"...get the deranged poodle in oval office to... sit and stop shitting in the fucking house..."

Blogging at the end of the day

...questioned/ranted Jon Lovett on my favorite podcast, Pod Save America (check it out, you won't be sorry). Yes, I'm still listening to all my political podcasts as soon as they drop. This will probably change when Stella gets here tomorrow(!!!) but until then I've got a lot of alone time and I'll spend it how I like. 


Sept 12, Tuesday

Instead of staying up late to write & post my blog entry from the day as usual, I turn out the light the instant I feel the least bit sleepy. And I win!! 8 1/2 hours. It's a whole new world when I wake up. 

Finally feeling like myself again, I want to do a regular Bianca thing. I want to exercise. I know I've been walking my ass off, but I want  mindless, music driven activity, not focused, where-am-I, legs-as-transportation. 

I hike up the heart-stopping stairs from my place to Mirador San Nicolás and I catch the view of The Alhambra just a few minutes after dawn. WOW. I share the view with a dirty hippie couple having breakfast and a foursome of teenage French girls DEFINITELY making this their dusk instead of their dawn. It's magic. 

Magic

I remember thinking Cuesta del Rey Chico, which is the way I walked home yesterday from Alhambra, felt pretty steep going downhill. I hike up it and get to appreciate the beauty of the walk in the cool, brisk morning air instead of the stifling heat and I freak out. I'm hiking by a fortress that is from the mid-13th century LIKE IT'S NOTHING. Like it isn't mind-blowing how much this piece of history has witnessed, and even borne, and all like IT'S NO BIG DEAL. 

I'm hiking. By a 13TH CENTURY FORTRESS. Still can't get over it.

I cannot get over it. The Alhambra gets an average of 8,000 visitors per day. People have died there. Lots of people! People were born there. How many murderers have walked through my favorite Rosaleda garden? How many people were heartbroken, in love, grieving, broke, wishing they were someone else? And I'm just hiking around it, like it's not the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. 

I did it! I ate in the plaza! (Salmorejo & lamp stew, yum(

After, I go home and take a two hour nap having obviously popped something in my brain. 

Since I didn't finish my blog post yesterday, I'm not allowed to leave home until I finish. It's 330p before I head out for lunch. It's my last day in Granada and there are so many things I still want to try! I go to a locals' restaurant deep in the Albayzín called Casa Torquato. 

Going out to eat is borderline painful for me under the best of circumstances because I'm shy and I hate eating out alone. Here in Granada, the restaurants bleed out onto the plazas and waiters run around like crazy. I can't figure out the system to sitting down, I don't want to bother the busy waiters, and every time I've asked the bartender if I can sit somewhere they look at me like I'm a moron and say yes, of course. Then I order from the bartender, sit down at the cafe tables that line the building instead of the pretty plaza tables, and force the bartender to wait on me. Bartenders don't like this or me. 

This is the tame room

I am determined to figure this out. I mean, I ALREADY have it figured out- I KNOW what the deal is: you sit and wave down a waiter for a menu, bark your order, yell for the check, pay and leave. But my social anxiety kicks in right around the time the restaurant comes into view, and this maims any Spanish I know and makes me need to ask permission for everything. So when I say I'm determined to figure this out, what I mean is, this time I'm gonna sit in the goddamn plaza and deal with the waiter like a local. 

Instead, I ask the busy waiter if I can sit first. He looks at me like a moron and says yes, of course. And just like that, I'm sitting in the pretty plaza! A lamb stew tapa comes with my sangria and it's everything I dreamed real tapas would be. I order salmorejo, a thick gazpacho soup the restaurant is known for. The soup comes with jamón, thick pieces of salmon, and a healthy pour of olive oil. It's perfect for the hot day. 

I feel like I should see a sight today so I head to a monastery. Why? Because Rick Steves mentioned it looks like whipped cream inside and it's got some especially gruesome paintings. It's outside the town center so I take a city bus. Next time I whine about wanting to get away from tourists, remind me to get on a city bus. 

Martyrs are so nonchalant... art by Friar Juan Sanchez Cotan 

I fumble my way to the Monasterio de la Cartuja, but it's not entirely my fault. The monestary doesn't have a sign and lots of things have crosses on top of them here. 

Inside, there are indeed some gruesome paintings! I love when religion gets gory, because it ain't all hymns and holy water. You've also got your martyrs, your Kirk Camerons, your zombies...

