Behind the White Coat

Granada and the Alhambra

So I continue my super-delayed recount of my Spain trip... One of these days I'll catch up to my current life and eventually my blog will be resurrected to the days of it's peak reign in early 2007 when I was spoken about from the East to the West coast... Umm yeah, really.

So. Granada I Must speak about, because it holds the amazing Alhambra which everyone must visit at some point in their lives. Especially if you are Muslim or appreciate Islamic architecture, or any architecture for that matter!  Me and the crew rented a car from Cordoba, of course they only have manual transmission rentals, and I was the only one who could drive stick (can you imagine? What kind of desis are these two other guys?)  So anyway, we put in for some Peugot rental, and instead got an Alfa Romeo.  No joke. It was pretty pimp.  Thankfully it was Diesel too, so we got good mileage with their uber expensive gas!  So we hopped in our car and took off.  The drive through the hilly midlands of Andalucia was pleasant. Nice easy roads, cutting through hills of olive fields.  Thats pretty much all it was, tons of olive trees spanning the horizon.  That and the occasional mini town or shady rest stop with food that even I probably wouldn't want to experiment with, let alone my conservative eating companions.  After 2 hours and change we reached our destination, Granda.

Granda was a very busy urban city, which I didn't expect.  It has a university nearby, and tons of shops, commercial areas, trams and buses, even a legit ghetto.  It has a decent amount of crimes in areas, and you can spot those areas quite easily, and of course it is loaded with gypsies.  Those gypsies can rob a purse from a moving car, so we definitely kept our guard up!  The streets were painful.  Navigating a big-ass stick shift Alfa Romeo in some of these tiny roads, with sharp turns and random inclines was definitely challening.  Good thing our hotel had a garage!  We parked, and then we hit the town....

The first day we hit the Albaycin district, which is just west of the Alhambra, and is the Arabic neighborhood of the city.  You even get that Moorish feel when you walk through the hilly streets and see the houses and buildings still with their Moorish influences from the structures to the street signs.  There are two main streets that have all sorts of shops and restaurants and hookah lounges, selling everything from Arabic clothes, hookahs, foods, incense, lamps, writings, art etc... Packed with Arabs and even desis.  I actually felt more comfortable there, though my Indian companions were scared to walk with me down the Arabic district, fearing their terrorist associations. Hah!   Afterwards we strolled to the nearby streets that were packed with Shwarma joints, and tons of desi shops owned by Pakis. So many pakis here!!  My urdu came in quite handy here, and it got us farther than our Spanish had thus far!  We had some kick ass chuplee kebabs from a guy named Rafiq, and he even brought out his Briyani stash from the back.  We ate at this place the next day too, it was damn good!  I met a few of the shopkeepers who recognized me as Paki, and by the second day walking around, everyone saw me on the street and was like "Hey Ali!" or "Array Doc Saab! Ki haal hai?!"  I was basically known by the whole district by day 2 as the Paki doctor from America.  It was quite funny.  My Indian friends of course, were scared as ever.....

The Alhambra we saw the next day.  A whole day it takes really, as it is enormous and breathtaking and you really want to spend time seeing it.  The palace at night is supposed to be an amazing sight as well, but we couldnt get tickets.  We barely got tickets for this day! Make sure to get tickets at least a WEEK in advance, lukcily our hotel bailed us out!  The Alhambra is a beautiful example of Islamic architecture from that age.  The Palace Nazaries is quite a site.  Many stunningly decorated rooms of brick, wood, and adobe.  Mazes of rooms, castles, melded with the indoors and open airs with patios, plenty of  beautiful pools with emphasis again on water, lines of arches and double arches holding up walls, and huge domed buildings are just a few of the elements you will see here.  Symmetric and repetitive artistic creations ofblue  and white tiling, with the geometrically shaped arrangements of triangles, and squares, and interlocking shapes dominate the art you see here.  The amazing engravings of Kufic script along so many of the walls reciting verses and prayers of the Koran, alongside structures of soapstone, granite, and beautiful marble, which must have taken forever to do!  But so precise and decorated almost some aspect of every room, wall or door.  Each room and area has some history of its own as well.  Composed of living quarters, adminstrative and business areas, guestrooms, brothels, and of course areas to just chill.

