Earth to Omar: Queen of Andalusia

The story of Granada is a long one, one that will engraved in my memory forever. Never had a city cast its spell on me as quickly as Granada did. Out of all the stops on my Eurotrip last summer, Granada was the city I was looking forward to seeing the most. The anticipation stemmed from a mix of its historical importance, and the special romance that I knew Granada would have... on to the story.

After spending a few nights in Madrid, we used the ultra efficient metro system to get to the train station to catch our ride to Granada. The train ride provided some of the best scenery I have ever come across. The train made its way through mountains crowned with wind turbines and doted by numerous olive trees. I looked at farm houses scattered here and there and wished that I the train would stop so I can take a closer look, and perhaps convince myself to give up all my plans and grow olives instead. I kept looking ahead, hoping to catch an early glimpse of Granada before our arrival there. Every time I saw a town from far away I would look carefully at the town’s features, trying to glimpse Alhambra, and every time I was disappointed.

The train finally arrived, and to my disappointment none of the surroundings looked as I had imagined. The train station seemed to be on the edge of the city, a city that looked very modern and lacking character. Before finding our way to the hostel we first had to book our next train to Barcelona, which we managed to do using sign language and facial expressions. After a brief encounter with the police (they stopped us to check our passports) we were on our way aimlessly trying to find the hostel. All we were armed with is “Plaza San Bartalome” and bus route numbers. We walked along what seemed to be one of the main streets in Granada trying to find a map of the city. We managed to find a bus stop with a map, but to our disappointment the stop wasn’t part on the routes we were looking for. Tired from carrying the heavy backpack and thirsty from the heat, we started to look for anything which might help us. I noticed a shawarma restaurant, so I crossed my fingers that the owner spoke Arabic and went in. I waited until he was finished serving a customer, found out he spoke Arabic, so I explained to him our situation. He offered to help us after short and pleasant conversation. He couldn’t leave the restaurant so he went out and stopped a beautiful Spanish girl walking by, whom he seemed to know. He told her to lead us to Albayzín, and we gladly followed. We communicated through smiles and the odd nod, until a few minutes later she stopped pointed to her left and said “Albayzín.” We weren’t ecstatic about seeing a very steep hill ahead of us, but at least we were close… or so we thought.

The steep slope ahead

Despite the hard walk uphill, my body was suddenly pumped full of energy with

every step I took through the narrow alley. We came across an old bazaar which reminded me of Old Damascus, the people, the bustle, the merchandise, every last detail. I was finally seeing the Granada that I had expected. We kept making our way up the steep hill asking strangers about San Bartalome, most people didn’t know where it was, and the ones that did spoke to us in Spanish. We started making left turns and right turns as we pleased, not knowing where we were headed. Although I was vey tired, I couldn’t wait to get to the hostel, throw my bag down and roam the streets of old Granada.

After about a half hour of walking we reached an open plaza bustling with people, all recognizing us as strangers to their little town. We saw a police car and swiftly made our way there to ask him for directions, as we were asking him about San Bartalome, I noticed a Spanish lady standing on her balcony seemingly yelling out to her kid on the street. The cop flipped through his little map book trying to locate San Bartalome.. it was about 45 minutes after we arrived at Albayzín and over an hour and a half after we got to Granada, and we still didn’t know where the hostel was. To be continued...