Travelin'Round Brown

Well, I couldn’t resist. I never finished the last post. I will ease in.

It doesn’t feel better travelin round brown than at Taos Feast Day. I feel very proud and it is time to fall down brown!

*This is a draft I’m working out that revisits a travel memory from summer 2016. I wrote this to help my students understand the elements of personal narrative that we’re discussing in class.

As we sat at the table, peering into the faces of strangers with whom we did not share a language or a home, I wondered at the thought of their invitation. They had, after all, invited us—complete strangers—to share a meal with them. I also wondered why my fiancé, an unreserved social extrovert, was so quick to oblige. We were in a foreign country, after all. We were in a country wholly unfamiliar and unlike anywhere we’d ever been, eating foods we’d never seen with people we’d never met. Ironically, it was in experiencing the unfamiliar that I gained a sense of belonging in a place where I did not belong. Through the simple act of sharing a meal with strangers, I felt welcome in a culture that, at least in my home country, is often associated with hostility, not hospitality.

How did we get to this moment, Todd and me? We’d been in Morocco only hours, exhausted after a chaotic bustle from our apartment in Madrid to the airport, where we were within minutes of missing our flight. After a two-hour train ride from the Mohammed V Airport in Casablanca, we arrived in Rabat, the capital of Morocco, which sits nestled between the shores of the Bouregreg River and the Atlantic Ocean. The culture shock was immediate. We tried asking for directions to the Riad Sidi Fatah, a small hostel where we had reservations, but no one understood us, nor did we understand them. Locals, picking up on our dark features, brown skin, and black hair, mistook us for Moroccans and immediately started speaking to us in Arabic. When they realized we didn’t understand what they were saying, they tried French. When we tried replying in Spanish, and then in English, and neither worked, our hopes for having any intelligible conversation faded. By the time we found someone who understood enough English to help us into the taxi that walked us through the crowded medina and dropped us off at the doorstep of our hostel, we were spent. We walked into our room, lay down, and slept for four hours.

As we slept, I dreamed I was walking through the crowded streets, lost and trying to find my way home. A loud voice sang out, deep, distant, distinct. It chanted to me, guiding me through the crowds as I walked toward it, trusting it to help me out of the maze of masses.

When we awoke, the euphonious chanting from my dream flooded through the open windows of our room and fell upon us like a curtain. We looked at each other uncertainly and then remembered that we were in a Muslim country and that it must be evening. We were hearing the adhan, a call to prayer broadcast from mosques to the rest of the city. For us, the sound signaled an alarm, prompting us out of bed in pursuit of dinner.

We hadn’t eaten all day because our trip to Morocco coincided with Ramadan, an Islamic religious holiday that requires followers to fast from sunrise to sunset. Because we got to Morocco at midday, we did not eat, not because food wasn’t available to us and not because we are Muslim, but because we are the kind of travelers who try to be mindful and respectful of local customs and practices. We did not eat because we felt it would be rude to eat in front of an entire city of people who were fasting for the entire day.

We walked toward the beach, only about a mile from our hostel, figuring we would enjoy the evening sunset before settling in to a café for some tajin and mint tea. As we approached the beach, we noticed a waiter setting out plastic tables and chairs, arranging them spaciously. He moved toward us, motioning for us to sit. We smiled, declined, and continued walking toward the pier that would lead us to generous views of the sunset.

Once there, we rested on a large breakwater and looked out into the same immense and boundless ocean that eventually touches the eastern seaboard of the United States. The same ocean I’d looked out into from the Newark Airport in our home country, which felt so far away now.

We watched fisherman cast their lines into the deep, and we watched couples walking together with easy smiles on their faces. We watched small waves tumble into the shoreline, and we watched the sun recede slowly into the horizon. The longer we sat, the more people came, and the more people we watched.

