catorceava parte

The last few days have been fun. Mom and I took the bus to Alhambra and waited in line forever for tickets. We started with the gardens, because our entrance time for the palace area was 12:30 and we had a while to wait. We walked around the Generalife and the gardens for a while, and they are really nice but not my kind of thing. They are very carefully kept, well-manicured and all that. A lot of thought and planning has gone into them, for a very long time, and it shows. After we had walked through and admired the gardens and the view,we looked at the Carlos V palace a bit and got in line again to see the Nasrid palaces. The third part of Alhambra, the Alcazar (old military city) is pretty interesting, but I remembered from my first visit that there is almost no shade and it is a lot of walking and stairs, so because it was getting very hot outside we skipped that part. There is a plaza accessible from there that has a fantastic view of the city of Granada, which I took pictures of the first time I was here. In the Nasrid palace, entry is very carefully controlled. Only a certain number of people are allowed in at a time, so people enter in lumps basically. We finally made it in and it was beautiful this time, as it had been before. Mom seemed to like it as well, but I think maybe the Versailles style of design is more her thing than this because she did not seem quite as impressed as I had felt initially. We were both getting very tired and very hungry toward the end of the route so we decided to eat something and rest for a bit at the hostel. We waited for the bus back downhill and then, while walking from Plaza Nueva to Oasis, saw Patrick and Joe on the street! We chatted for a while and it seems that naturally Joe and I gravitate towards each other for conversation. I think he is really interesting and I would like to get to know him better. They were headed off to do something with the band, and mom and I headed into a small shop for shwarma. We then rested up for a bit at the hostel, and I planned to meet Oscar between 7 and 8 for a drink. Around 7:40 I headed uphill toward la Calle del Beso, and Oscar was coming down the other way to take out the trash, so I turned and walked with him. We headed to the hostel for a bit and sat at the bar for a while, chatting with various people. Then we went out and just across Calle Elvira is where he parks his motorcycle. We were going for a ride! I had never ridden a motorcycle before so I was scared and excited. I sat behind him and we rode around the city for a bit and he showed me his university campus. By this time I was enjoying the ride immensely, and the roads of this northern neighborhood just past Albayzín were hilly and fun. We headed uphill, up up up, to the top of the mountain behind Sacromonte and Albayzín to a small plaza in front of a church. This was Plaza Miguel Alto (Oscar lives near Plaza Miguel Bajo, near the bottom of Albayzín) and the view was absolutely stunning. The entire city, from the farthest south to the north, was visible. I could see Parque García Lorca in the distance, a huge green swath. I could see the Parque de Ciencias, the Palacio del Congresso, and the newer parts of town we had driven through on our way to Sevilla and Córdoba. It was breathtaking. Just below us were some smaller houses with yards, ponies, and donkeys. They were playing and calling to each other and it was really a nice thing. Oscar and I sat on a low wall at the edge of the plaza, with our bare feet over the edge. We chilled and watched the sun make its way to the horizon. At some point Oscar leaned over and very softly planted one kiss on my shoulder. He has beautiful eyes. We watched el puesto del sol, the moment of the sun’s setting, and enjoyed the view for a while longer. Then we got our shoes and got back on the bike for a thrilling ride downhill. We stopped to see his friend Diego at his house and sat outside in the courtyard talking for a while. Diego had punched someone during a rowdy New Year’s Eve thing, and was talking about how his hand was just now finally healing. After a while Oscar and I headed out and parked the moto back near Calle Elvira, close to the tapas bar Beauty and the Beast. He bought us lemonade with hierbabuena at a small vendor and it was the best lemonade I have ever tasted–the mint was fresh and so delicious. We headed back to Oasis for a bit and talked with some people, mostly with Jess from the bar (she is half German, half American, and grew up in Germany mostly. She speaks French too, and quite a bit of Spanish). After a while the three of us headed up the hill toward where they live (Jess lives very near to Oscar) and she came with us to Calle del Beso. We hung out on the roof and drank beer and looked at the sky and talked about poetry and art and life and Oscar told us about the O*tron. Quite a bit later on a guy came up to the roof that I had seen playing guitar in the street earlier. Apparently he was thinking of moving into the house, and he and Oscar knew each other a bit. I don’t remember his name but a little while after he came Jess left to go sleep, and Oscar made pasta for the three of us. After we ate he said he had to sleep; he is very tired from the change in his schedule because of working overnight now. We went downstairs and talked at the door for a minute before saying goodbye. The next morning mom wanted us to get on the road to Barcelona because we were both worried we would not have enough time to see everything there we wanted to see. Mom and I headed out of town and drove through Valencia, wishing we had time to stay. We made it to a small town called Sagunto, which has impressive Roman ruins. The guidebooks only mention a Roman theater (which is still used as a theater today, albeit with quite a few upgrades) but there is a lot more to the ruins than the theater. Sagunto is also a beach town, and we had dinner there and found a hotel and went to sleep. The next morning we saw the theater and due to the incredible heat and humidity decided not to hike up the mountain to see the rest of the ruins. We got back on the road, headed for Figueres, about an hour and a half north of Barcelona, near the border with France. This is Dalí’s birthplace, and there is a museum there that he built and filled with some of his works. We got to Figueres and found a place to stay for the night. Then we found dinner and planned to go to the museum for its special August night hours, starting at 10. The museum is pretty amazing, but the downside is that it does not have some specific works which I wanted to see. It was a pretty big place and worth the visit. The next morning mom wanted to see it again, because for some reason she felt she had missed something the night before, so we went back through. We also saw a small gallery of incredible jewels designed by Dalí, including a heart of gold and rubies that actually beats. After leaving the museum we headed for Barcelona.