Day 14 - Alhambra and Flamenco

June 14 – Alhambra and Flamenco

With only 3 hours of sleep, I woke up at 9:30am. We were to rendezvous at the meeting point at 10:30am to go to the magnificent Alhambra. We went up there by bus. It would have been a royal pain to have climbed up there by foot.

Aurelio urged us to use our imaginations while being there – to imagine that this was once a palace where the kings lived – to imagine the luxurious carpets and furnishings – to imagine the milk and honey and wine flowing to a fountain – to imagine that this place was built with the dwelling place of Allah as its inspiration. A place like this is hard to describe. The place is vast and luxurious even in present times. The walls, ceilings, arches, and floor are all made of precious stone, etched to perfection. As a mere human being, I’m incapable of describing a place as magnificent, historic, and dumbfounding as the Alhambra. So, I will leave you with pictures. Still, the pictures won’t be of much service. To truly appreciate the Alhambra, you’ll have to see it for yourself.

(more pics here)

We finished with Aurelio’s tour around 1:00pm after having been walking for 2 hours. We sat on a bench for around 30 minutes while we ate our bocadillos. I had the usual omelette with ham sandwich. The other four girls had left ahead of us while we were eating our bocadillos. We then tried to walk home. “Tried” because we took a wrong turn. Nevertheless, it was a fortunate wrong turn. For have we not made that mistake, we would not have seen these precious gardens.

We then decided to walk back to town. If you study the pictures closely, the Alhambra is perched on a mountain overlooking the city and there we were deciding that we will trek down back to the city. Luckily for Julie and Shannon, they could take the shortcut from their house. From that point where they left, Liz and I still had a good 35-minute walk to go back home. All in all, we were walking since 11:00am and didn’t get home till about 3:00pm.

I got home and took a powernap – all three hours of it. =P I actually dreamt that my alarm went off and stopped it (not snooze). I actually did do this. Haha. But in my dream, I had awaken and realized that it was already 9:00pm and we were supposed to meet at 8:30pm. So in my dream, I just kept on sleeping. But before this whole scene, I swear I checked my cellphone and it was only 5:30pm. By this time, I was just too confused. LOL. I finally realized that it couldn’t have already been that late. I checked my cellphone again, this time in real life, and saw that it was only 6:30pm. I got up and got ready. I ate my 2^nd bocadillo while watching TV. It was then that I came upon the Spain vs. Sweden soccer game. Lucky for me, I got to watch most of the exciting parts of the game. When Villa scored the 2^nd goal for Spain during the final minutes, the whole street shook. No kidding. Oddly, the vibes of the victory were so fierce, I almost cried.

Anyway, I left my building at 8:15 and got to the meeting just on time. This time, we made our way back up to Sacromonte by foot. We went past the discoteca we were in just a few hours ago. We finally arrived at the place where the Flamenco show was to be held. The show was absolutely amazing. If you look at these pictures and watch these videos, you would think that the 5 euro ticket was ridiculously cheap! It was a wonderful experience. The ambience alone would have cost at least $75 bucks if it were in America. (We were later told that that show was sponsored by the government. Thus, explaining the cheap ticket.) Still, if I were given another chance to watch it, I would not mind spending a $100 to watch that again. On the way back home, I told two of the girls, “If I were to go back home to America tomorrow, I would be content. That’s how amazing I thought the show was.” I think they thought that I had wanted to go home or I don’t know, they didn't get it. Hehe. But you get it, right? Good. Anyway, they went to get something to eat and as I was full, I just went to the Internet café. I stayed there for an hour and talked to mom and dad for a little bit. I went home and I was out! Today was a long and wonderful day. =)