In these early days at
Castila, we met Diana, an attorney from Baton Rouge who had arrived just three weeks
before we did and Kelsey a vivacious 18 year old from Colorado doing her “gap
year” in Spain and who, damn her, spoke Spanish fairly well.
From Australia we had a classmate Lesley and a couple who were both physicians, another couple who had just spent 9 months in Nepal as observers
in the electoral process were originally from England.
We met
university students from both mainland China and Taiwan, a woman from Singapore
and a travel journalist from Hong Kong.
Ricardo, a 22 year old from Florida who had just graduated and was
headed back in the fall for grad school joined our class, and we got to know
Ethan, a 16 year old high school student from Chicago whose Spanish was several
levels better than ours and those are just the people we got too know in the
first couple of weeks!
On Friday afternoons,
after classes, the school would get everyone together for an afternoon tapas
hour, occasionally it was hosted at the school with Victoria cooking but most
often they would pick a local restaurant and off we would go “a tapeo”. Most of the restaurants and bars in the
Albaicin and many all over Granada are family owned and have been for several
generations. After our experience in the
market at Plaza Larga we started going up there regularly to shop and also to
grab a drink after class or to enjoy “comida” (traditionally the large meal of
the day eaten in mid-afternoon) in one of the several restaurants in the
area.
Puerta de las Pesas (also
known as Puerta Nueva) is actually a very special gate in the wall of the
original city that dates from the 11th century.
It was a strong defensive position and the place where the people who
came from inside the city would leave to go out to the markets that built up
outside the walls and then return with their purchases. As they passed through the gates the weight
of the items that had been purchased would be verified by the authorities for
the payment of taxes. If it was found
that a merchant had cheated someone (shorted the weight) then the merchant’s
weights would be confiscated and hung above the gate, effectively putting him
out of business. Puerta de las Pesas in
Spanish means Gate of the Weights.
Every time we would go up
to Plaza Larga we would pass through this beautiful reminder of what a
wonderfully historic place we had chosen for this new beginning. One afternoon, on the way to the open air
produce market we stopped at the restaurant named Puerta de las Pesas, a family
owned restaurant just beyond the gate itself.
We needed a drink and a tapa to ease the after school headache and they
were offering a great “menu del dia” special of the day, for comida; an
appetizer, main course, dessert and bread for 8.50 euros. We chatted with Jose, the waiter, in our very
broken Spanish and learned that the restaurant had recently changed ownership
and had only been reopened for a month prior to our arrival.
The school had activities
of one kind or another almost every evening.
We took a long beautiful hike above the Alhambra and got some of the
most spectacular views of Granada, the Albaicin and the Sacramonte we had ever
seen.
This old city was really starting
to capture our hearts.
We tried “movie night”
and although we do understand that listening to Spanish is a great way to try
to train your ear, we were so far out of our depth that we decided movies would
be much more enjoyable after a few more weeks of lessons.
Our interest in and
fascination with the history and culture of this area was increasing daily,
what a great choice Granada was for a first try at living overseas.
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