That Friday morning, January 28th, we packed our bags early in the morning and hopped on a bus headed for Granada with the rest of our program. Everyone was rather hungover as the night before we had gone to this wild and extremely popular 3 story discoteca named Buddha. For those at Maryland, the only way I can describe it would be an extremely nice and much bigger turtle with that crazy dance floor upstairs. Apparently, it is the most popular place to go on Thursday nights, and we all had a great time so anticipating heading back there pretty often. It was extremely hot in there, and everyone was sweating and dancing up a storm.

The bus ride was around 3 to 4 hours long, and we stopped once at a rest stop to grab a bite. It was a rather peculiar rest stop, as it had all these random stuffed rabbits all over the place. Anyhow, after taking in the beautiful Spanish countryside we finally made it to Granada and I really liked the city a lot.

Spanish Countryside

I’m feeling pretty lazy and have been writing the blog all morning, so I’ll be describing our experiences during the trip through pictures.

Our Hotel Room

Mike and I slept through the official tour, so we went on a tour of the city by ourselves which turned out to be a really good time.

On our way to the main city

Granada!

On our way back to the hotel, i bought a crazy jacket!

Alhambra at night!

That night, we went to see an amazing Flamenco show in this cave place!

Everyone in the cave

The flamenco show was amazing, and i couldn’t get over how fast they were moving their feet. The facial expressions that the women used during the performances were priceless. During the show, while the main guy was dancing he actually grabbed my orange hat off of my head and began to dance with it during the performance which was pretty entertaining. I am going to try and attach a video i took on my camera so hopefully this will work.

After the show, we met up with Ollie and Mike’s friend Erika who is studying abroad in Grananda for the semester

Granada is famous for its Tapas Bars, so we went to check a couple of those out. Tapas are great, because you get a drink and a small sandwich or some sort of snack for a very low price like 2 euros. After tapas, all the girls headed home but the night was still young so the UMD boys (Me,Nick, Sean, Ollie, and Mike) all headed to an Irish Pub.
At the Irish Pub!

On our way back from the bar, we ran into David and Justin and a couple other kids from our program. When mike and i had been walking around the city earlier on we had seen an awesome giant hollow tree trunk, and we decided that at the time it would be a good idea for all of us to go hang out in the aforementioned treetrunk haha

In the treetrunk!

The next morning, we had a tour of the Alhambra which was great.

Everyone with our British Tour Guide

Gorgeous

There was super cool shrubbery all around!

Orange trees are amazing

Leaving

We left the Alhambra a little early, as we had reserved a time at the Arab Baths. The arab baths was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. You felt like you were a king in a royal palace. They had tons of different baths all over, ranging from hot, warm, and cold. The way it works is that you go into the warm bath to start, then rotate to hot, then cold bath, and then into the sauna. Drink some tea, and then repeat. Best 20 euros i have spent in a while. The tea was to die for, and the best i have tasted in my entire life. Was a delicious mint tea, and we must have had 10+ glasses each. My only regret is that i did not take any pictures of the baths, but it it something that you must must must do at some point in your life!

After the extremely refreshing baths in the morning, we went and had some delicious Paella lunch outside at a nice restaurant in the city.

After lunch we wandered around a bit, and then headed back to the hotel.
Wandering

Chillin with Washington Irving and wearing my new bufanda (Scarf)

Granada was great, and i loved the unique architecture that the city had. Highlight of the trip was definitely the Arab baths, Flamenco, and getting that crazy jacket. If you’re ever in Spain, would definitely reccomend checking Granada out as i had a really good time!

-Sahil