November 8, 2007

It was a cold morning (0 – 5 C). Sarah, Craig, Leslie and I walked to an inside cafe in the Plaza Nueve and ate breakfast of cafe con leche, OJ and croissants. Walked across the plaza, to get information from the Tourismo office and then decided to go through the cathedral again (this time without Hannah as a tour guide). Saw giant (2′X3′) hand lettered books of choir sheet music, that were held up in front of a choir (prior to printing presses and Xerox machines). Outside the cathedral was a band of 6 female gypsy (?) fortune tellers in modern clothing, offering sprigs of rosemary to every person and wanting to be paid to foretell fortunes. Hannah had previously warned us not to make eye-contact. There were sidewalk tea and spice vendors; I bought some Marrakech Moroccan tea. We bought bread, cheese, meat, cherry tomatoes and a pomegranate (a must in Granada!) from various shops, met Hannah and we 5 walked up the steep very narrow streets (which we shared with automobile, motor scooter and bus traffic; somewhat unnerving). We arrived at another plaza, with excellent views of La Alhambra; the large imposing hill-top fortress/mosque, built by the Moors (north African Arabs) as capital of their occupied territories for several hundred years during the Crusades, ending in 1492. We have tickets to tour on Friday. During this walk, I was somewhat surprised to see dozens of modern-day ‘hippies’; scruffy clothing, dreds, dogs, guitar playing, happy. Quite a flashback to the 60’s. I wished that I had had the courage to live that life back then; what about now? Back to the hotel and out to a fancy dinner, the only one of the trip, I had lamb couscous. We ended up at the gelato shop, a delightful place, with dozens of flavors; 2 flavors in a plastic cup for €1.6 (I had café and ?) Slept well on the floor again. I have a cold that I fear is getting worse. I suspect that I caught from a guy who was sneezing and coughing near me on a bus to Morocco (I had brought a few N95 paper air masks with me for just such a contingency, but they were in my pack, in the belly of the bus). I may need anti-biotics; difficult to pull off in Spain?