People began occupying the tables that were carefully laid out all across the beach, setting out bowls and plates of food. Some went so far as to dig underground tables in the sand, laying cloth over the top so as to create an impermeable layer between sand and food. Within minutes, the entire beach was filled with family and friends gathered along the oceanfront preparing the evening’s meal. Together, they formed a burst of colors filling nearly every foot of beach, the smells of their cuisine wafting into the air to tempt us back toward the city. As we returned, I watched groups of people gathered in anticipation: Children played in the sand near adults, men and women engaged in conversation as they arranged the table, and teens took selfies with their friends. At that moment, looking out into the crowd, I thought, They’re really not different from the people back home. It took me a trip to the other side of the world to really understand that we, the foreigners from the U.S. and the locals from Morocco, are more alike than I would have ever imagined. I was caught up in this thought when the scents and the sounds and the sight of the disappearing sun became enough to make us realize that we were starving. We still had to walk back to the city to find a restaurant where we could eat, and here we were, tortuously arousing our appetites. As we walked, another chant came over the loud speaker, at almost the exact moment when the sun sank beneath the skyline. The people on the beach paused, quieted, and when the chanting ceased, everyone expressed sounds of cheer as they broke their day’s fast and began to eat.

As Todd and I neared the boardwalk that divided beach from city streets, we were called over to a table shared by a group of young men. At this point, we were the only people on the entire beach not sitting at a table, a point that must’ve marked us as foreigners. One of the men said something to us in Arabic, which he readily saw that we didn’t understand. He tried saying it in French and again saw that we didn’t understand. At the second failed attempt, he got up, brought over two chairs to the table, and motioned for us to sit down. Eat, he said, only it sounded more like Et. Todd and I looked at each other uncertainly, not wanting to be rude but unsure of whether we should sit. The man smiled at us warmly, as if to say, Please, join us. You are welcome here. His expression was enough to convince us that we should sit.

Immediately the other men at the table handed us plates and began passing Tupperware dishes of food, loaves of bread, and even a glass of kefir.  They tried talking with us, but we all soon realized that our knowledge of Arabic and French, the languages they spoke, were as limited as their knowledge of English. Gradually, we started using hand gestures and cognates to communicate. Mostly, we wanted to know about the foods we were eating, since many of the dishes were new to us. We used animal sounds to communicate the types of meat that we were presented, which was helpful because Todd is a vegetarian and was doing all he could to avoid eating the meat dishes passed to him without appearing to be an ingrate.

Although I don’t remember all the foods we eat that day, I remember having a salad-like dish made of chickpeas, a variety of breads, hard-boiled eggs, cubed turkey with greens, kefir, sweet cookies, and, believe it or not, beef hot dogs. It turns out that the word for hot dog is the same in their language as it is in ours, a realization that we all laughed at when we said the word in our respective native tongues. As I ate, I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious at the fact that we had not brought anything to contribute, though the bounty of menu items was enough to feed several more people.

Despite the fact that we resorted to almost entirely non-linguistic methods of communication over the course of our dinner, we learned a lot about each other in our time together. For example, they learned that we were from the U.S., not from France as they had assumed, and they wondered what brought us to Rabat—why we had not gone to Marrakech like most tourists do. We learned that they were members of a Moroccan band who were visiting Rabat for a show, and they gave us a business card with their band’s name and booking information on it. We also learned each other’s names, most of which I’ve since forgotten.

And while I may not remember the names of these Moroccan strangers, I will never forget their kindness. I’ll never forget their willingness to make a space for complete strangers, foreigners who did not have a place to sit or a meal to share at the breaking of fast during Ramadan.

In my home country, the United States, I have witnessed a great deal of anti-Muslim sentiment since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In my field, which studies the ways in which language can affect public opinion and reproduce discriminatory stereotypes, I have read published works that explore these tropes, repeated in everyday conversations, in the media, and in popular culture. I have heard from Muslim friends and students who live in the U.S. tell me about how painful it is to live with the fear of being called terrorists just because of their religion. They tell me that their religion teaches love and non-violence, that only extremists hold the views many people associate with Islam, and I believe them. I believe them because I am wise enough to recognize that it is a dangerous move to generalize others; I do not feel comfortable with an ideological stance that marginalizes a whole group of people based on their religious beliefs.

