Grand Hotel Luna De Granada

... and having some native spanish speakers!) and wish we were going to the same cities, but we´ll take their advice when we get to Seville.

For now, we are off on our Honeymoon. We arrived in Costa del Sol saturday night and since then have been lying on the beach (or by the pool, to switch things up) all day long. This is the most work we´ve done in a day... don´t expect a blog post from Costa del Sol. But stay tuned for stories from Morocco!

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¡Hola familia y amigos! It's my 4th week here in Granada and I am starting to feel at home. I have a good group of friends here and I am very comfortable walking around most of the city. Granada is very small so it reminds me of Boston in a lot of ways. The Spanish students started their classes on Monday so our residence is now very full. I have met a few of them who seem friendly but it seems like a lot of them steer clear of us Americans which ...

... flophouse for local gypsy squatters.) We met a guide in our hotel this morning and bused over to the hill where the Alhambra estate lies. It’s over 30 acres of palaces and gardens. The decoration inside the palace apartments is incredible.

Islam ornamentation never depicts a person or animal – only geometric designs or nature – and mostly prayers from the Koran and poems. The ...

... after a quick visit to the festival parade (see photos) which was funny. I not sure what each figurine meant, but there was a lot of Team America looking terrorist dress ups and some pretty messed up looking Christian ones. This went for about hour both days and we enjoyed both, as did the Spanish I suppose. Back to the Nature tour and we walked for a few hours, bathed in the freezing cold mountain water, and enjoyed the serenity (bit like Bonnie Doon).

This ...

... street where Cafe au Lait is located but I can't remember the name, John, Dale and Andy had the paella and I had meatballs. We then explored some of the back streets and bars for a couple more drinks. It was pretty quiet in these places as it was still early for Spaniards ie.midnite.We took a taxi back to the hotel as the minibuses stop running at 11:00. The taxi was only $5 E. Really looking forward to seeing the Alhambra tomorrow...

Well Granada didn't really captivate us and this is one city I am glad to be leaving. It was cold and miserable the entire time we were here. The hostel we had booked to stay at was closing down soon due to renovations. As a result we were the only ones there and it was a bit like faulty towers crossed with a horror movie setting. We were supposed to go to the "new hostel" for breakfast but when we went looking ...

... rabbis and Reform is the death of Judaism). This is a group that isn't into saying blessings over meals but insists that if you write the word "G-o-d" that it be G-d and that a genizah be on hand at all times. And note to reader: we have not even talked about the fact that I, the official voice of Jewish wisdom on this trip, am traveling with my husband (sic), who will be leading Saturday morning Torah study (at least he's a man!). See future entry for that conversation!

... a dancer, so its pretty cool music and these guys at least seemed very good at it, it was definitley worth the 8 euros. After which we go for some more Tapas, the amount of new food that I have tried with the Tapas is astounding, my favourite being fried octopus. It hits 2am rather quickly and i need to be up by 6:30am to get to one of my favourite places..RONDA

... group dinner; I actually had an amazing piece of grilled salmon! If you know me well, you will know that I am madly in love with salmon (especially smoked). My parents even had 5 pounds of smoked salmon that was caught that day air mailed to me from Wisconsin to North Carolina on Valentine's Day instead of sending me candy! This was really the topper of my night. I went upstairs and took a shower, read my book and went to bed. I always have to be true to my dorky nature!