Also inside? The best church I've ever seen. It's a thousand times better than the Cathedral for its shameless, blinding, colorful, throw-it-all-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks (everything), decorative devotion. Words can't do it justice, so scroll for pics. PS, I'd forgotten about Steves' whipped cream reference until I was standing in the middle of the church, and sure enough... the interior could have been squirted from a can of whipped cream.

Whipped cream... I love this room.

On my way home I get some fruit for the morning and of course begin to eat all of it on my walk home. I bite into a guava- it's pink inside! It's beautiful! I have to Instagram it! Where's my phone?!

I run back to the fruit stand which had been in the midst of closing when I bought my wares ten minutes before. Thank God it's still open. I look for my phone... I keep looking... MY PHONE IS ON ITS SIDE HIDING BETWEEN CRATES LIKE IT WANTS TO START A NEW LIFE AS A FRUIT VENDOR'S PHONE. I grab it, raise it in victory, and announce, "Mi telefono!". Customers murmur approval at my win. Stupid phone.

View from my window at dawn

I didn't mention I went to the market today and SAW GIANT FISH HEADS, did I??

"Oh, I knew him... and he was funny." Seriously though, this is Saint Bruno.

More whipped cream! I couldn't get enough of this room.

"We're going to feed on Sigüenza people tonight..."

...says Dafne as Maria dresses down a belligerent Sigüenza restaurant manager.  

Us as cave drawings

Saturday: Nefi, Dafne's gorgeous kitten, is the only one  of us who manages to get out of bed before 11a. I love this cat. And if it's the last thing I do, she will love me too. 

Nefi watches me on the toilet

After a leisurely breakfast featuring many chocolate treats (biscuits, cocoa, bread) Stella and I join Will on a run into town for picnic supplies. Their village is too small for even a corner store (Dafne says a man drives through once a week to sell bread) so we go to Següenza. A stop at the butcher's for cheese, a stop at the produce stand for fruits and vegetables, and a stop at a tiny bodega that features pigs legs hanging on the wall for Jamón Iberico. (This is love, pork-style. Dry ham that can be cured for up to 48 months.)

WWII bullet marks

Every exchange includes pleasantries and catching up. At the produce stand there's a bit of a wait so when one of the salesmen notices me & Stella ogling tangerines he catches our eyes and tosses each of us one to enjoy. As we eat the juicy tangerines in the warm sun, Will, Stella and I recognize how the chit-chat would drive us bats in the city, but here in the country's leisurely pace it's makes us want to move here full time. 

By the church once again, Will points out the bullet holes around the church's windows. In WWII soldiers hid out inside the church and therefore the windows were prime targets. I remember when I traveled in Berlin (pre-9/11) and saw the WWII pockmarks all over the city, it was the first time any war felt real to me, more than a chapter in a history book. The previous evening Maria told me the US has been involved in 25 wars since WWII. I double-check and she's right. It's unfathomable to me that the US President is needlessly flirting with nuclear war with N Korea along with playing war with Russia, Syria and whoever else is around. I scan the plaza to see if there's anyone I can quickly marry, but no luck.

I told Will "sometimes when you visit friends you sit in a bar all day.
I like this better." He said, "Yes, we make you work for your bar time."

That afternoon we drive a short distance to a another nearby mountain. We hike a trail to the top and eat our picnic on rocks overlooking the valley. This hike is longer and the topography reminds me a lot of California hiking. On our way down the mountain's brow, Dafne finds our shadows on the canyon wall and we do a photo shoot. 

Sunset in the village

Master & subject

I'm feeling not terrific from the wine I drank yesterday so when Maria & Will decide we'll stay in tonight rather than going out to another dinner, I'm thrilled. It's not a proper hangover, it feels more like an allergy or my body recovering from a supertoxin. I'm exhausted and eating gives me body cramps. I KNOW, it sounds like a hangover. But trust me, it's not. Regardless, we try calling the restaurant four different times to cancel our reservation and no one ever picks up and there is no machine. 

Near 11p, as we're about to sit down to a dinner Will's prepared for us, we get a screaming phone call from the restaurant manager. My favorite line is, of course, Maria's: "If I can't get a hold of you to tell you we're canceling, what am I supposed to do, use magic? Telepathy? Osmosis?" The manager keeps calling her a liar, so Maria emails him the screen shots of their phone log and effectively terminates their relationship. She is amazing. 

"Papa, potatoes, prunes and prisms..."

