4 Apr

We got to a really early start today. We had some quick breakfast of cereal and bread in the apartment before catching a cab for Alhambra. It’s not that far from the city and is within walking distance, but it’s a bit of a hike to the top and in the interest of time, we decided that riding just made more sense. The Alhambra palace is composed of three main areas, you have the Nasrid Palace (where the Moorish kings used to live), the Generalife gardens (hen-er-al-leaf-ay), and the Alcazar (yet another fortress). You’re required to choose a time in which to visit the Nasrid Palace but once you’re in you can stay as long as you’d like. They make it very clear to you that if you miss your window, they will not let you in. We had some time to kill ‘cause we were early so we decided to walk down to the gardens for a bit. They were quite beautiful and afforded and excellent view of the city below.

We wandered about the flowers for a while and listened to the audio guide we had purchased. They really like to talk about their elaborate use of water here which was nice but nothing spectacular. The flowers were really pretty though, and it was nice to stroll around them in peace before the crowds gathered. Our entry time neared so we started on the fairly long walk back to the palace and reached it in plenty of time. We took a quick bathroom break and headed in. Some of the rooms were rather dark but enough sunlight broke through to make them rather pretty. The courtyards were really special, whether dominated by statues of lions and surrounded by thin yet beautiful pillars or filled with a gigantic pool and fountains. The sun was shining brightly and yet the water helped the complex keep quite cool. It took some time to admire all the rooms but it was outside that I enjoyed myself the most. A palace is a palace but gardens are uniquely and singularly beautiful because no two are ever alike, and their beauty is more profound because it is so transient. We visited the Alcazar for a little while after the palace. It wasn’t as cool as the palace but still nice because you could see a killer view of the city from one of its watchtowers. We didn’t leave the whole complex until late afternoon.

Instead of catching a cab down, we decided to ride a bus instead that makes a trip up and down all day. It was a pretty short ride that dumped us right into the heart of town. There was this really steep hill at the end of the ride that was lined with souvenir shops so after alighting from the bus, we spent the next half hour or so popping in and out of these stores in search of gifts for home. We came up empty-handed, unfortunately, but didn’t mind too much. The sun was still shining so we walked along some streets and found a little falafel/sandwich place to eat lunch in. I liked the sandwich and our waiter was Pakistani who knew Hindi and some other languages so my parents had fun talking to him in Hindi.

After lunch, we strolled around for a while and I grabbed some ice cream for dessert while Mom looked in more souvenir stores. The weather was beautiful so we just chilled out on a bench for a while and planned out our next day. We had a night train to Barcelona tonight that wasn’t leaving until around 9 p.m. so we still had a good part of the day. We walked over to a church which Dad felt like seeing but Mom and I weren’t too interested in. We hung out outside drinking some water that I left to buy and just waited for him. After he got back, we headed back to the hotel to find a place to grab a quick light dinner. I figured we wouldn’t find anything good at the train station so I thought we might as well get something filling then. We looked around for a bit before finding this little sandwich shop quite near the apartment. The waiter was exceptionally rude but at least understood our request to not put too much mayo on the sandwiches. The service was fast enough and when we were done, I stayed back to pay while Mom and Dad went back to the apartment to take care of ordering the cab. We had already checked out in the morning and left our stuff in the lobby ‘cause checkout time was before 11 a.m. We didn’t have to wait too long at the apartment before our cab arrived and it only took about 8 minutes to reach the station.

There weren’t many platforms (four!) so I thought it would be easy to find our train. There was one waiting at platform 3 which was the same platform that I thought ours would be arriving at. Turns out, that train was ours and after we checked that with the conductor, we searched out our compartment. Dad waited outside with the luggage while I got mom settled in and then I brought the rest of the luggage onboard. It was an overnight sleeper train in which the compartments were separated by sexes. Fortunately, ours were next door to each other so we could hang on to most of the luggage and it would be easy for Dad to reach us. There were four bunks to a compartment and it only took a few minutes for us to get settled in. There was one other girl in our compartment with us who didn’t speak much English but seemed to be waiting for someone.

The train left right on time and we just had to wait for the conductor to come check our tickets. He kept them, to our surprise, but told us that he would give us a wake-up call 30 minutes before the train reached Barcelona. I thought that was really sweet of them and it makes a lot of sense. I read and listened to my iPod for a little while before getting comfortable and going to sleep. We wouldn’t be reaching Barcelona until about 8 in the morning so we had plenty of time to rest. Cheers!