**Warning** This post is very long. Make sure you have time to read it before you start!
I don't even know where to start when explaining this weekend. We saw 3 cities in 2 days. We are crazy. I have no idea what we were thinking. But it was fun, so I suppose it was worth it :)
The easiest place to start would be alllll the way at the beginning, I guess. (It really wasn't that long ago, but it certainly feels like it.) It all started on Saturday morning. I got up early (6:15am) again... even before the sun. I just have to say, there is something wrong about being up before the sun. Anyhow. I got up early and met Elle at the Fundación at 7:30am so we could be at the Toledo bus station around 8:00am. We made it there on time (ish) and caught a bus to Madrid (it was only an hour or so). We got to Madrid and asked information where we could buy a bus tickets to Granada. They told us that we had to go to a different Madrid bus station. What?!? We weren't expecting that... Fortunately we could take the Metro and get there. So we paid the 1.50€ to take the Metro and headed over to where we were supposed to be. From there, we found the bus we wanted and rode the 6 hours down to Granada.
Once in Granada, I realized that I had forgotten the address of the hostel we were staying at. I had written it down that morning, but had forgotten to put it IN my purse. So now there we were, in Granada, with absolutely no clue where we were supposed to go. We found a little stand near where we got off that was advertising hostels, so we asked the guy there. He said, "Take bus 3 or 33. Get off at the Cathedral." Thank you. That was not helpful at all. Where the hell is the Cathedral?! So we get on the bus and ride for a little bit. I asked a lady standing next to me where the cathedral was and she told me 5 stops from where we were. Five stops later, Elle and I get off the bus... And we realize that we got off too early. Once again, we are stuck with no idea where we are or where we are going.
We walk down the street a bit and eventually find another hostel. We go in and ask how to get to the Pensión Austria, where we are staying. It took awhile, but eventually we got the address and were on our way again. We keep walking and walking and walking... Still no sign of our hostel. Finally we see a sign, but we can't tell exactly which way it's pointing. We pick a direction and it turns out to be the wrong one. But, luckily for us, the street connected with the next one over and we found our hostel on that street. What. A. Relief. We checked in, put our stuff down and went to find something to eat.
Eating was desperately needed. Neither of us had eaten breakfast, which turned out to be a problem. For those of you who know me... You know that I get grumpy when I'm tired. Well, it turns out Elle is like the men in my family and gets grumpy when she's hungry. We finally went to go eat around 4:30pm or something, so she'd gone all day without eating. Yeah, she was definitely grumpy. But she wasn't the only one. I was tired AND hungry, so I'm sure we were probably at each others throats there for awhile. I know I'm still working on growing part of my head back. :P
We ate at this little cafe around the corner from where we were staying called Canguro. The waiters there seemed to take a liking to us. They even gave us a sushi dish on the house (not that it was great here... Wayyyyyyy too dry). We split 2 orders of croquetas and OH MY GOD. They were the most delicious croquetas I'd ever had. Like melt-in-your-mouth, heaven-in-a-croqueta kind of good. They were HUGE though. I couldn't even finish my second one. And we got french fries. What's lunch/dinner without french fries, right?? (Right mommy??) We finished eating and sat around talking to the waiters for a little bit and then we headed off to our next adventure.
We left the restaurant and headed over to the cathedral. It was really pretty from the outside! We couldn't tell where the front was exactly, so we headed down this alley where everyone was walking (we figured that was a good place to start). But we never actually got there. A few paces down the alley, we were stopped by two women who were handing us sprigs (sprigs?) of rosemary. Not only did they just want us to take it, they grabbed our hands and started reading our palms. It was creepy. Ever since the Fundación showed us a video on pickpocketing techniques, I'm VERY aware of my bag at all times. I would have been anyway, but now I'm verging on paranoia. So anyway, the woman reading my hand had put it right over my bag (I couldn't see it). I have no idea what she told me about my hands because I was too busy paying attention to my bag. And she talked really fast. And in Spanish. After they finished reading our palms, they pushed the rosemary on us. We were turning around to leave when the punch line came: "Money?" It turns out they wanted 5€ for each of us. When Elle went to give the 5€ to her (hesitantly), the woman looked at her and was, "And 5€ for your friend?" Somehow we ended up giving them 2€ (and kept the extra 3€) and escaped by telling them that we needed to be at the Alhambra and that we needed to go right then. We turned and basically ran away.