... is what Will's grandmother taught her girls to say out loud to prepare themselves to enter a room of society with the proper mouth placement. Enter each room only after the full sentence. Which Stella and I do religiously now. But let's talk instead about...

My friends, on top of the world in Spain

Madrid day!

It's Easter weekend so Stella and I decide to leave the house at 6 for our 915am flight out of Heathrow. We're through security by 645a. To quote the security line info display: "Waits may be as long as 2 minutes."

Neither of us packed shorts or skirts to accommodate Madrid's summer temperatures so we shop for £400 summer dresses of Heathrow's de facto High Street while we wait to board. LOL, just kidding, we eat the whole time. 

Clotted cream sighting!

Because Stella is a genius at human nature, we score our row of seats to ourselves. Ahhhhh, vay-cay-shun...

Zombie-empty at
baggage claim in Madrid

We're staying with Stella's (now my!) friends Will, Maria & Dafne at their country home. Will picks us up from the airport and drives us to a tiny village at the base of a mountain called Ures. 

The village has one main paved road that supports a handful of stone and dirt passages off it where everyone lives. There is a little plaza type area that serves as a community living room/playground where families convene in the evenings to visit. The kids, ranging from toddler to teenager, run around and play, skateboard, scooter, shoot hoops, play futbal together. I don't see a phone out anywhere. I feel like this could be hundreds of years ago but for the clothes and the toys. 

All of Ures

Lunch is outside by their creek and a lovely spread of meats, cheeses and salad. I listen to my new favorite "Love at first sight" epic, told in different parts by Will, Maria, Dafne and Maria's brother Luis, and we laugh our way through the meal. 

After, we go on a hike to the summit of the mountain we're under. The hike is a spectacular climb, sometimes Spider-Man style, through moss and lichen covered rocks and trees. At the top, we celebrate with a pound of chocolate we share. 

Gorgeous Spanish mountain view

One of the things I love about hanging out with our new family is the stories. Will, Maria & Dafne are superb story tellers and you can tell they love where they live because they know it well enough to pepper conversation with stories about history, the community, the culture and the legends. 

post-beer, Good Friday procession

Because it's Good Friday, there have been processions all day marking the phases of Christ's death. We drive into nearby Sigüenza for the evening procession which includes bringing Christ's body down from the cross and marching it through town for burial. We grab a beer in the plaza during the sermon (I know, I know) and join the town at the church exit to watch the procession. 

if this makes you super uncomfortable,
you're not the only one

What's with the Klan hoods? That is, obviously, the first question you ask when you notice that it looks like the KKK is leading the procession. I do some research: The second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan that began in 1915 was specifically anti-Catholic. It's believed they bastardized the Catholic garb as a tee-hee-funny nod to restrictions made against Catholic Mardi Gras celebrations in the 1800s. Bonus: the hood hides their hateful faces so they can play domestic terrorist anonymously and continue to live their worthless lives while they threaten and kill people who frighten them with their religious beliefs and skin color! Fuck the KKK, then and now. 

Mary always follows Jesus in the procession. I love that.

Church of San Vicente, Siguenza

Now why do Catholics use a hood because, KKK disgusting association notwithstanding, wearing a hood immediately makes me feel like you're hiding something. The Catholic hood  serves to cover the face in penitence and grief at Christ's death on Good Friday. On Sunday, hoods are raised to reveal faces of jubilation at Christ's resurrection. There is a bunch more history about the hood that goes into the Spanish Inquisition and all that, so if you're interested Google away. 

Dafne, Maria & Stella stroll to dinner

The procession moves me like anything organized and even remotely candle lit moves me. I was raised Catholic, but I am consciously not religious, however this reminds me of my childhood and my family so I have a little moment with the energy of the event and do the sign of the cross. 

After the procession we have dinner. So, my Spanish is rusty. It's not rusted shut, but it's sticky. Before I got to Spain, I'd have told you I can understand 70% and speak 10%. At dinner, my percentages lower significantly. I'm a little heart broken to need Will to read the menu to me. My ego is forcing me to disclose, a tortilla in Spain is not the same as a tortilla in Mexico, so even words I know, I can't understand. (Spanish tortilla is an omelette. Shocking!!)

Dinner is rich (I was stuffed after my starter) and desert is richer. It's rice pudding, but like a creme brûlée rice pudding. It leaves me speechless. And. So. Full. 

Dafne waits for us to catch up as per usual

The plaza in Siguenza

picture worthy rice pudding