A bit of Sleaford in Spain

I had such a lovely weekend with Emily and Adele.

Adele obviously lives in Granada too, and Emily came out to visit. We all studied Spanish together in sixth form and it's been over a year since we've seen each other so it was lovely to catch up and reminisce about some of the funny times we have had.

On Friday me and Emily went up to the Albaicin and to the Mirador San Nicolas. I think this is definitely my favourite place in Granada, the view is just incredible and no camera (no matter how fancy) can capture how stunning and breath-taking it really is. We had a drink in one of the cafés that had the view of the Alhambra just to relax after our hike up to the top. We then went and had lunch in a nice plaza. We had berenjenas con miel for our primero. I'm not sure if they're a speciality for the region but they're everywhere and so delicious. It's simply fried aubergine dressed in honey. Yummy! For our segundo I had bacalao (cod) and Emily had calamares. We left room for desert and went into town to meet Adele for froyo. I'm not sure if the craze of froyo has hit UK yet. It's frozen yoghurt with a variety of different toppings, you can make it healthy/not healthy. I usually have strawberries and dark chocolate but instead of chocolate I had avellana crunch which is like the inside of a kinder bueno. Needless to say it was delish. We then left and did a bit of shopping. In the evening we had tapas in D'Cuadros in the bullring. 

Mirador San Nicolas

Saturday was a great day. We got up quite late and went to 100 montaditos, I go there quite a lot and had to show Emily it. It's a cheap restaurant that has 100 different montaditos (little sandwiches). They range from jamón serrano to tortilla de patatas to anchoas ...you name it there's a montadito. Most sandwiches are 1-1.20 euro and the drinks are cheap too. The worst thing is you have to go inside and read out your order, each sandwich has a number so it really tests our Spanish number skills! Everytime I pray I'm not gonna mess up and end up ordering someone the wrong sandwich. On Mondays every montadito is 50centimos and Wednesdays and Sunday 1euro. It's a super cheap place and very popular with students, obviously it can get pretty busy so finding a table is sometimes hard but it's worth it.

So after some yummy montaditos we headed up to the Albaicin again to go to a tetería to smoke shisha. Along the way we popped into a shop where I bought my first Christmas present for my Dad. I think it's hilarious and I can't wait to see his face when he opens it. The shisha was fun and we also had a batido natural which is a milkshake, we both got vanilla and it was the best tasting milkshake I've had. It tasted just like milkybar but didn't taste of chocolate. Hard to explain but it was very nice indeed. 

Later that evening we met Adele for tapas and the hope of finding somewhere to watch a flamenco show. We bought tickets for the 11:30 show because the first one was already booked up, for 8euros we got the front table so it seemed like a good deal as some are extortionate prices and complete tourist traps. We headed off for some tapas after asking the nice man at the flamenco bar the best places to go in this area. He told us Los Diamantes y Los Manueles are very nice so off we went. Los Diamantes mainly specialises in seafood. With our first drink we had coquinas (shellfish/cockles). They were delicious and reminded me of au pairing because we always used to have them. Our second tapas were garlic mushrooms (yes, I now eat mushrooms and seafood and fish) and they were equally delicious. After that we moved on to Los Manueles and got more nice tapas. We had room for one more before the show so we went to a Moroccan tapas bar and we had the most delicious albóndigas (meatballs) I have ever eaten. Feeling satisifed we went to the flamenco bar which is called Le Chien Andalou. It translates (from French) to the Andalusian dog. Strange name but WOW - I cannot believe it's taken me 2 months to see flamenco here. We had an amazing view on the front table. It wasn't a very big venue, a small cave which probably only held about 30-40 people. I was mesmerised by the music. The songs varied in rhythm, some were fast and others slow but it really was incredible. The passion in the singers voice was amazing and watching the guitarists hands as he played was unreal. When the dancer came on it just blew me away, I didn't know where to look! The footwork is so impressive and the atmosphere was just fantastic. Words can't describe how good it was, I did leave with a headache after all the feet banging but it's a headache worthwhile unlike one from a boozy non cultural night out, eh?

Reunited

We left feeling SO happy that we managed to see a show. For 8euros it hardly breaks the bank and if that wasn't authentic flamenco dancing then god knows what is! I'll definitely be taking visitors back there. 

This morning me and Emily rounded off her trip with a huge portion of chocolate con churros before we got the bus to the station and said our goodbyes. It was so nice to see her and we definitely wont be leaving it another year before we see each other again!

This week will be full of uni and hopefully an intercambio or two with Adele. We also have our day trip to the Alpujarra to look forward to. I'm feeling very tired now and missing England a bit, spending the weekend talking about all things school and sleaford has made me miss home. I also didn't get to see my Dad in London marching in the Remembrance Parade at the Cenotaph like I have the past few years but there's always next year! Luckily, Emily brought me out some dairy milk so with that and a cuppa tea I can pretend I'm at home.

Hasta la próxima,

Ellie