Alhambra

After a very successful morning (those of you over 60 will know what I mean) that involved two cups of strong coffee followed by an unforgettable experience with the toilet in our hotel room that has a touchpad control panel with settings that include “oscillate,” “pulse,” “rear clean,” “front clean,” and “dryer” among others . . . 

. . . we headed the Captain Candy store to buy a bag full of life-sized solid sugar bananas like these. 

Just kidding, Captain Candy was closed, so we headed up to the Alhambra, a prime example of Iberian infrastructural reappropriation and the main reason people visit Granada.

And I mean “up” literally. This path is the handicapped-accessible way to the Alhambra. Ironically, if you are in a wheelchair, there is no way you should get anywhere near this roughly 45-degree incline unless you want to end up needing more than a wheelchair.

Anyway, almost 1,000 years ago some cities in southern Spain had running water, streetlights, wide avenues and world-class academic scholarship in math, science and medicine. Then the Catholic Kings (the ones who also brought us, literally, Christopher Columbus), expelled the Muslims and Jews, who had been responsible for all that success.

One of the things left behind by the Caliph in his rush to get out of the country was the Alhambra, an enormous, elegant, palatial complex that still exists (or at least was available to be restored in the early 20th century). We spent much of the day there wandering the grounds and imagining what it would be like to be Muhamed Al-Ahmar, the guy who hired the original architect and contractors back in 1238.

Tomorrow we’re back on the train to head to northern Spain to meet up with a friend because, you know, we have friends in Spain. No big deal.

Hola Granada

 Have you ever considered taking that old picnic table to a neighborhood yard sale and then thought “Hey, I could take this apart it and use the wood to make a raised bed for my tomato plants.” If so, your life is much like the history of southern Spain, as illustrated by this Catholic church in Madrid with Muslim archways inside.

Give or take a few wars, mass executions and various abuses by a church I will not name so as not to make anyone uncomfortable, the defining quality of southern Spain is how each successive civilization adapted what was already there to another use.

“These Phoenician ports are definitely fixer uppers, but with a little TLC, I think we can make it work,” said the Romans. 

“These Roman aqueducts are made of almost perfect rectangular stone blocks,” said the Muslims. “Let’s dismantle the aqueducts and use the stones to build mosques.” 

“You had me at ‘mosques,’” said the Catholics. “With a little sprucing up they would make terrific churches.” 

“Churches!” remarked a developer. “They would be perfect to convert to upscale hotels.”

This sort of thing is everywhere, like in Toledo where Martha is pictured here standing in front of the Arch of Blood (don’t ask), which is right around the corner from one of 273 Catholic churches. 

And after a four-hour train ride this morning, we have gone from a world of paella to one of shawarma, from street vendors with “I heart Madrid” t-shirts to ones with Islamic-arch themed refrigerator magnets, from dormant oaks to fruiting orange trees and the smell of incense in the air. 

We are in Granada in far southern Spain (forty miles or so from Northern Africa), which is the poster child for Iberian infrastructural reappropriation, a term I just made up.

Madrid Day 3

 I typically try to avoid anything that involves actual learning on these trips, but Martha seemed interested in doing more than just walking around aimlessly making fun of awkward English translations of things, so I indulged her and we had a highly intellectual day, which included a walking tour of Madrid and hours (yes, hours) in art museums. And to my surprise, it turns out that learning something once in a while isn´t so bad including, for example:

1. Firemen have a sense of humor. In the old days, Madrid had a fire department but you had to pay a special fee if you wanted your house to be covered. If you paid, you would get a plaque like this on your house and if a fire started, the fire department would come and put it out. If you didn’t have a plaque, they would swing by and have a picnic while watching your house burn down. Ha ha, just kidding. They actually wouldn’t come at all.

2. People from Madrid a long time ago also had a sense of humor. When the king came to town he would sleep at the palace, but also he had an entourage of several hundred people who needed places to stay. So the “advance team” would come to Madrid first and find all the two-story houses (which had people above and animals below) and tell the people they had to move in with their animals on the bottom floor while the king’s staff took over the top floor. So . .  . the Madrileños started building fake windows halfway between the floors (as shown in this wall) so that it wasn’t clear whether there was one floor, two floors or one and a half floors. This so thoroughly confused the event staff (granted, they probably weren’t executive material) that they passed over those houses.

3. Nuns are both pious and practical. Even if you live in a monastery and are totally cut off from all aspects of civilization, you sometimes still have to order things from Amazon. In which case some guy with a cart comes and knocks on the monastery door to deliver them.

