transitorio

entonces...
a couple of weeks ago, lizzie and i decided that cortijo del zapatero was not a good fit. for more details on that, message me.

anyway, i left there a couple saturdays ago and returned to granada to stay with johanna again (jessica is out of town making arrangements for her wedding) while i found a new farm.

damn. my hair is getting long. #awkwardmiddlestage

muchos gracias hana for introducing me to jessica, and muchos gracias to jessica and johanna for letting me stay! i dunno what i would have done without you!

i must admit, despite all my ranting about consumerism and conservation and eco-living and leaving the hustle and bustle of the city, it was nice to return to a modern apartment for a few days. i could cook, bathe, use the internet, and use the toilet all inside of the same place. it may have ruined me for this new farm, though. =/

so aunt carol was right; all this traveling can take a toll on a single person in a foreign place. i don't remember experiencing this sense of solitude as much when i was in vienna. maybe it was because i had 12 peers around: other american students traveling alone in the same program as me. or maybe it's due to downright malleability. i've talked about this with some of you, but the older i get, the less malleable i feel. so transient times like this are harder and harder on me. especially since everyone else has a partner (or in kirsten and jason's case, an entire immediate family) with them. now, some people i've met -- johanna and jessica and a couple people at my current farm -- did start off traveling alone. but most of them had the language or the skills necessary to do the work they were doing. i have none of this; i just jumped out here all novice and eager. i thought, ok i'm starting from zero; i can only go up from here, right? wrong. this shit is hard.
now don't get me wrong; i have not been robbed or hurt or stranded or turned out. but i have experienced confusion, loneliness, inadequacy, and exclusion. i'm gonna take auntie's advice and keep a personal journal, making a habit of writing in it daily. thanks mayra and nicole for ample pages to write in; i brought both of those journals with me! i did some yoga yesterday, some of my favorite flows and poses, and i even did a few chants for affirmation and aspiration. it felt good to return to some familiar routines. if you have any other suggestions, let me know.

so anyway, here are some photos of stuff that happened in granada for those 5 days:

Traditional Spanish dish with rice, pork, and fish called paella. 

johanna and i walked around the city, and found the mirador de San Nicolas again, but this time some musicians were performing flamenco!

so this is Ermita de San Miguel Alto an abandoned hermitage atop a hill full of caves. granada is known for having houses, restaurants, entertainment centers, and other establishments inside of caves with well decorated entrances and added levels, etc. in some of the less extravagant ones, there are communities of immigrants and gypsies. the caves leading up to this church were occupied by some of these communities until a couple weeks ago when the police forced them to evacuate the premises with little to no notice. certainly not enough for them to remove their belongings before the police destroyed the caves completely. the sign you see in front of the church is evidence of some actions against police displacing these communities with no compassion.  

but this sign here is just an anti-religion sign that someone spray-painted on the hermitage grounds.

view from the hermitage. many climb the stairs that johanna and i did to get to this view. 

another view from a bit higher.

me on my last full day in granada. 

it rained all day, but i had to get some groceries to make johanna a thank you lunch. 

later that evening, i went to a granada-original flamenco show at a local bar. granada is famous for it's buy-a-drink-get-free-tapas tradition. so, like a true tourist, i saw a flamenco show and ordered some sangria, with which came not only one, but two tapas. #winning

these are the signs for the men's and women's bathrooms at the restaurant. too adorable!

them european keys be serious. really? holes? LOL.