"Home" is not found on a map.

Home for us, has become wherever we happen to be at any point in time.  This new life does not have a "home" anchored a specific spot on a map.  Home is a state of mind rather that a piece of real estate.  We have immersed ourselves in this new view of home and have found to our delight that we love it.

Having friends from the states come to visit was a rare treat for us.  We got to show off our love for and enjoyment of this particular new "home".

Granada was really starting to feel like home to us so we were very excited to share it with those we love.  Our friends were married in May but did not have time to take a honeymoon until September.

Brent and Paige were spending time in Europe and planned to swing by and see the Alhambra and visit with us in Granada for a day or two.

I am not sure who did the planning but they made the perfect landing in Granada arriving in the late afternoon in time for a bite to eat and a short nap before touring the Alhambra at night.  The Alhambra is always spectacular in many ways but the nighttime viewing is a special treat for those who can work it into their schedules.  

We met up the following day for a late breakfast at our favorite Irish pub, Hannigan’s and then headed out for an epic walk up into the Sacramonte and the Albaicin,

the really old areas of Granada that have become home to us.

 Suffice it to say that sharing our new "home" was a wonderful experience for us.

 We found ourselves explaining the unique history that we were learning and of course,

taking them to meet the people that have become so important in our home life here in Granada.

Enjoying the Tapas experience, sharing the new foods and wines that have become our regular fare now was a unique and thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Spending the late evening listening to our favorite Flamenco guitarist Wahdi,

over more tapas was the perfect end to wonderful day.  We can't wait to do it again!

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Monday morning we began our last month of classes with the added bonus that soon we were going to get to see Kellie and Brit almost every day, even if just for a few minutes when we are on our morning break since both schools share the same buildings and gardens.

 Beautiful weather made for great outdoor activities and we took advantage of it!

In mid-July, our school offered a special activity.  Granada has an International Ballet Company and every summer they put on a very unique program at the outdoor stage in the gardens of the Alhambra.  Just imagine this 1,000 year-old fortress encompassing what seems like miles of palaces and gardens beautifully sculpted into the top of a hill with majestic views of the surrounding city at night.  Even without the ballet it would have been an evening to remember, but this year I was delighted to find, they were doing a show incorporating the story poems of local poet Garcia Lorca combined with the ballet company and a company of authentic Flamenco dancers and musicians. 

Michael was completely uninterested preferring to hang out and drink beer and speak Spanish badly with his friends but Kellie and Brittani got as excited as I was.  We bought our tickets, had dinner at Puerta de las Pesas before we left to go up to the show.  Being summer in Spain and an outdoor venue, the start time for the production was 10:00pm.  Unfortunately we were asked not to take photos during the performance but it was one of the most memorable of my life; all three of us were moved to tears at one point or another.  It so well performed that we were able to follow the story; even though we did not understand much of the language, or in the girl’s case, none at all.

 After the ballet we made our way to the bottom of the hill where Mike waited to have a beer and walk home with us.

When the girls had time, which was not often during their 4 week TEFL course, we managed to take a few hikes around the surrounding area and get some beautiful shots of Granada from the hills.  It was certainly a summer we will always remember fondly.

We were getting to the end of our school experience, many of the students that we had met were already gone and we were following their new adventures on FaceBook. 

We had a great group of friends and acquaintances that was expanding both in Spain and spreading out into the other places in the world that they called home.

Importantly, we had made some very good Spanish friends who did not speak any English.  We really needed these friends because communicating with them forced us to use the language we were learning.  

The family at Puerta de las Pesas, Fernando, Paloma, Jose and now Adrian and Danielle and sometimes even Ana were so patient with us. 

Incredibly, they didn’t seem to mind the abuse and in fact seemed to enjoy these crazy Americans with bad Spanish language skills.  This was important for us since we did not have a television to use for practicing our listening skills (highly recommended) and we needed Spanish speakers with whom we could converse without feeling the need to speak grammatically perfect as we were required to in our classes.

