Granada

Just warning this is a very long post with lots of pictures! I mean lots of pictures!

This past weekend I went to Granada with pretty much everyone in my group plus my roommates’ group plus a group of students from Wisconsin and Minnesota. There were quite a few of us so it was tons of fun. The people who have classes in the morning had to meet in the Plaza De Lucero at 2:30 and people who have class later, like myself, had to bring their bags to school and we were picked up right after class. The drive wasn’t bad just three hours, which I am used to doing when we go to our cabin. I sat next to another girl from ASU that I had only met a couple times, Britta, and we talked the whole time with two others from ASU, Marcos and Michelle. I had never met Michelle before, but I have Marcos in one of my classes. It was nice talking to all of them; they are so nice and very interesting. I am so lucky cause pretty much everyone in our group is super nice and we all get along for the most part.

The night we got into Granada we put our stuff in our rooms and went straight to our buffet dinner. This first picture is from some of our group before we left for our walking tour. (from left to right: me, Sarah, Marcos, Alex, Jessica, and Kat) All from ASU except Kat.

On our way to the Flamenco show we got a walking tour of some of the older parts of Granada. It was nice getting to walk around but it kind of stunk cause the tour guide only spoke spanish. So I pretty much just looked around took pictures and took it all in. It was beautiful and awesome weather.

A cute little spanish home.

We went up to an awesome view point where we could see the entire city and the Alhambra, which is in the picture above. It was very difficult to take a good picture at night so I took a couple to try and get a semi decent one.

This picture doesn't even do the city view justice.

A beautiful cross statue.

Sarah and Alex in front of La Alhambra but you can't really tell that that is what is behind them

One of the first things I noticed about this city is the beautiful pathways they have. They are lots of stones put into cement in all different kinds of patterns. I took a lot of pictures of all the different designs. I was so fascinated by them!

After the walking tour we took the buses to this little place for two different Flamenco shows.

This is Michelle, Britta, Mandy (my roommate), and me outside waiting to go to the show.

We stayed in this long room and the two different Gypsy families came to us. It was so neat to be able to see them dancing and the extreme intensity of this style.
At the front of the room they had one guy playing the guitar and someone singing and all of them clapping. I don't know how they kept in such good time cause they were holding conversations while they were doing it.

This was the traditional wedding dance that they do. The guy was very interesting he loved making huge gestures and make people think he was going to hit them.

The next day we drove to a small city where Christopher went to Ferdinand and Isabella to request money for his obviously famous excursion.

It was really sad cause when we were outside the church a funeral procession came around the corner and we were all standing there when they pulled the casket out of the hearse.

Being on the bus reminded me of that last time I was in Europe except we just spent a three hour trip on it not 2 weeks.

Then we went to a monastery and looked around. I was so upset cause as I was taking a picture here and my battery flashed low and I had forgotten to bring my battery charger to Granada! I turned my camera off immediately because I knew I was going to want to take a lot of pictures at the Alhambra so there are only a few pictures of the monastery. I didn't feel too bad cause we were allowed to take pictures inside anyways. In the monastery they had really odd art. You wouldn't think that would have violent pictures and such but all of the paintings had people brutally dying in them. It kind of threw me off.

Now this is what I saved my camera battery for....the La Alhambra. The view was AMAZING!!! You have no idea, the pictures could definitely not capture the magnificence of this view.









This is our entire group minus a few who did not come on the trip with us. My roommates' group from Mississippi College came along too so this is the whole gang.

Garrett and Mandy my two wonderful housemates.

This was the last picture I took before my camera died. I was so sad but I had my iPhone so I was still able to take pictures just not with as good of quality.

And here are the iPhone pics. They aren't half bad because there was a lot of good natural lighting but it still wasn't the same. I was taking so many pictures I was having to delete some of my apps on my phone along the way.

I think this is my favorite picture I took. There was this really cool shaped window high up on a wall and I wanted to see what was on the other side so I reached up and took a picture. I just happened to get it pretty much perfectly centered. You can't really tell what is on the other side but I don't care I still really like this picture.

Caitlin and Sarah

Me and Alex (walking to school buddies)

These next three are also some of my favorites. I just love the little windows. I think the last one is my favorite.

The snowcapped mountains were beautiful in the sunlight.

It is hard to tell in these pictures but the details on everything were ridiculous. I mean every nook and cranny had some sort of design on them.

Even the ceilings had beautiful designs on them.

The tiles they had on the walls were so pretty with gorgeous vibrant colors.

Haha I like this picture. This is my other roommate Garrett.

Michelle and Mandy enjoying the wonderful view.

More awesome walkways!

We lost our director Armando. He was supposed to be our tour guide for the trip but there was too big of a group and we apparently got way ahead of them so we waiting in this courtyard area for about 20 minutes. This me and my MC (Mississippi College) pals Garrett, Mandy, and John Mark.

The gardens

One of the really cool things about the Alhambra besides the magnificence and grandeur of it, were the water ways they had through out the entire thing. They had mini canals around the entire thing with fountains and ponds in between.

After we left the Alhambra we headed back to Alicante and on the way back we stopped in a small city called Guadix aka "The Cave City." It was really neat and it kind of reminded me of the Hobbit houses in Lord of the Rings, but I kind of wished we had gone there before the Alhambra cause it was slightly lame in comparison.


It was kind of weird just being able to walk up the hill and be on people's roofs. Not all of the houses are built in to the hills, some are normal free standing houses and further up some of the houses are literally just caves. I have never seen anything like these houses so it was really neat getting to go inside them and on top of them.
Overall the trip was lots of fun. We were all able to hang out and have fun and see some amazing places. Hope you didn't get too bored with how long this post was, there was a lot to include. Love you all and miss you.