The food is amazing.  The architecture is a curious melange I've never seen.  The people are pleasant.  The bars are great.  The prices are reasonable.  The guitar players are renowned.  The history is deliciously complex.  And the food--I know I mentioned the food, with hams, cheeses, peppers, calamari, potato and egg creations, and alcohol flowing from every corner of any room.

Vines and flowers hang from white washed building sides.  Vespa riders zip and whirl through an impossible grid of lanes and alleys.  Ornately decorated tiles adorn door frames and window boxes.  Glued bull fighting posters, advertising the next festival, line the many cobble stoned ways.  Seville is a city to get lost in, and enjoy every second of it.  I walk, snap endless pictures of scenes straight out of your mom's home and garden magazine, and at the precise moment of overheating, I sit, and drink beers under a mist machine within one of the endless cantinas in town.

Andalusia is all the more impressive, as over the last couple weeks, I've become harder and harder to please.  As I tire from traveling, churches don't seem to compare to those seen in Italy, architecture doesn't come close to that in Prague, and no city is as fun as Berlin.  Everything has become an endless cycle of comparison and relativity.  My impressions gained an armored resilience to new experience.

However, Al-Andalus, which translates literally to paradise in Arabic, easily surmounted my developed notions and fragile defenses.

READING:  For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway


LISTENING:  

Granada, Spain

How great is Granada, Spain.  It's a little frying pan of heaven.  Temperature topped out at 102 today.

Also, I got to speak English for the first time in a while last night.  That's not so much a testament to my Spanish abilities, but rather, an indication of my isolation in Madrid.  The hostel situation in Madrid is no bueno, and I was relegated to a pension room in a residential building downtown.

On the fifth floor, there was a ring of rooms around this square building, with one little bedroom standing sentinel in the middle.  That room, of course, was mine.  The room was about the size of a double bed, and the bed that was in there allowed for my legs to hang off at about halfway, or what you would call the knees.  Everyone say it together now, "the knees"--yes, very good.  The room had a sink, a tiny indestructible looking TV in the top corner, and as a result, resembled a prison cell in every way.

I spent my evenings plotting my escape, carving little weapons out of toothbrushes, and befriending a local Morgan Freeman looking guy who's good at "getting" things.  The pension operators, or "wardens", were Cuban, and of course I made the mistake of claiming to be American.  Great stay!!

Cuban:  Mark Mathew Mueller?----hahahaha.  That's a real American name, Yea??  Hahaha.  (Speaks something indiscernable to his counterpart)
Me:  Yea, yea.......(trailing off into the sunset)
Cuban:  You like that name?  You think it's a good name?
Me:  I sort of lacked a decent amount of choice on that one.
Cuban:  What?
Me:  huh?
Me:  So, my room is down here?

Alright, Granada is my favorite stop thus far, and for two absolutely irrefutable reasons:

1)  The Alhambra
2)  Granada is the last city in Spain to adhere to the tradition of free tapas.

So, in Granada, you hop around from bar to bar, buy a drink, and with every drink you purchase, they bring you a little plate of food---Yes, free food.  It's glorious.  Some bars are famous for particular tapas, like calamari or spicy potatoes.  So, you go to a particular place, have a drink and their house specialty, and then you're off to the next place.  Not to mention, by night, Granada is a dry and pleasant 80 degrees.  It may be hot as biblical hell here during the day, but there's not a drop of humidity, and it makes for beautiful evenings.

As far as the Alhambra, I will let the pics do the justice.  But I will tell you it was a Moorish palace, seat of the Nasrid Emirate in Granada, and maybe one of the most spectacular places I've ever been.

READING:  For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway.  For me, nobody evokes images of Spain like Ernesto Hemingway.  


LISTENING:

  

I'll separate the pics between Granada and the actual Alhambra.

ALHAMBRA