I admit that I, too, felt a pang of uncertainty and perhaps even fear when we were first called over to the table by our Moroccan friends. I know that even though I am not complicit in the disparaging attitudes many in the U.S. have about Muslim people, it is not always easy to escape the influence of these pervasive biases. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to spend time in a Muslim country during Ramadan and got to experience the culture for myself. I got to experience first-hand what many in the U.S. do not: an intimate invitation to dine with people who are different from me in nearly every way, including language, religion, custom, and tradition. Yet in breaking bread with strangers, I gained a greater sense of our shared humanity, and it was a simple meal that built the bridge that helped me over the divide.

 

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What to discuss after so many miles between conversations. Well, for one, I watched dead pool on the plane from Lisbon to Newark.

He procrastinated and procrastinated. What did it lead to? A dramatic climax! Sorry to get your hopes up, no drama here, just hustle and bustle through customs, passport checks, terminals, more customs and even more passport checks. But this is not what I want to talk about.

Beaches. Our last 8-10 days was all about the beaches. I spent my blogging time in Barceloneta catching us up on Pamplona. Barceloneta was great. We hit the beach up several days and we spent one day as my sister tiny not so brown would say, “beach bumming it!” Literally waking up late, taking our time with everything except drinking adult beverages and then drinking more adult beverages. I even think that was the night that I almost got in a fight with some teenage punk! Faz sentido. But mama brown was there to remind me to “think”. Upon reflection it reminded me of the bardo state of death. Being confused and disoriented in the mean time these clear directions are being provided. Any other time, it is like, duh, don’t fight the young kid who is more drunk than me in a foreign country. But at the time, it seemed like it was not that unreasonable to Meia Lua de Compasso this kid in the thigh! The whole episode was quite the bummer because I found myself replaying the incident for the rest of the evening and into the next day. I then had to watch my back for he last couple of days there which made me feel right at home. What I did appreciate about that experience was that it was a reality check for me to peel away the “vacation” facade and remember that people do live and die in that tourist trap. That realization in conjunction with all of the service workers and artisans selling their goods that we saw reminded me of why I didn’t feel right about staying in Costa Rica at the age of 22. Which was, “what good am I to these people if I reject their dream destination (the good ole USA) and move in on their only means of making money (tourists).” I realized then that my only value to the Caribbean Ticos was that I had access to the USA. In reality I didn’t. My resolve was that I needed to learn how to build a house. Which due to external pressure, my first child, I did. I also got a Civil Engineering degree, had another child and went on to get licensed and actually start a somewhat enjoyable career. It was nice to recognize that now not only do I have the value of being a USe, but I now can garden, build houses, share capoeira, and be an engineer. I can now support the locals as a tourist. I can also stumble around in four languages. So my days in Barcelona were great for that reason. 

We ended up staying 6 nights in Barceloneta. Another amazing aspect of Barcelona was visiting the Picasso Museum and Gaudi’s Familia Sagrada. Again my American came out. Who is Gaudi? 

Don’t feel bad, at the time of his death nobody knew who he was either. That is a sad story. Unlike Picasso, he spent his last years fixated on vaginas and his father! What was awesome about the Picasso museum was getting to look at some of his work up close, I’m talking one to two inches close. Actually up really really close, it relies on technique and illusion. Of course having visited the Prado in Madrid, and seeing Picasso’s ability to replicate the works and the styles of so many masters, that is priceless. Nonetheless, up close, painting beautiful paintings does not seem out of reach for me any longer. What it takes to be a master is an unrelenting quest for perfection, day in and day out. What will it take? It will take me a few years more to be financially independent while beginning to…brush up on my skills. I do know that my fear of art is self imposed. Seeing these great artists and the streets littered with artists that were both amazing and questionable to say the least has me inspired.

Another great thing about the Barcelona trip is the recognition of my muse. Mama brown. She is my inspiration, motivation, frustration, relaxation and more. 

What is awesome about her is that she wants me to not be upset. She wants me not to be angry. She wants me to be happy. So I didn’t mention it, but she broke down, beat me to the punch, and asked me to marry her at Orgulloso Lisboa (Pride Lisboa). I had been planning on asking her to marry me in a jewelry store in Morroco, but a five Euro ring in Lisboa is even better!

