Lovely mornings in Granada

As usual, being productive here is proving very difficult, so here I am, writing a blog post instead of studying for my Arab-Islam test. It's OK though, I'll get to that afterward.

This morning I returned from a two-day ski trip in the Sierra Nevadas — it was great to go back and really explore the parts of the mountain that we didn't have time for in January!

But this past week in Granada was fantastic. On my afternoon run on Tuesday, I came across Francis, who suggested we run the next morning — at 7:15 a.m. I was hesitant at first because sleep is nice and I had class at 9 a.m., but I eventually gave in after he kept saying "Come on!" in his heavy Spanish accent.

The run was worth it — like always, he made me go harder and farther than I would have on my own, but it was cool to see Granada at daybreak.

The next morning, Elizabeth, Melissa and I trekked up into the Albaicín at 8 a.m. before class to buy sweets from the nuns in the monasteries. Elizabeth and a couple of other girls had done so the week before, and I really wanted to go see what this was all about for myself!

Apparently the nuns only sell the sweets until noon, so we rose early in order to make sure they wouldn't sell out. On the side of the convent, there was a door with a cross above it, and a little buzzer on the side. I pressed the buzzer, and it took a couple of minutes for someone to answer. As the nuns can't have direct contact with the public, I just heard of voice say, "¿Hola?" I responded with the very scripted response: "Hola madre, que dulces tienes hoy?" Translation: "Hello mother, what sweets do you have today?" She then told us to open the door, and there lay sweets on a lazy susan.

We told the nun we'd like the roscos fritos, and she then turned the lazy susan and there lay a bag of fresh roscos. We put the money on the counter, and she turned it back and gave us change. I thought it was so cool that the whole transaction was based on the honor system.

We then hiked a bit farther up to Mirador de San Nicolás, where we could get the most amazing view of the Alhambra and eat our roscos. Normally, that area is teeming with tourists and locals, so it was nice to have the whole area to ourselves (albeit one elderly couple with their two dogs).

After my morning class, I headed back up to the garden (Carmen de los Martires) my art history class visited a couple of days before. Even though it was on-and-off drizzling, it was so peaceful to walk through the garden solo and just enjoy the beauty of Granada outside of the city center.

Peacocks in the park! Two days before, this guy spread his feathers to impress the ladies
(It didn't work though, they just wanted the food that someone was throwing them).

The French sector of the garden — more organized and precise than the Spanish part.