First Day @ Granada

I've been advised about Granada from my friends that already took an around the world trip. Granada, where the mixture of cultures and free food with beer are the norm, is new to me and thus far it is all hearsay. I arrive in Granada in the middle of the day. The sun is blazing down and the instructions that I have written down for my hostel is vague at best. I hope on a bus and am greeted by a group of teenagers. One of the girls asks me where I am from in Spanish. I tell her that I am Chinese, but I am from the states. As soon as I say that they request that I take a picture with them. At this point the bus is pretty full and we somehow manage to get a picture of me alongside 5 other people.

After exiting the bus I walk up a broken sidewalk. It is covered in sand and dirt and is under construction. The buildings all around it are sand in color and the ground the architecture blends together seamlessly. It almost looks like the town straight of the black hawk down movie. The streets are not straight and wind left and right making orientation pretty difficult. The original path that was I had written down as blocked, but luckily I was able to find a pedestrian that knew where the hostel was.

The Funky Hostel is Granada is several floors tall with a open area in the middle. I am told that this type of housing is very traditional. At the bottom there is even a small fountain. At the very top is an open rooftop area where the kitchen and a enclosed hang out area is. At the moment, I sit at the bottom of the steps waiting for my turn at reception. Next thing I know I see Tino coming down the stairs and we quickly greet each other. It has been nearly 3 months since I’ve seen him and its good to have a friend from KC. Tino is a with Huynh, a Vietnamese guy from Mississippi, also an engineer, that is staying at our hostel. After getting situated in our room we head out to do some exploring of the town.



Granada is famous for tapas. Basically tapas bars sell drinks and then what can best be described as h’orderves are served for free with each drink purchase. The foods get better and better with each additional drink order. The first tapas bar we visit is located near the main strip in the town. The beers here are 2€ each, which I consider to be quite reasonable. During the middle of our first tapas session, Tino’s two Dutch friends, Rick and Dwayne, join us. They have just arrived from Barcelona. Later that night we visit another tapas bar along with two Canadians from our hostel, Phillipe and Anh.

Not feeling like partying too hard that night, we all sign up for a hot springs trip. The two Aussie girls in my room had told me about it when I first got to the room and being our first night it sounded like a good idea. The cost was 11€ which would included transportation to the hot springs and back from the main square in Granada. A minivan, along with a 4 door hatchback, comes and picks us up. They ask for money immediately and then stop off at the gas station where we are given an opportunity to buy some beverages for the hot springs. In the end the hotsprings turns out to be pretty lame and is just a pipe in the middle of nowhere shooting warm water into a pool.