Just outside takin up most of the acres of land is the amazing gardens.  The gardens stretch for what must be several square kilometres, and as the Alhambra itself is situated on a hill, you have an amazing view of the city of Granda below, and the snowcapped mountains on the backdrop.  They sure knew how to pick the location!  Along the gardens  overlooking the city is another patio-like structure, almost like a super-gazebo, which offers another amazing view.  Next to the palace and gardens is the Alcazaba, or the fortress/lookout, with walls and towers.  The main tower had a great view of the city for miles and miles, front and back, no doubt used as the lookout.  Below in the middle were underground dungeons and cisterns which you can still see the walls of, where I'm sure the Moors imprisoned and tortured many a people!  On the other side was the Generalife.  Which was the amazing gardens of the sultans.  Quite beautiful I must say, lined with gardens, pools, patios, and everything that just let the imaginations of the architects let loose.  Definitely not to be missed!  Again all these words I say can not do it justice.  Check out my pictures for sure if you are on my facebook...

Well here is a link to the photos, I guess if some random person sees them, so what right?  There are two links.. Both are all of Andalucia, The first structure you'll see is the Mezquita in Cordoba.  Granada starts in the middle of the first Album, into the second... The other cities you'll see are Marbella, and Gibraltar at the end in these photos..

Andalucia Photos Part 1

Andalucia Photos Part 2

Andalucia Part 2: Cordoba

So I clearly have been slowww when it comes to posting... Glad to see Yat is stil reading it, but I feel everyone else has probably stopped (including Tuan, Samosa, and others....)  Well perhaps once fellowship starts I will be re-motivated, or once I have some juicy tales of my (currently non existant) love life to share with you readers out there.... Until then, I can at least document what I did for my own sake! (And Yat don't worry, the airport story is very close.... Im sure everyone will get a kick out of it..)

So where was I? Ah yes Spain.... Andalucia.... Seville was beautiful once again.  Our next stop was Cordoba.  Pretty much the one thing to see there is the Mezquita Mosque.  That is kind of a redundant term, it should just be The Mezquita, since Mezquita means "Mosque".  The Mezquita is quite amazing, it's an enormous structure, which was built originally as a Christian Cathedral in 600 A.D., but subsequently, when the Moors took over, built it into a Mosque.   It  also had several expansions built by succeeding Emirs to hold the growing population of Muslims for prayers.  Coredoba was the Islamic capital of the Moorish world at one point, and the Mezquita was the largest Mosque in the world.  You can see different portions of the Mosque that were built that in many ways stay true to it's original architecture, but clearly you can see influences as the times went forward. Some are harshly contrasting the original, while others blend in nicely.   The real amazing thing about it is that as it went back and forth between the Christians and the Moors, it kept having pieces added to it from the Muslims and Christians, so it is a fine example of a combination of both religions and cultures in one structure.  Lined with pillars with single and double arches in the Muslim fashion,  a vastly decorated entrance and doorway, a huge dome and minaret, and then within the Mosque, right in the middle, is a huge Choir and cathedral.  Lined along all the walls of the Mosque are many chapels built durin the Christian reign.  In the back right in the center is the amazing Mihrab made by Abd al-Hakam II, which is strangly oriented to Damascus instead of Mecca.  Anyway, it is definitely a site to see if you hit Andalucia. It will take only one day.   

The other thing to see in Cordoba is the Alcazar.  The building itself isn't as amazing as the one in Seville, but the gardens are definitely a site to see.  A long stretch of pools lined by very strange trees (almost looked dead, dont know what they were), and scultpures and lush flora and greens.  A nice view all the way down the hills with the castle in the backdrop.  The Moors sure knew how to make back yards I'll tell you that!  I sat there and chilled reading a book for an hour.

Afterwards a stroll through the charrming Juderia district, with again old-feelin windy dusty roads of the Jewish quarter where all the shops and restaurants are will kill some time.  I enjoy these little old world feeling towns.  We stepped into an Arabic bath as well, which was fantastic.  It was co-ed, and had the architecture of one of the old Arabic baths.  Three pools, one warm, which was the big one, where you sat for a while and relaxed, after which you stepped into the smaller hot pools for a few minutes, and then made your way to the cold pools (I could not even get all the way in) to refresh.  There was also a sauna to sit and sweat it out!  You repeated this 4 or 5 times throughout your 1.5 hour stay in the Bath.  At some point you have a 20 minute massage (more of a back rub) on massage tables lining the main room.  Afterwards we went to the cafe upstairs and smoked a lovely hookah, and had some moroccon tea.  Probably one of the most relaxing afternoons of the trip!  Don't miss out.....