4. If you’re a Spanish artist, go big or go home. Goya entered this in an art competition and didn’t win anything, but he did get an honorable mention. Tough crowd.

5. Eat local. At the end of the day, we found a bar very close to our apartment that had fantastic food. Is that what eating local means?

Madrid Day 2

 Today we shook off the cobwebs, and with the aid of only two naps and multiple café con leches, we walked around Madrid while Martha prepared for an evening with her formerly online-only friend, Joaquin the artist.

We walked through Retiro Park (think Central Park but in Spain), land set aside by the royal family for themselves in the 1500’s. It’s still very beautiful and is now open to commoners, which I guess goes to show not everything about a monarchy is bad.

Spain is full of statues of men on horses and most of those men did some pretty terrible things, but King Alfonso XII, who sits precariously on a very tall pedestal overseeing rowboats in Retiro Park, seems like a cool guy. For one thing, he named himself Alfonso XII even though he was the first king of Spain named Alfonso. He also married for love, which caused his mother the queen to be so upset that she didn’t attend the wedding (and I’m sure she also never let him forget it). And unlike his predecessors, who focused on genocide and conquering stuff, he promoted arts and letters as well as public education. So all in all not a bad guy.

You may ask “why a cow gallery in the Retiro Park?” Madrid says that is the wrong question – “Why not a cow gallery?” is the correct question.

Then we walked down the Grand Via (think 5th Avenue, or if you want to feel more cosmopolitan, think Champs-Élysées) and passed a lot of stylish people. 

After another café con leche, Martha went off to meet with Joaquin and I came back to our apartment where I waited for a while to see if she would decide to come back so that we could find a good tapas place together. Which we did, and then we ran across this food court, which also did the trick.

Madrid Day 1

 We’ve been gone less than a day, and I feel like Martha and I have already achieved a certain new closeness. I think it may be because after 16 straight hours of planes and trains overnight with almost no sleep, we are the only two people who understand us when we try to communicate. This has nothing to do with language barriers in a foreign country.

This is our home away from home for the next few days. Short-term rentals like this are gradually being phased out in many cities here - outlawed in Barcelona and allowed in Madrid only if the neighbors agree. So many tourists are coming into the country that investors are buying up apartments and renting them out on Airbnb. This drives up the price of housing and it's difficult for local people to live in their own cities anymore. Plus, having restaurants and bars open most of the night combined with college students on break and bachelorette parties can be an awkward combination if you live in town and have to get up in the morning to go to work. It's got to the point where police make unannounced raids to uncover illegal rentals. Spain enjoys my company and loves it when I come to visit but apparently not everyone is as fun to hang out with as I am.

Despite our feeble and rapidly deteriorating mental state, we managed to wander around briefly this evening and tried very hard to make it to a bar because, why not? After meandering around a few neighborhoods I got an odd second wind but Martha hit a very understandable wall.  So now that we’ve stayed awake past 8 o’clock, we’re going to go to sleep for 15 hours or so. 

Buenos Días, Spanish Winter

I was doing some random scrolling on the internet a couple of months ago and learned that Spain is open in the winter. I also was reminded in a podcast about Hallmark Christmas movies that it’s not unusual for married couples to travel together. Since winter in Spain is gray and rainy, meaning no tourists, we decided to travel to Spain in January, together. 

Among other things, we are looking forward to getting away from the poisonous political atmosphere full of far-right politicians who feel empowered to, per the article I just read for example, make personal attacks on the families of left-leaning leaders. Oh, hold on, my mistake, that was an article from a Madrid newspaper about remarks made by the President of Argentina aimed at the wife of Spain’s Prime Minister.

Well whatever, at least we have peace and quiet to look forward to. Assuming I ignore what I read in Spanish news this week that said “Spain is reinforcing its status as a global travel destination this Christmas.” The piece is titled “Spain’s Tourist Boom.” 

Nonetheless, we are going to have a terrific time. Especially Martha, who met a guy online named Joaquin whom she is going to meet in an abandoned palace in Madrid to work on watercolors Tuesday night.

The trip has started off on a good note. Our plane took off on time and our seats (which cost roughly $25 per hour extra but was money well spent) have six feet of legroom. I could literally do yoga and jumping jacks here in the highly unlikely event I am ever motivated to do those things.

The safety video was titled May We Haveth One’s Attention (really it was) and contained the words “whilst” and “cosy” with an “s.” And our flight attendant’s name is Nigel. All of which can only mean one thing. We are headed to London. Followed by two additional flights, all in the span of 16 hours, which will, with some luck, end us up in mid-afternoon Madrid, just in time to head out for some wine and tapas. Let the fiesta begin.