Tasty Tapas, Arab Baths, and Ghost Stories!

Yikes, where have I been! It´s already Friday and not a post in sight! Ayiyiyi! This week has been kind of hectic when being able to publish up on the web, and my post for yesterday was cancelled due to the school´s internet shutting down! Ack! So I have a lot to cover, and much to tell! Let´s see...now where was I from last.. oh!

Tuesday, after publishing my blog entry, me and my two other Abroadco students met up with a classmate of mine, Robert and his girlfriend, who are studying here in Granada as well, but both hail from the not-so-sunny England! Tuesday night was the futbol (soccer) game, and of course at the sports bar we all met at was packed with Spain fans. We watched about half the futbol game, until the point where Spain had the lead on Russia, and cheered amongst the large gathering that had come out to root for Spain, and then we all ventured for tapas at the nearby tapas bar.

Tapas in Granada, which none of us Abroadco students had ever done yet, is when you buy a drink at bar, and with your drink comes a kind of small, free snack that comes with it. The first tapas bar we went to we had Spanish torillas and a meaty version of pizza, and the second one we went to had a large combination of noodles, french fries, and toasted bagels. Yum! We were out for about three or so hours just chatting about our different lives and such. (Example- in England, aluminum is pronounced differently than in the United States- different!)

After getting our dinner from the snacks, we all headed our seperate ways. We came home to learn that Sergio, the oldest son in our homestay family, had broke his thumb, hence why everyone had been gone that afternoon! His arm and hand are all bandaged up, and apparently our host mom had been in the hospital all day with him. Que mala suerte! So it was awesome that we went out for dinner ourselves, since Eloisa had all that going on Wednesday! Ow ow ow!

Wednesday morning was another day at school, where we are learning different tenses and how to use them in sentences. The teaching method is a bit different, and a little harder, but I actually feel I am learning more than in the United States! Every day I learn something I didn´t know in that class, so its always an interesting lecture!

After class, I headed home for lunch and a siesta for the afternoon, then explored more of Granada on my own. Because our next adventure planned wasn´t scheduled until 9:40 PM that evening... to visit the Arab Baths of Granada!

The best way to describe the Arab Baths would try to put you in my shoes. We met Inma at 9:40 PM at our rally point, Correos, and from there we walked a short distance down from the mail area to a not so busy part of the city. We made a few turns across cobblestone roads, and laughing at random jokes all the way there, we finally made our way to a sign that read Banos Arbes.. or, Arab Baths!

We walked inside the dimly lit area in the main waiting room, where Inma went to go speak with the receptionist as we lounged around the room:

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We then were informed by the receptionist to go inside the next rooms, change into our bathing suits, and make sure to take a number. We then headed inside the complex, changed, and entered the spa itself.

Cameras were no good in there, so I suggest, for some visuals, a quick search of ´Arab Baths´ might help to understand exactly what they look like. What I can describe was that it was a dimly lit underground room, complete with tiled floors and Arab decor, and everywhere candles lit up the large room. Different sauna pools were scattered throughout the room, and each of these pools were temperatured differently- caliente, (hot) mas caliente, (more hot) and a cold pool. (frio) The water was very enjoyable with the different temperatures, and the point was to simply hop into one and relax oneself for however long, and when it got too hot, a quick jaunt in the coldest pool would cure the heat.

I particularly enjoyed this trip for it´s other highlights, other than the pools- one room in the sauna had a small tea pot, where I once again got to enjoy some delightful Arabian mint tea-my favorite, and also from before we had been given numbers on a wrist tag. This number was for our massage, which I was very happy to receive for 15 minutes. A relaxing night at the spa, with some tea and a massage to boot! Que bueno!

The next day was yet another viaje in the afternoon after class, in which we got to explore a bit more of Granada´s history...and some legends. I had mentioned interest in phantasmas (ghosts) and so on top of getting a history tour, we did get some ghostly tales!

The first ghost story (this one is a bit creepy!) came down a road we walked not far from the main plaza of the city, where a nice looking, glass doored building sat. Apparently, this building in the late 1500s was infamous for rich Spanish woman to commit illegal abortions in the dead of the night. The story goes that every night you could see the women enter in, mostly sneaking in to avoid being caught, and having these illegal abortions, whereas the bodies of the unborn infants littered the rooms. Today it is said the spirits of these unborn children still haunt the place, and is regarded pretty scary by the locals. I didn´t see any evil spirits myself, but the happy little glass doored building. After the tale, we moved on past the Music Department, and ventured back to the old hospital.

With Stephanie here, not only did we get to explore more, we also got a bit of history- the hospital was one of the first to open in the late 1400s in Spain. To understand this, you must understand what it was like back in the days of old- Hospitals weren´t what they are today. Instead, it was believed by everyone in Europe that sickness was a sign God wanted it to happen. For example, if a peasant came down with the Black Plague, he wouldn´t be advised to go seek medical attention. Instead, he would be told to simply take it as it was, as God made everything happen, thus it was a sign He wanted it so.

However, despite this common belief, the rich would have none of that. Instead of lying back and suffering, they would pay lots of money to enjoy a trip to a hot spring or a fake instant cure to make themselves feel better. Thus, up until San Juan de Dios, nobody had thought to change this system.

Juan, as he was simply known before his title, was a man from Granada who simply would not stand by and watch the poor die in the streets. It didn´t agree with him that this was God´s work making people ill and simply fated to die. He then sold all of his wordly possesions and dedicated his life to helping the poor who were sick, as well as the rich- all that were sick were equal in treatment, not simply those who had money. He was given the title ´de Dios´in his lifetime for his movement, and Sainthood a half a century after his death. San Juan is important in that he changed what makes our hospitals what they are today- his example spread all over Europe, and soon hospitals for all of the sick were being established. Thus, in Granada started what becomes our modern hospitals.

After learning that interesting tale, we then walked down the long road named after the Saint, and soon then came upon the University´s front gardens, where a statues of Mary was center to the entire area. I took some snapshots of the garden itself and the surrounding area:

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We then walked up to the building where San Juan spent the last of his days, a hospital turned.. the University of Granada! This was also the main hub of the entire campus, complete with a huge library. We toured inside the old building, and observed different rooms and statues of the university, as well as being on the hunt for the mysterious ghost.. of San Juan!

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We walked around the different rooms and went to this one open area, which mysteriously I didn´t have any pictures of! The room was odd in the fact that there was a specific kind of tree planted around. Inma explained to us that these trees were commonly seen in front of graveyards, and with that information came an eerie silence. At one point I thought I saw something moving in a classroom, but at a closer inspection, there was no one there.... needless to say, maybe our ghost hunt had some success!

After touring the University grounds, we finally walked up to a large bridge that led into an early part of the Albacin. This old passageway had been under restoration, but looked a thing of the past when we walked up to it:

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And Inma then grabbed our attention to the right of the large Moorish passageway, to observe a large building with hundreds of windows:

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The legend of this building wasn´t spooky or sad, but sweet in its own way. The story goes that there was a man who was very in love with a woman, and they were seperated from each other. Because he loved her so, and was always looking out of a window to wait for her, he built 365 windows exactly, (the legend goes) so that each day he could wait for her by a new one. We tried counting them all.. but I´ll just believe there are that many windows!

From there, we ended our historic and ghost-a-rific tour! For the rest of this fin de semana, (weekend) we have Saturday to sleep in, and Sunday to go explore the Granada-famous Moorish castle, the Alahambra! So with that said, I´ll see you all next week, with a lot of pictures of one of the (unofficial) seven wonders of the world!

Adios, amigos!