Our meal in Cordoba was probably one of the best in Andalucia as well.  It is known to have the best cuisine in the region.  The wine was amazing as well, locally grown and bottled.  I had an amazing Veal steak (they don't do beef much in Spain, mostly veal).  Speaking of food, don't miss having a kickass tortilla (potato omelette basically) at Bar Manolo right next to the Mezquita as an afternoon snack.  Grab a plastic fork and eat it as you walk away.  The best tortilla I had in Spain perhaps.

Our next stop was Granada, where the Alhambra lies, perhaps one of the most amazing Islamic architectural wonders of the world!

Andalucia Part One - Seville

Andalucia, which is the Southern part of Spain, was definitely one of my favorites.  It is the most "Spanish" of all the regions, rich in culture, tradition, architecture, and full of life.  Definitely somewhere to take your  loved one some day, but what can also be enjoyed by a group of friends.  Our first stop was Seville.  Running (literally) to the AVE train from Madrid, after getting on the wrong platform, we boarded the train maybe 15 or 20 seconds before departure.   THAT was a close one.  But standard operation by us.  Quite tired and hungover at the same time!  But we made it to our hotel, Husa La Seises, right in the heart of Seville.

Seville is a beautiful town.   The heart is the old city, which is centered around the cathedral with the prominent La Giralda tower, and the adjacent Alcazar, it's two main tourist attractions.  Although packed with tourists, particulary on the weekends, The old city is a charming district with little windy brick and paved roads, through old buildings that eminate that old Andalucia feeling.  Lined with residential buildings, little tapas bars and shops, random little shops, and the occasional hotel and hostel.  The cathedral itself was huge and beautiful. It still baffles me how they could make such amazing and enormous architecture back then.  The climb up the Giralda tower was long, but the city view was worth the trip.  After the cathedral we hit the beautiful Alcazar palace next door.  A beautiful palace from the Moorish reign (the moors really know how to build I tell you), with typical Moorish style including courtyards, little fountains, blue and white tiling and the occasional engraved arabic writing lining the walls.  The most amazing part of the Alcazar was the amazing Jardines de Alcazar -- the gardens.  A huge area lined with palm trees, and all sorts of trees, plants, bushes.  Runnin water and multiple fountains, it was a colorful and beautiful site full of life.  The Alcazar and the gardens was my favorite attraction at Seville!

Just walking around Seville you can appreciate the beautiful city that it is.  Away from the old city we walked down Constitution Ave past the University, a tram also runs conveninetly back and forth through the city.  The walking-only street is lined with cafes (not excluding 3 starbucks), bars, ice cream parlors and shops, and various other little attractions.  You can walk past two amazing hotels, one of them, the Alfonso XIII, housed in old palace for the Royal Family, is worth seeing. Further down along the river you can hit Plaza de Espana, a beautiful and semicircular plaza in the middle of the Parque de Maria Luisa, lined with tiles, with a fountain and horse carriages around.  A beautiful and soothing place.

Nightlife in Seville is nothing to miss out.  On the weekends, the area just west of the old city where all the shops are is crawling with action!  Streets packed to the rim with people walking, shopping, mingling, and eating.  There are street vendors and random street performers sometimes, but it is fun to just get into the action.  The streets will be packed until about 1030, 11pm when shops start to close and people make a move for dinner. And then you head out to start your night!

On night one we made the tapas bar rounds.  Where streets lined with all sorts of little tapas bars serve food till past 2am, and you just hop around, order whatever is left on the menu, and eat it at the bar, or on stand-up tables outside, talking and mingling with people, as you down your cerveza, vino tinto con naranja (orange flavored red wine), or sherry.  One of our favorites was Duplex for tapas. You could spend a week and not hit most of the tapas bars in this  town!  On the second night we crossed the river for dinner along the Ave Betis in the Triana district, with lovely views of Seville by night.  We also hit up one of the Flamenco clubs.  The south is the heart of Flamenco, with all types of places.  We hit up La Carboneria, which was like a Flamenco-fusion place, but it was fun.  A good fun time it was indeed.  The next night, we hit up the club Catedral for our Saturday outing, which was filled with locals as well as tourists, and many Americans who were in town studying and visitin from adjacent towns.  It was quite a fun time I gotta say, even though the music was top-40ish, they managed to play soem good house and hip hop as well.  We did meet a few girls there (who actually came up to US, which was nice given the failure of our game with most Spanish speaking only girls). One was hot, one was cute, one was not... But all were nice!  We danced to Soulja Boy, and gave our emails, and we are even hangin with them when they visit NYC later this month.  Good times!  In general, the girls in Seville were smoking hot!  All over Spain really, but I guess in Seville the weather was beautiful, and the girls followed suit.  I think one afternoon we just sat at a coffee shop on the promenade, and just looked at girls.  No, we aren't dirty men, we were appreciating Spanish culture :)