We were a little shaken after our experience with the two women. They were legitimately scary. We talked about them the whole way there and how we hope they didn't put a spell on us or something. We walked past our hostel and up the road towards the Alhambra, still quite shaken. We walked through the giant door (signaling we were close) and walked up this HUGE hill to get to the building. About half way up, guess who we ran into? The same two women. What?!?! How did they find us?!?! It was too freaky and we flat out ran past them. We got to the top of the hill, huffing and puffing, and scared to death. We took a minute to catch our breathe and then decided we needed to keep going because the farther we were from them, the better.
At last we reached the entrance. We still had time to spare before our entrance time, so we looked around a little and then sat until it was time to get in line. Our tickets were to the main part of the Alhambra, the parts everyone comes to see. We walked in and I immediately began recognizing things I'd seen years ago. I didn't remember much about the history of it all, but I could tell you what I'd seen before. Very helpful, I know. :) We were walking through when we came to this room. In the room where the lions from the 12 lion fountain (the famous part of the Alhambra). Nooooooo!!! I couldn't be!! The lions were supposed to be in a little plaza with the rest of the fountain, not in some room! I was SO disappointed. Apparently they are working on restoring them. It's a good reason I guess, but I still wanted to see the whole fountain.
We finished walking through the first part and entered into a different section entitled "Generalife". We didn't know what it was, so we kept looking for something. It turns out that all it was was gardens. Which are very pretty. But it was kind of hot and we were exhausted and ready to go back and shower and go to bed. Especially because we knew that we were getting up early the next day to go to Córdoba. So we wandered a little bit and then made our way back to the hostel. Thankfully, we didn't see those two women again.
We ended up going to bed sometime between 12:00am and 12:15am. We got up at 7:00am to be at the bus station by 8:00am to catch the next bus to Córdoba to see the Mosque. We caught an 8:30am bus and were in Córdoba by 11:something. We hopped off the bus and made our way to the city bus to find the Mosque. By a stroke of luck, we made it there without getting lost (which had happened in Granada...). Due to the fact that it was Sunday, we got in free. This Mosque was beautiful. I can't remember seeing anything so detailed. Elle and I both stood there for a minute awestruck. Seeing it in person was so much better than any pictures we'd ever seen. Make sure to watch Facebook for pictures from there, though I warn you, they don't do it justice.
From the Mosque, we wandered around the center of the city for a little bit. It was hot and I was tired, but it was pretty amazing. Elle will tell you I wasn't the most pleasant person to be around on Sunday, though. I probably wasn't, but I was ready to head home. I'll probably be glad I stayed and saw some of the city at some point. Around 1:15pm we caught the bus and headed back to the bus station. In case anyone is wondering (which I'm sure you are), we totally meant to take the long way around (40 minutes) to the bus station. A bus tour of Córdoba, right?? ;)
We got to the bus station around 2:30pm and asked about the next bus to Madrid. As it turns out, the 4:30pm buses to Madrid were already full... And the next one was at 6:20pm. Ughhhh. So close but yet so far! So we sat at the bus station for 4 hours before catching our bus. I slept for an hour (I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer) while Elle worked on some of her homework. At some point we grabbed a bite to eat and then waited a couple more hours. Finally it was time to get on and get going.
The ride from Córdoba to Madrid is about 4 hours. About 2 hours in, we made a bathroom stop (whew, because I really had to pee!). BUT, right as we were slowing down to stop, a woman sitting a few seats behind us gets up, runs to the stairs by the doors andddd... I bet you can guess. Yeah. She puked. All over the stairs. And again, for those of you who know me even just a little bit, you all know how I feel about throwing up. I'm thinking, "Oh my god! What if I get the stomach flu because someone on the bus had it? I don't want to throw up on the bus!" I was terrified. As you can imagine. Fortunately we got off the bus literally 30 seconds later and I got some fresh air. The bus driver cleaned up the mess and sprayed the bus with a lemon air freshener. 30 minutes later we were on the road again. For another 2 hours.
While waiting at the bus station in Córdoba, I called my "mom" to let her know I was going to be home significantly later than I'd expected. I didn't want them to stay up and worry about why I wasn't home yet. I explained how we'd been unable to catch the earlier bus and how once in Madrid, apparently after 10:00pm, there are no "direct" buses that go to Toledo. No, they go through the "pueblos" to get there. Which basically means that we took the back roads all the way there. It only took 30 minutes more, but by the time it got to be 1:00am, Elle and I were both like, "Ok, come on already."
A little after 1:30am, I finally walked in the door. I have never been quite so happy to walk in that door. Even though I'd called and told them I was going to be late, my "mom" and "sister" were still up waiting for me. I briefly explained what had happened that day while my "mom" made me some chocolate milk and then quickly headed to bed.
It was a LONG crazy trip, but totally worth it. I'm glad I went and I definitely learned a lot about planning trips in the future!
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