Granada, Man weren't you Grand

So you all should feel pretty special right now, because I am actually writing this instead of watching that really funny looking movie that is sitting there in an open tab on my computer, looking relatively good, and potentially laugh-able (laugh-able in the sense that I could/possibly would laugh at it...just so we're clear)

But out of the goodness of my heart I am going to write about the four lovely days that I spent in the south of Spain in a wonderful place called Granada.

So here goes.

Roll tape.

We decided to travel the cheap way, because we are poor, and t-ed up a lift via the internet on a hitch hiking site where you pay the driver a cheaper amount of money to give you a lift instead of paying for an expensive train, or bus or... taxi, if you are that way inclined, which I think no one is, but I am open to all types here.

Getting back to the point. We got a lift with some french guys who, funnily enough hated France, and Spain to come to think of it, so I don't quite know why they chose Spain as their holiday destination of choice; but that is not the point.

And we arrived late (around 10.30pm) not having a hostel booked (we didn't know what time we were getting in at so didn't know if we should book a hostel at all) and the two other people that were travelling with these guys were also getting out at Granada so we decided to band together and work out what to do as one.

They were cheap skate travellers like two people you know, so we decided it would be cheaper and better to just find a park and camp out there in our sleeping bags. But Granada doesn't really do parks or public gardens in the centre of the city, so god knows how we found it, but we ended up in the garden of a retirement home. yes we did jump the fence, no one was hurt, no elderly person saw us and we just unpacked our sleeping bags, set our alarms for 6.30am and went to sleep surprisingly easily under the wonderful spanish stars. It was safe to because our stuff was guarded by a big fence that hid us from outside thiefs...and from the elderly by lovely trees that populated our little corner.

 So that was fun. I have also devised a wonderful way of sleeping relatively comfortably without a mattress; and this little tip I will now share with you all, because I am that sort of gal.

I took with me an inflatable shoulder pillow for the plane and if I want to sleep on trains and buses. You know the ones, they look a bit like you're wearing some sort of inflatable futuristic elizabethan collar, or you are unable to hold your own head up; either way, you look pretty much like an utter dork, but do not fear ladies and gentlemen, it is worth the weird looks. When you find yourself without a mattress, don't put it under your head as you would usually do, but deflate it so that there is hardly any air left in it and then put it under your lower back. The affects are amazing and meant that I could have a very decent nights sleep on hard, solid rocky ground of an elderly persons garden. Points to me.

But back to the point. 

(Get it, see what I did there... I'm so punny!)

The next morning we got up really early, I'll have you know it was not even light yet; and jump back over the fence and walk around Granada with all the lovely stray cats that seem to populate all south of Paris,actually all European, towns. We found our hostel, that itself a challenge as I forgot to copy down the name of the hostel so all we had were the directions from the airport on maria's phone. Good thinking Katie!

Because we were up so early we got to see pretty much all of Granada in one day. We walked up into the old part of Granada, which sits on a hill looking across to the Alhumbra, a 16th century moorish palace, and out over the rest of Granada. We saw the sun rising over the mountains and ate fresh bread with tomato, tomato juice, salt and olive oil for breakfast. So good! And found oranges in the trees in the local squares and a mangy puppy who was really cute, but smelt  bit.

We walked down through the winding streets, finding ourselves in the Moroccan district, if you can call it that, and found the nicest little cafe just by luck, because it was cheap food, and I was really hungry. We had the best kebabs and the most amazing lemonade I think I've ever had in my life. So all in all a pretty great day. We said goodbye to our danish pals the next day as they were travelling south to Morocco and explored more of the city. Another day was spent at the Alhumbra, which I am keeping separate to this post as there is way to many photos of that for me too put in this post. 

This is one of our danish pals that we hung out with, he looks like he could be the next Ned Kelly but I assure you he's not.

They were a goof and a half, well two goofs really, and a lot of fun.

A mangy little puppy we found, and tentatively patted. 

Maria finding some breakfast from the orange trees in the square.

Maria and our new friends

They don't have burger king, they have something better; Kabab King

Some awesome graffiti we found on the way to the Alhumbra.

We found mini Sombreros that we couldn't buy sadly enough, unless we wanted to wear them every time we travelled from one place to another...But we got some good photos to keep us happy!

Moroccan tea

Dinner from our fave kabab place

On the last day, we spent the day, sitting in different places in parks and restaurants overlooking Granada and the Alhumbra, drinking Mojitos and writing postcards to everyone back home and drawing. It was lovely; we also went back to our favourite little restaurant and orded some felafel wraps which were just as good as the kebabs.

We finished off the evening watching the sunset go down on top of this same hill I keep talking about, and painting each others faces with my watercolour paints, because we are hippy children and never really want to grow up.

It was lovely to go to a part of Spain that wasn't Barcelona. Not that we didn't like Barcelona; we loved it. But it is different to what the rest of Spain is like, just like Paris is different to the rest of France. And its safe to say that we thoroughly enjoyed our stay. (Look at that, I'm rhyming now...)

So thats all for now Folks,

I hope you enjoyed it

Love Katie G

Oh and I finally uploaded a video, I know you were probably wondering if I even did those any more. Well I do, so here is my video of the last few weeks. 

Barcelona, Ibiza, Granada and the South of France.