Ericeira, Portugal

Cereza encima. I know…idioms don’t translate. But Ericeira, villa e suites was definitely the cherry on top. What a treat. We loved it so much we even had an argument as if it was our home over something trivial. However, one of the benefits of this trip was actually the arguments. Why do we argue, how do we argue, how do we resolve it? All of these questions were more easily answered while traveling. For one, we had nowhere to go per se. We are both pretty cheapskates. At this stage of our financial situation, we would never splurge on another room when we had a perfectly good one already paid for. And two, there is a point in which an argument on vacation, in a beautiful part of the world, in a romantic setting becomes painfully absurd and awkward. So why…it is obvious why, some sort of stress is why. Be it some sort of complicated situation such as triangulating our location, actually being lost, being hungry, or tired, a combination of all of the above. It usually is rooted in some sort of miscommunication or faulty psychic powers. But in Ericeira, we professed to each other that we really don’t want to fight. We truly are not trying to make each other miserable and we are truly trying to read in to the wants, needs, and desires of each other and in doing so we get ahead of ourselves and fall victim to our own false assumptions. These false assumptions generated by our ego’s desire to be the best set the stage for our arguments. So the takeaway is that if we do find ourselves in an argument, it is most likely rooted in these issues. Now the challenge will be as we fall into our stressful western routines, how do we constantly be incomes by compassion rather than egotistical obsession? That however, is a totally different blog. I guess it is somewhat poignant because, our ghetto did get out on this trip, and of course I conflate ghetto with being brown.

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And there are those stories that are to be seen, heard, and told only once. These stories are the stories in which to cherish; these are the stories in which we breath. For these stories are the stories which we call life. The memories, smoke rings of time, perhaps forgotten but Felt for lifetimes.

There is a product of great reward for putting oneself out there.

 What if I am dead and Marissa is reading the book of the dead to me?

San fermines

Train into town, beautiful ride.completely jammed bus station.

English dudes at hostel. Ordering mad beers.

Meet bloakes again at the square. Hacky sack.

They break the marimba.

Dude walking vomitting.

Non stop partying at night reverting to 18, after a long nap, I’m drinking a quart.

It’s fucked up.

16/07/16While I am in Barcelona, I finally have time to reflect in the running of the Bulls. Actually known as el encierro. Why?…

The reason is to get the Bulls from the river to the Plaza Del Toros. Why?… To kill them for the glory. 

I guess it does make sense. The heard only needs one bull. Maybe a couple more Bulls In Training. If we are to kill them, let us give them one last fighting chance to take out some of the people that are going to eat us. So as a vegetarian encierrando, of course I had a couple of slogans to scrawl across my t-shirt, “Run with the Bulls” or “Run for the Bulls”. 

So we had been pretty much been planning on doing this every since we had decided to attend La Fiestas de San Fermin. We researched, we watched, we read, I watched some more. The next question is how? We imagined that you just show up and run. Well, pretty much, but the details include a plane or two or a few, same with the train and not as many buses as I had expected, but there were several buses. And of course the ever faithful taxi… Of course it includes lodging, an Airbnb 20-30 kilometers out of town too. Oh yeah, the San Fermin festival isn’t not just a festival it is a true fiesta! 10 days, wear red and white and forget about your job. Unless you are trying to make some quick bucks and speak Spanish or Basque fluently. Soy is party is so big. The town normally hosts 250,000 people. During San Fermin, the town swells five times to over a million people. By the way, most locals who are smart and can afford it leave on holiday and enjoy it for one or two nights. 

How to survive, well, the Englishmen that we kept bumping into used a variety of methods to stay awake including acceptance. It is interesting how some people are seen more than once, even at a mall or something. We just slept late, woke up caught the bus bought beer and ice and put it in the mochillo. We then floated around from tapas bar ordering wine and when we would remember, we would drink a beer. We would show up at a club, dance a few steps and. Valé. Hasta luego.  

