5-3-09

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Slept in until 11:00ish which felt wonderful! We had breakfast and then I went down to the patio to do some homework. I put on a tanktop and shorts and wrote my Granada Seminar paper while the sun scorched my shoulders. Taylor came down and we bought Julia some flowers from the place around the corner since it was Mother’s Day. We took them up for her just before lunch and she was so happy J She had a special table set and a fancy meal prepared for the big day so I’m glad we didn’t show up empty-handed. We had some gross potato salad with mayonnaise again but each dish went up from there. Next was some sort of dark meat in a dark sauce that had a really good flavor. Then, our surprise – dessert! Not just any dessert, strawberries with whipped cream and vanilla ice cream cake with chocolate shavings. Heavenly. The best part is that there’s a whole cake so we get some every day this week until it’s gone!
After lunch Taylor and I went on a little paseo around Granada to check out the crosses for Día de la Cruz. There are huge altars around in plazas and streetcorners that have big crosses covered in carnations, the blue and white pottery, shawls, water, and an apple with scissors through it. An apple is also called a pero colloquially so it’s symbolic to remind people not to critique the cross. Aka, it’s to cut out the “yeah it’s pretty, but..” We saw quite a few and at the Ayuntamiento there was a stage with people dancing flamenco all around. Lots of people were wearing the fancy dresses, and the little girls were just adorable.
We came back with just a couple minutes to spare to change our clothes and grab our stuff before we met Mitch for the soccer game. We walked to the Palacio de Deportes, which isn’t too far from our house, to the big stadium. There weren’t many people there but we were early so we figured it was just a Spanish thing. We bought our tickets and killed some time before we found our seats. I asked a worker if I could buy one of the posters and she said I could just rip one off the wall and take it home. I decided to do it after the game but ended up forgetting L Here’s a smart thing – the four sections of the stands were blocked off by locked gates to prevent people who paid less (like us) from sitting in good seats in the shade. Bummer. Anyway, there were some crazy fans in our section so we found a good spot and parked it. They brought flags, drums, signs, scarves, the works, and hardly let up throughout the whole game. Even though the stands were FAR from full, I was impressed by how much noise they were making. I should’ve forseen that when they came in chanting, “¡Setenta y cuatro, hijo de puta!” Needless to say, things got a little vulgar. The final score was Granada C.F. 3 – Granada 74 1. I’m so glad we went to a soccer game in Europe! And for only €10.