Fall Break Part 2: Spain

For Spain, my friend and I split ways. Nate went to join up with another girl in our program named Erin in Barcelona while I went to Granada to meet up with Cal Tri friends.

I flew into Madrid and then took the metro to a bus terminal where I took an overnight bus to Granada. It was a long night, but I made it into Granada at about 6AM. I met up with my tri friend Jeremy, who was letting me stay at his place for the night. After a quick nap, the two of us went out and explored Granada. Jeremy took me to the Alhambra, which supposedly is a heritage site, and therefore one of the most visited places in the world. Who knew!? We then walked through the countryside to get a better view of the Sierra Nevada.

The thing that surprised me most about Granada was the heavy Arabic influence in the town, especially in the architecture. It was a nice change from the copious amounts of Renaissance churches I have seen.

After exploring Old Town Granada, Jeremy and I met up with another friend from Cal Tri, Anna. After some more exploring, we tried Granada specialties: churros and chocolate and café con leche. Both are pretty self explanatory: the churros come with a mug full of European hot chocolate (so literally melted chocolate) and the café con leche was coffee with milk pre added. Both were quite good!

That night, three of us went up to a viewpoint that overlooked the Alhambra. It was absolutely gorgeous! We stayed for over an hour people watching, listening to music and watching the sunset. It was awesome! Afterwards we went out to try the Spanish tradition called tapas. Tapas are small plates of food that you get cheap with a drink. The idea is you go to multiple restaurants, ordering one plate at each until it somewhat constitutes a meal. Luckily, both Anna and Jeremy knew the best local places for tapas, so I was able to experience a quite traditional Granada atmosphere!

My bus left at 2pm the next morning. The three of us met up once more to go to our friend Celia’s house where we made brunch. From there, Anna and I took the bus back to Madrid for Halloween night.

I loved Granada. Like going to Paris with Ben, it was so nice to be back with Berkeley folk. To be able to talk about triathlon and people that we all knew- it was a cure for some lurking homesickness.

Back in Madrid I met up with Nate and Erin. The three of us decided to check out the oh so famous Spanish Halloween atmosphere. It was interesting…. We went out as Three Blind Mice however not many people were dressed up. The people who were dressed up went full on gore. To be perfectly honest it was pretty creepy. After a poor attempt at ordering tapas, a Mexican restaurant, and a walk through the meek nightlife, we decide to head back to the airBnB and watch Halloweentown on Netflix. All in all, it was a pretty relaxing Halloween.

Our last day of Fall Break we explored Madrid. For me, the highlight was their Central Park. It was beautiful. There was this beautiful glass gazebo in the middle and waterfalls lining the pathways. I wish we had more time there. That night we ran into a Dia de los Muertos celebration. It was everything I learned in Spanish class, I loved being able to see it in person.

I have to say, Madrid surprised me. It reminded me more Paris or Milan that I thought it would. I especially love the suburbs. There wasn’t anything particular there to see, but it had cute and modern atmosphere. I wish I had more time to explore, but guess I just have to go back.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much Spanish I actually remembered. It was refreshing to understand what people were saying and not have to think (as long) about how to reply. It actually inspired me to look into taking Spanish again at Berkeley. We shall see…