Granada, Spain

After a beautiful three-hour train ride through Andalucía, I arrived in Granada on Sunday afternoon. I walked up into the old Muslim quarter (the Albayzín) and watched the sun set over the Alhambra with the snow-covered Sierra Nevada in the background. It was quite cold, and I was finally happy to have a hat and gloves along for the ride.

Sunday evening I met up with Dr. Bahar Davary, an Iranian Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of San Diego, and a friend from my Summer 2004 Fulbright trip to Malaysia and Indonesia. Bahar was in town doing some research for an upcoming USD faculty tour of Andalucía that she is going to help lead. We went to a tea house that night and watched some bellydancing. It was at that point that I decided Granada is a kind of Muslim-Disneyland for Christians. The town markets itself as the last bastion of Islam in the Iberian peninsula, and its tourist industry is driven by this image. One can come to Granada and visit the Muslim world without having to actually visit the Muslim world. More authentic than the real thing! Bahar was too busy shopping for Muslim trinkets to be bothered by my profound observations. (She shrugged and smiled at my dollhouse analogy too. Oh well. We can´t all be as impressed with me as I am...)

Early Monday morning Bahar and I went up to visit the Alhambra (see photo). The weather was cold and rainy, so we rushed through the beautiful outdoor gardens that surrounded the palaces within the fortress walls. Chilled to the bone, we left without visiting the Summer Palace.

On Tuesday Bahar and I walked up to the top of the Albayzín and had a relaxing lunch on a sunny courtyard terrace overlooking the Alhambra. The weather had warmed up nicely and we were able to sit outside without our coats. That afternoon we visited the Cathedral of Granada and the tombs of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.

Today (Wednesday) I went back up to the Alhambra to visit the gardens surrounding the summer palace (Bahar had left for Sevilla). This afternoon I am taking care of some business (banking, blog, etc.) as I will be leaving for Morocco tomorrow morning. I am taking the 7:00 a.m. train to Algeciras, Spain (in the shadow of the Rock of Gibraltar) and then a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangier, Morocco. I will probably stay in Tangier for only one night before moving on to Fés. The Lonely Planet Guide is under the impression that internet connections are easy to find in Morocco, but incredibly slow and nearly impossible to use because of their Arabic-only keyboards. This may or may not be the case. However, if it is true, you may not be hearing from me for a little while. I plan to travel in Morocco for about three weeks: Tangier, Fés, Meknés, Rabat, Marakesh, and Casablanca (in roughly that order). In Rabat I will be meeting with representatives from Muhammad V University with which KCC is in the process of establishing a formal institutional relationship. I´ll try to behave myself.

¡Hasta luego!

(Photo by Eric: Tile roof, Alhambra, Granada, Spain)