A cigarette just fell from heaven, already lit
A sign is a sign…
… Back to the past…

So I bring all of this up to say it is not easy to get to run with the Bulls. We had horrible times leaving The fiesta to get to Ororbia. The night before our planned run was our complicated by our attempt to catch the 2345 bus back to Ororbia which we missed, or thought we missed and would up paying a taxi 20€. By the time it was all said and done, it was 2am and we were both pretty tipsy. Considering that in order to run it involves catching the 0645 bus to Pamplona in order to catch the firing of the cannon at 0730, signifying the start of the run; we did not make it.

 The next day was well planned, despite that now I am revisiting this, I really don’t remember which day is which?!? Again it is way more complicated than expected…

So. Back to the details. Somehow we caught the bus. Went to bed at a decent hour, I contemplated life. I am currently reading The Tibetan Book of the Living and Dying, so I waiver from excitement to depressed… Read with caution! I got up, mama brown was having issues. She slept with her contacts. We got way more drunk the night before than we expected. The bus, this early should be on time. Our host, Alicia, was like, aprisa! aprisa! El bus vienen. So. Ran out the door. I am running with the Bulls. I am outside, 0639 hrs. I give the peacock call. Mama brown looks out kind of disturbed. “Let’s go! Let’s go!” I bolt. See ya when I see ya! I run my 600 meters to the stop. I see people. Whew! The bus hasn’t left yet. I then reflect some more, take an ital breakfast. Mama brown shows up. What a relief! “Phfff, the bus doesn’t even come til 0715″she says! (Little did I know, she didn’t have her contacts and she went back to get them. She misread the schedule, the bus leaves Pamplona at 0715!). Me, I’m staying. I’m catching this bus and I’m running. Today. I watched my muse walk away…

Then the bus came! Mama brown did not catch it…
So as a budded Buddhist, I’m reflecting. I guess she will be thinking about me more when she is not with me than if she was. 
On the bus I meet Enoah, our housemate that our host has been deferent to. We frantically try to send our host a message to give to mamabrown. Spell check spanish to English is awful. After seeing Enoah’s message translated from Spanish to English, who knows what kind of messages I have been sending Mestre and our friends along the way? 
Either way, mamabrown and I had a plan we had discussed the previous day after our first Spanish churros. 
So Enoah shows me where to try to get in… No puedo.

I run around to another place…no puedo entrar. I hear a dude say todos que quieren correr corre. So I followed a. Purple of young bucks as they ran another 500 meters. Valé, we found it. I was in. I gave my thinks, I said some prayers and I thought about my family, friends, and loved ones. I had also written the number of our host on my arm in case of catastrophe. I burned some sage and started walking somewhere else, did some stretching and came to a traffic jam. That is where I met my Western Sahara Amigo. Another doppelgänger. He bummed a cigarette from someone, he shared it withe me and he shared some insight I only the run having been in several others in the past. He said ” salta quando necessites salta. Si necessites luchar, lucha!” Vale.
We heard the rockets and we started walking to the White Stripes chant (thanks Gotinha!) “lo lo lo lo looo lo” as we turned “La Curva” aka dead man’s curve. What a relief. I was across from Zanpa, the bar we had danced at the night before! Hasta Luego amigo….
The tension is thick, the hair on my neck is up. I look around at my fellow runners as we pick up the pace. I thought man, at this rate I’m gonna beat the Bulls. So o found a spot where the road widened t about 15 feet. Ironically, we had trained a couple of times with the boys before we left. We took off down the road while they followed us on there bikes like Bulls! I outran the boys, so I didn’t want to make that mistake again… 

So I waited…and waited… Three or four days passed as I watched people run by. My western Saharan amigo did say that 90 % of the people will be gone by the time the Bulls come. Then I felt it, like a track relay. Go! 

I took off at half, three quarter speed. There was a corner ahead and it caused a compression, I was like, bad bad timing. At this rate. I am elbow to elbow with fools. I am not gonna fall. You are definitely not gonna make me fall amigo. And I look back. Sure as shit, it is a fuckin bull on the other side of the street. I am stiff arming fools and the Bulls are running along side me about 3 meters away. I am thinking if I don’t go now, I’ll never touch a bull and I won’t be on video! So I kick into high gear as the bull stumbles! So I let up a it and then I’m like now or never and I reach out with my left hand and I nick the bull with my left middle finger as I I have flash back of a similar situation in which I tried to grab a work truck while riding my bike in order to get a tow only to realize the truck was decelerating as I hit the asphalt hard. Enough is enough, and so we all ran into the stadium where I attempted a round off back flip upon entry and almost didn’t make it. My right knee touched the ground. 

