España, part II

Soooo much to say! And so little time to say it all!
Last week, during my blog I never finished everything I wanted to say! We also went to Capilla Real last friday, which is the burial place of Queen Isabel & King Fernando, who conquered Spain and made everyone convert to either Christianity or Catholicism, I can´t remember which... It is also the burial place of their daughter, her husband, as well as their grandson. I love the romance that went with it all, it´s truly a love story to surpass the times, the daughter, I can´t remember her name, was madly in love with her husband and so when he died, she got really sad, causing people to believe she would not be a competent ruler and they wanted her off the throne. However, she ruled her country with grace and kindness, but never forgot about her love and never was completely happy without him. Both a cute and really sad story. There´s also the story of the grandson, I don´t know if he belonged to the same girl or what, but he was here visiting his grandparents on vacation at the age of 2 and he was pretty much a genius so they decided to teach him how to ride a horse, not very intelligent on their parts I think, and he fell off his horse, which eventually killed him :( way sad! Above/along with Capilla Real, there is also the Cathedral, which you´re not actually supposed to take pictures in so I don´t have any inside :( but it´s SOOO gorgeous! It´s also very elaborate and I didn´t feel comfortable there, but I could still appreciate the beauty of it. The thing that really hit me hard here is how much Catholics and other Christian religions really focus on the death of Christ, there were crosses and pictures of Christ on the cross everywhere, yet not a single one of his life, or of gethsemane even. It was beautiful but depressing and being here has given me a much greater appreciation for our religion and the fact that I am LDS. While I´m talking bout that, I´ll just skip to Sunday and come back to Saturday later. On Sunday, I had the luxury of not having any excursions or anything so I got to observe it as a regular Sabbath, although sadly, I did not fast :( I kinda forgot about it with all the craziness and I didn´t know how to explain it to Carmen anyway. I think church really was my favorite experience of Granada thus far. Our churches have a simple beauty about them, they´re not elaborate but they´re still beautiful in their own way. Not to mention the thing that was lacking in all the other churches I´ve visited here in Spain: the spirit. Honestly, it just reaffirmed what I already knew: the church is true! I felt the spirit there, as well as a peace I hadn´t felt, more or less since the last time I was at my single´s ward in Utah. I didn´t know any of the members but I still felt like I did, I still loved them and they were still my brothers and sisters, which I felt the second I walked in. I wasn´t just some random stranger there, as they weren´t random strangers to me, we were brothers and sisters in the gospel. They didn´t care about how I spoke, and they didn´t judge me for anything, I felt nothing but peace and love there, something I´ve missed here in Granada. I love my host family and feel comfortable in their house, but it´s completely different from walking in those doors last Sunday, because when I walked in them, I walked home, at least that was how I felt. I´m so grateful for the church in my life and getting to have such an awesome experience. I love the simple elegance I get to see by going to church, as well as the peace and love I felt there.
As for Saturday, I allowed myself to really be a tourist. I walked around town with my camera in hand, taking tons of pictures and just randomly walking around, which I also plan to do tomorrow. I got to see this awesome random festival here, also Catholic based, though I never caught the real name when Carmen told me what it was, sorry. It was cool, they had tons of girls dressed in Flamenco dresses and bulls pulling this huge alter-like thing, though in a way, it also reminded me of the scene in the 10 commandments, a random thought that just came to my mind, lol! Then I went and got lost in the Albaicín. I was trying to go to the Alhambra to try and find the Palace Alhambra Hotel, but that didn´t work well since I missed the turn I needed. Instead, I got to see more of the Albaicín, which was an interesting walk. Maybe not the most beautiful thing I´ve ever seen but I didn´t hate it or anything like that, so that´s good.

As for this week, I´ve hung out with my friends, gotten drenched in the rain, and got to actually go to and in the Alhambra as well as on an excursion they call the "Ruta Federico García Lorca" (translated, roughly is the route of Federico Lorca), where we actually just went to a bunch of different plazas that were somehow related to his life. If you don´t know, Lorca was a Spanish poet and playwrite who was mostly killed because of who he was related to, the person who had been the mayor (but was also killed) was his brother in law, so when the new party or whatever it was, took over, they killed Lorca too. He is now famous for completely different works than he was famous for in his lifetime, but he loves his symbols and his works are kinda depressing. So on this route, we went to the plazas around where he´d lived as well as the theatre where his plays were performed, and read his works at the places, most especially things related to the place we were at. We were supposed to end at the park named for him but the rain kinda changed those plans. When it rains here, it RAINS! It truly pours down, I think it competes with the fact that when it snows in Utah, it SNOWS! Anyway, I´m going to the park tomorrow so I´ll take pictures. That was what I did Tuesday.
On Wednesday, I got to go to the Alhambra! (Spanish pronunciation- all-ahm-bruh) Oh my gosh it is soooo beautiful! I don´t think I´ve ever seen anything so beautiful in my life! I don´t remember all the specific history of it anymore, sorry, I´m bad at that and will probably have to do a lot of research when I get home so I can explain these places I saw. Anywho, it´s this massive palace and I mean HUGE with these lavish gardens, it´s gorgeous and rather amazing. It was built by the Muslims, which you can tell by all the architecture, and before the Catholics decided to truly take over Spain, it´s amazing! They have these gorgeous HUGE gardens, which are the best part of it, and sadly was the fastest part of the trip since we went at 5 and they close at 8, which was about the time we made it to the gardens. I honestly wish I could just go spend an entire day there. If I ever come back to Spain, I will definitely take an entire day just to walk around the Alhambra!
Other than that, I haven´t done a whole lot. Spent some time walking around with my friends and going to stores. We got to go to a gym for free yesterday and just went swimming, it was way fun and I wish I´d taken a picture of the pool, it was awesome, the side had a waterfall effect! We also tried pig intestines, I don´t know what the Spanish name was for them, YUCK!, as well as breaded anchovies, and huge shrimps, both of which tasted pretty fishy to me so of course, I was not a fan and found them all pretty gross. We also tried flan, not such a fan of that either. I think I´m finding that I´m not a fan of most of the traditional Spanish food, sad day :(
Anywho, I think that´s about it for my life at the moment, I´ll let you know about Sevilla and this weekend next week, probably about the same time! ¡Espero que tenga una semana buena! TTFN