One thin we missed in Seville was bullfighting.   Missed the season by 1 week.  Although, if you think about it, do I really want to see a cruel display of an unfair match of man killing a beast ( and pretty much torturing the poor thing before killing him).  So maybe we were better off.  I saw one as a kid in Marbella, so I'll leave it at that.

After Seville, we hopped on the train, and head for Cordoba! 

Madrid

So I have long since returned from our long and amazing vacation in Spain, but alas, I have failed to keep all my 4 (or maybe 5) remaining blog readers up to date in my adventures.  So I will now fill in some of the details of the rest of our trip!  The fact that I am writing this indeed means I am not in a foreign prison, and did not get detained (well at least not that long) by immigration and homeland security (but more on that later....)

So Madrid.  As I left off, we were in Madrid sans bags.  We eventually did get our bags (not till about 2am that night by the way), but survived most of our first day with the clothes on our back....  Madrid is kind of like the New York of Spain.  Very city-like, and a lot of close quartered city action.  The city is indeed beautiful though.  A lot of charming little winding streets with commercial and city buildings, amidst gothic cathedrals and older buildings with many plazas and squares.  Endless tapas bars and cafes lining the streets, and a lot of action on the streets.  We stayed at Hotel Europa, right next to Puerta del Sol, which is the main square in Madrid, right in the center of the action.  Actually a cool place to stay, very central, and very Madrid. 

The main attractions of Madrid is certainly the museums.  The two we hit were the Prado and the Reina Sofia.  The Prado is probably the most famous, the building itself a work of art in itself.  It houses all the finest works of Diego Velazquez, El Greco, and Goya (to name the most famous ones).  A lot of fantastic artwork from the days of the royal families of spain, as well as a lot of religious imagery from both Christianity, as well as the myths and Gods of old.. Some of my favorite pieces were Goyas "black paintings", and of course Velazquez's Las Meninas, a masterpiece indeed! 

The Reina Sofia was more to my taste.  Contemporary Spanish artists like Picasso and Joan Miro dominated the stage at this museum.  The piece de resistance being of course Picasso's Guernica. Truly spectactular to see in person, and with it came all the sketches and drawings that Picasso did to lead up to the masterpiece.  Many of PIcasso's works were also on display, and during our visit, the Paris museum's exhibition of Picasso was flown over and we were lucky enough to catch that as well. I am indeed more of a Picasso fan now I must say.  My second favorite was Joan Miro.  A lot of influence from Picasso's later works of cubism and modernity, and certainly caught my eye.  The museum itself was truly a modern work of art itself.

We chowed down on some awesome Paella in Madrid as well. I couldn't tell you the name of the restaurant we hit, but it was recommended by our hotel, and it was truly excellent.  Though there are plenty of amazing Paella joints in Madrid, and definitely no shortage of Tapas joints lining the streets from here to there!  Madrid also holds the "oldest restaurant in the world".  Whether it is true or not I dont know, but it supposedly is still serving up banging Spanish cuisine. We checked it out, but didn't get a chance to eat there. Right by Plaza Mayor, it is Sobrino de Botin, in case anyone is ever in Madrid, perhaps you should check it out!  We also partied in Madrid of course.   Our night took us to some random club that had us raging till 6am.  We met a bunch of fun peeps at the club, who actually turned out to be American students in Madrid! It figures, since we could barely speak any Spanish, and our game with the locals was quite weak (only in Seville did we get to chat it up with locals).  But we certainly had our fun with the Cali girls we met!

Other highlights of Madrid were the Palacio de Real, Plaza de Oriente, and my favorite, the wall Arabe, which was the last remaining moorish structure in Madrid.  It is actually nothing but a 20 metre wall, but hey, it is the principle that counts!!

After Madrid, we woke up late, made a run for the train station, and literally RAN to the platform after buying our tickets 5 min before the train, boarding just bout 30 seconds before departure... That is just how we roll!