I'm in Granada!!

Day 1

After lugging my insanely heavy luggage over cobblestone streets and through plazas to the hotel, we were finally here, in Granada, Spain! We checked into our hotel, and all took a shower because we were disgusting from the 4 hour and 45 minute bus ride from Madrid. After relaxing, showering and getting settled in we decided to take to the streets.

We just started walking, trying to see where we would end up. Finally we ended up in the Centro or Plaza Nuevo, which has over priced food but in a great location. Definitely a tourist area. We did not want to spend too much money so we walked done some alley ways and found a little tapas bar that had 1e beers and free tapas with each beer... yummm.

After we enjoyed our tapas and beer we explored some more, we found our Citibank and walked down a random alley and came across this...

The Cathedral of Granada.

Its crazy how secluded yet centrally located it is. The Cathedral in adjacent to where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are buried in the Royal Chapel. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are still viewed as some of the best monarchs Spain has seen.

For those of you who are into the Tudor dynasty, one of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella's daughters was Katherine of Aragon who was Henry VIII first wife, she gave birth to only one daughter who was Mary Tudor (known as bloody Mary for her execution of many non catholics). After Henry VIII renounced his marriage to Katherine of Aragon he married the famous Anne Boleyn, who was the mother to Queen Elizabeth, and which led way to the English pull away from Rome. After Anne Boleyn was executed, Henry VIII had 4 more wives. For more on King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella click here .Here is a famous portrait of Mary Tudor that I saw in the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. (Secretly taken by Iphone)

After taking in the marvelous sights we returned to the hotel for a much needed nights sleep.

Day 2

After waking up, showering and eating breakfast. We went with some girls to look at a place to live. The second we stepped into the place we felt a connection, everything about it we loved. While we knew the connection was strong we still wanted a couple days to sleep on it to decide if it was what we really wanted. So we left the place and went on a mission to find phones.

The mission to find phones was a flop, almost EVERYTHING in Granada is closed on Saturdays after 2. Since everything was closed we decided to take the time to relax, eat dinner, and after dinner we went out and got ice cream :) yummm....

After ice cream we went back to the hotel and hung out, one of our friends from CSUSM had been having a really hard time with homesickness and anxiety. He tried to get over it but around midnight he told us he had to go to the hospital for anxiety and something to sleep. Brandon, Al

ex and I all jumped into a cab with him and went to the hospital. For those of you who believe socialized healthcare is impossible to get treated are completely WRONG. We walked in, on a Saturday night, and it was dead empty. Our friend was able to get treated automatically and all of the doctors were really nice and persistent. And the best thing about it, he got treated, medicine, and everything was 100% free. Here is a picture of what the hospital looked like:

After the hospital we walked back to the hotel, it was really nice walking down the empty cobblestone streets and taking in the city. Unfortunately the anxiety medicine did not work for our friend and he was still not able to sleep. The next day he made the decision to go home and took the next bus to Madrid. Hopefully he is doing much better... We miss him!