So I looked for my western sAhara friend in the arena, I did not find him. Then all the sudden the rest of the Bulls came in. That was scary. Things seemed to calm down in the arena and I was feeling good. I kept waiting for the announcement “thank you for your participation please exit the arena now”. No, not only are we in Spain, but it did not happen. They let the young bull out. Now there is like a thousand fools running around a football size stadium playing tag with a bull. This might be a baby bull, but it had fools on their asses and didn’t quit there. So I picked up a newspaper and rolled it up for some kinda of protection, and it must have worked. Then I was like, I am staying as far from that bull as possible. And I did. I said to my self, stay for one bull. I ran around and I waited for the announcement, “the first bull can now leave while the second bull enters the arena.” Again, no that did not happen even in Spanish. But this time it was no baby bull, this was a full on Texas long horn. Drop the mic, I gotta muse to catch. So I figured out real fast why I have trained jumping fences all of my life. Bing Bing bong. I found a hat with Kapitan written on it. As I skipped o the meeting point. I hear the peacock call as soon as I find the meeting spot. Mama brown! Perfect timing.

We headed to the Cafe con Sal, where Enoah works. We had wine for breakfast with our cafes con leche. We then caught the bus back to Ororbia.

We gathered our belongings from the air bnb. Our host gifted us a ride into town right to our hostel.

Later that evening…

We managed to fit in the final Eurocup game. We were two of three people in Pamplona going for Portugal. Everybody loves to hate Ronaldo. After half time we managed a beautiful walk along the river. We finally found a bar playing the rest of the game. Portugal won sin Ronaldo! What a day!

7/7/2016Granada😘😪

Vale.

Meet the people. Mama brown did it again. I am so glad I didn’t take a ride home from Madrid. The caves. Continuing our theme from No Shya Flya, we stayed at t Las Cuevas Al Albanica.

Granada pulled out all of the stops for us. It started with the complications of the ride here from Seville. The tracks were being repaired so we had to transfer fro the tracks to a bus. While the experience itself was easy enough, understanding what was happening while it was happening was one of those little mysteries to be solved while traveling.

We arrived soon enough at the station under construction which explained why we changed to A bus. As well as I just saw a major project replacing the tracks, the station project is probably just a parallel side project.

While our destination was close enough, we correctly decided to take a taxi because this place is a lot like Santa Fe, very hilly and very windy roads.

So taxis all lined up, we ended up with a young driver. He didn’t know exactly where it was and we did t know exactly where we were going so we paid a tax. Up a cobble stone path, switching back in the 100 degree afternoon sun. Because I am more like a mule I elected to carry our luggage because the casters did not work. Are we even at the right place? What did mama brown get us in to? 

Luckily there was a bench on top of a hill. There were people selling beer out of their house. It seemed like the perfect chicota. Besides, I smell some sweet flowers. Mamabrown said I’ll be back and bravely continued alone down the cobbled road into the unknown. Besides, we were warned by Rick Steves that this is in fact gypsy territory.

I was beginning to get a little bit nervous, when mamabrown came skipping around the corner with a huge smile. She found our place and it was better than we bargained for. As stated it was indeed a hobbit hole in a cave.

After we settled, I went back to the vista and hung out with some locals, Nuncio, Adrial, Julio. It turns out we were overlooking the alahmbra! I later met Nincio’s mom, Conchi. Minus the dreads, I fit right in. Nuncio offered to sell me a cave. Who knows…
As we were planning this trip we discussed how we wanted to experience the Moors. Our options were 1) look forward from the romantic eyes of the of the Alambra to Seville and then Morocco. Or 2) from the present day Moreucos looking back into the romance of the mysterious past. We correctly chose option 2. However, we could not have made a mistake.

