Granada november 18, 2013

wow,  it has been a month since my last post.  we have been living a regular life for the past month. nobody wants to hear about taking corrinne to/from school, barcelona vs. madrid big game, martini party with the slackers, researching future trips (mostly CB), reading in the park, great walks around barcelona searching out the best pastries.  the other day i walked past a small pasteria that had  a floor-to-ceiling window with an unobstructed  view of the guys setting up dough into loaves and sliding them into the oven.  i  stayed and watched the bakers for over an hour. they put the loaves in the oven and i was still there when they came out.  after a while the bakers started giggling about something.  pretty sure it was about the wack-job with his face glued to the window.  foreigners, what are you going to do with them.

Slackers: a group of men living in barcelona with plenty of free time.  about six years ago some of the fathers at Ben Franklin school decided to get together at a bar to watch a barcelona football game.  it was probably their wives that instigated the gathering, tired of their men hanging around the apartment.  so the guys named themselves "the slackers" (or their wives did).  the group changes yearly, as new guys move to barcelona and embrace the slacker lifestyle and some leave to re-enter reality. this is a group of guys that are happy to hang out with all comers, so it is not really limited to the non-employed.  regardless,  they are living large. it is not uncommon for them to meet for lunch at 1 pm,  move the party a few times and end up on a slacker's boat playing cards @ 2 am the next morning. i can't say i am a frequent slacker participant, but the times i have shown up i have been welcomed.

Granada, Spain.  we went there this four day weekend.    Katharine, Daron, and their two children Lucy and Malcolm invited us to tag along with them to this lovely, very cold city, in the south of spain.  in granada, is the ancient palace compound of "Al Hambra" (not named after a city in southern california). Al Hambra was the palace of the moor kings until the moors were driven out of spain in the 1400'ishes.   it is considered the most beautiful biulding in spain, if not the world.  it is indeed, pretty amazing.  the moors were muslems  from Arabia who conquered spain  around  1000 AD ( i think (give/take 100 years)).  the buildings are of arabian decore with an amazing amount of detail. you could spend the whole day going thru the various buildings.  the detail is amazing. the place was so compelling that the monarchy that conquered the moors did not destroy the palace.  they just moved in (after making the conquered moor king sign a "declaration of defeat" in his own throne room).  Ferdinand and Isabel ruled spain from here and columbus came here to make his pitch to ferdanand for help discovering a new route to India.  as we know, Chris dropped the ball and discovered the americas instead, and the spanish moved into california and names a bunch of california places after spanish places.  the city of granada spain is located in the foot-hills of the sierra nevada mountains.
it was a very nice trip with some very nice people.  what else could you want?
unfortunately, as it is, we have no great pictures of granada.  we are working with an i-phone camera that does not take the best photos.  it is posable that Daron and Katherine took some better photos, if they send them to me i will add them to this post in the future.

Lucy with a plate of churros waiting to be dipped in chocolate

churro maker,  much like dads donut machine

just one of many doors

another door

dinner overlooking Al Hambre palace in the background

the three musketeer, Malcom, Lucy, Corri

Al Hambra from one hill over