In addition to listening to our bad Spanish, they talked with us about the history and the local traditions of Granada, allowing us to feel more at home and to help us understand the people and culture in southern Spain.  We jealously watched their grand-daughter Noella speak freely and easily, with very few mistakes and we envied this little 3 year old conjugating machine.

 We were able to watch how she was learning the language and listen to the way she was corrected in her own native tongue.  We spent so much time sitting outside this particular restaurant that all our classmates and professors started referring to it as our salon (living room) and we totally agreed.

One drizzly day, Fernando took us on a walk around the Albaycin and we brought Kellie and Britani with us.  We walked out of Plaza Larga through the new gate and then stayed within 1 kilometer of the top of the hill, on just one side in a small section of the Albaicin and saw more historical features than we could have imagined in this small area. 

We took a few photos but mostly just listened to Fernando explain the history of each place and tried to understand the details of what he was telling us.  Knowing that we were only grasping a very small part of all that he was telling us was both frustrating and enlightening.  We wanted to know it all, right then, but somehow knew that we would enjoy the telling of this history over and over as our language skills improved and we spent more time among and gained a better understanding of the wonderful people who live there.

We were living in a little house that is as old as our country, walking to school every day on paths that have existed for centuries, and learning from the people who live with this everyday of their lives, it is an experience that does not readily translate onto paper. 

This new chapter in our lives was shaping up to be incredibly interesting.  Fernando brought books, drawings and photographs to the restaurant and patiently explained the perspectives and history piece by piece.  There is a lifetime of learning to be done in cities like Granada and we have been delighted that we chose it as our first home away from home.

New people, new friends, new language.

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.

Nasrid Palaces at the Alhambra

Playing hookey from our graduation ceremony gave us the afternoon to get to the Nasrid Palaces at the Alhambra that we had missed in our first visit.  We went on-line and bought tickets a few days ahead of time so we knew we had to present ourselves at the entrance to the Palaces right at 2pm.

We had a little time to wander from the main gates through the gardens and down to the lower level where the palaces are.  The Nasrid dynasty ruled in Granada from the 11^th century until the Christians conquered in the 1492.  These palaces are what are left of the original Moorish palace and many areas have been beautifully preserved and restored.

We began our tour of the palaces in the Mexuar, or the public rooms of the palace.  These areas would have been meeting rooms and the places of commerce and diplomacy.  The design of these rooms was meant to be impressive of course, to the people seeking an audience with or the services of the ruling family who were no doubt awed by the vastness of the spaces and the huge expense incurred in their design and decoration.

Islamic artwork uses geometric patterns and patterns found in nature like flowers and leaves but does not use depictions of people of animals.  The written Arabic language also lends itself to beautiful designs and words and phrases are carved everywhere.

From the Mexuar we headed into the Comares Palace (Palacio de Comares) which was the actual living quarters and private residence of the Caliph and his closest family and advisors.  It is difficult in this day and age to really comprehend how people lived at this particular time.  Many rooms had pool s and fountains with running water to help cool them in the hot summer months. Ceilings are coffered and inset with inlaid wood and painted in flowing Arabic script.  The windows and arches were designed for both strategic significance and for the views of the kingdom, and each one is fully carved and decorated from the inside so the view of the window is as beautiful as the view seen from it.

The finally the Palace of the Lions (Palacio de los Leones), this was the part of the palace that housed the harem.  The women and children lived in beauty and luxury.  The patio of the Lions is the centerpiece of this area and at the time we first visited it was closed for restoration.  We could only glimpse in through the scaffolding and plywood but what we could see was spectacular.  (The restoration work is now complete and it is absolutely spectacular!)

The tours of the Nasrid Palaces can be done many ways, we did it on our own, just purchasing tickets and reading about the things we saw.  There are Audio guides available for those that haven’t done their research and live, guided tours are offered if you want to spend the money.  The number of people admitted to the palaces is limited each day because they are trying very hard to protect and preserve them.  If you want a very different and quite romantic experience, try taking the tour at night, the views are spectacular and the groups are smaller so there is a more intimate feel to the palaces.

All in all and afternoon very well spent!