In Rabat, we visited the Chellah, a place first settled by Phoenician in 70 ad. Then by the Romans, followed by the moors.

My imagination was set off in this place. 2000 years of people… People on people on people. I was so jealous of the people that first settled that land. The engineering marvels. My impression was that the engineers used the natural elevation to pressurize their water supply. I assumed that I was correct and put it out of my mind as a mystery.

What a precious oasis it was.
 Then it was on to Seville. Beautiful engineering and architecture with a blatant omission of moorish influence except that obviously the castle/cathedral builders borrowed everything from the moors! More about that later. I do after all have a point…

So, on to Granada we go. En route we discussed that we were only 70 kms from the beach. After all this is supposed to be “a beach trip”. However, 30 minutes in the cave house and we never wanted to leave. So e did the next best thing. We got reservations for Hammam bath house for our last night. 

Again, thanks for mamabrown doing her homework. We preordered tickets to the Alahmbra. We took the 2 mile stroll the back way to the spot.

it was absolutely gorgeous. It was a living Chellah! That was just the beginning. When we got to the top, everyone else had taken taxis or a bus. I felt so good having used the back passage. So we made our way in to the Alahmbra! It was absolutely amazing. Fantasy alive. The details the craftsmanship. Mind blowing.

The Alahmbra is as if engineers and architects married. The architects finally allowed the square building to be built. The hydraulic system is perfectly balanced. The gardens are intelligently laid out and the architecture is grandly practical.

My new friends said indeed that there were Aguascalientes at the bath house. If you know us, we are all about the “what?” springs! But Granada had to show off and make us second guess ourselves. An outdoor rumba, funk, hip hop show right by our cave starting when our hotsprings reservations were scheduled. Bummer. Piqued by the soundcheck, we made our way to the Museo de las Cuevas(the concert venue). We got to hear the soundcheck and imagine what a show in such a magical setting would be like.
Well it was worth missing the concert. I have no photos of inside the bathhouse. However pictures can be found online. The bath house was an experience of the glory days of the moors in Spain. The tile work was exquisite. The beauty of the balance was magical. The scrub down was annoying, but I got clean!!! And I really am that brown! The bath house was the experience that tied it all together.

The question that drowned out all others, the one that still burns in my mind,”how did the moors lose it?” 

It is said that the last moorish king wept overlooking this view as the kingdom fell.

What did them in, the moors were superior, seemingly in every way? It takes me back to a post that Hattak Ninvh posted. If the moors were driven out of Spain after 800 years of occupation, perhaps we will return the favor to our occupiers in the next couple of hundred years!

5/7/2016I got what I came for. Sold. In less than 12 hours, Granada has done her best to capture me. Mama Brown has done it again. She let hard work, intuition, faith, and the Internet guide her to Sacamonte. It is across the valley from the Allambra. It was quite a trek to get here. The cab driver dropped us at the bottom of the hill and we had to carry out luggage far, up cobble stone steps.

I was getting discouraged as the mule… We arrived at a look out point where the lucky home owners with an awesome view have opened a makeshift cerveceria. Mama brown ran ahead to find our spot while I lingered with the view taking I the occasional whiff of lamb’s bread. Just enough to give me some hope. I waited long enough to get nervous because we are on the gypsy side of town after all.
Not too much longer, mama brown came prancing up the hill as happy as ever with a huge smile! 

4/7/2016Independence Day. The jardines of Seville are telling me to leave. Runny nose, sore throat, and we have reservations in Granada. The Sevilla bike rentals gave us some bonus time. So we went and got some coffee at costa coffee. Took our bikes back and went to the Lebanese restaurant. Went and got our bags and made it to the train station.

03/07/2016While the privileged traveling life is wonderful, part of travelinroundbrown means reality. We have minimized our cab rides and have taken to renting bikes. It was well over 100 all day. So after siesta we rode some more, looking for stuff and a grocery store to buy large bottles of water for .26€. They sell half liters for 1€ at the tourist spots. Yes it is great to shop local. Less great to shop at the franchise markets. Even less great to shop at the hipermercado!!!!! Gold mine! Eureka! Wal-mart of Spain! We shopped the shit out of it.