Granada

Here we are in Granada, in the foothills of the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains, where the first thing we noticed is that the temperature is a good ten degrees cooler than it was in Córdoba. Dave looked up our altitude and we're above 2,000 feet, so that's quite a difference. I've had to break out my trusty green jacket again.

The good news is, we got here. The bad news? Remember those tickets to the Alhambra I was proud of resourcefully ordering through a tour company? Well, they sent us a message after 9 p.m. last night saying they were unable to procure them and our tour was cancelled and our money would be refunded. (I expect so!) So it looks like we won't be getting into the Nasrid palaces, but as I wrote before, I've seen them, so I'm not heartbroken. Dave has never been there, but he's not that attached to the idea.

I was able to get last-minute tickets to the Alcazaba and the Generalife, two parts of the Alhambra complex that are less in demand. So we'll at least see those.

Cable box cover in Córdoba

Before we left Córdoba yesterday morning, we sat for a while in one of the parks and then went to meet Mitchell and San Geraldo (aka Jerry) for coffee.

And this time we managed to take a picture!

Then Dave and I were off to the train station for our nearly two-hour journey to Granada. Before we climbed on the train Dave popped into the Ale-Hop, a chain of gift shops that Mitchell has written about before. A cow is their mascot:

(I love that it's on casters. I wanted to roll it around the train station.)

Dave bought his very own Speed-Poo, which Mitchell has also written about, but as far as I'm concerned the less said about that the better.

After checking into the Barcelo Hotel Carmen here in Granada, we went out for a glass of something and wound up in a square dominated by the Fuente de los Gigantones, a fountain topped by a figure of Neptune and supported by four grotesque giants.

Here are some interesting street sights:

How desperate would a person have to be to dial a phone number with not even a picture or gender to go on?

Where to go when you're feeling hungry and somewhat sacrilegious.

This is where we had dinner last night. The menu included some story about a Robin Hood-like figure known as "Big Ears" who roamed Granada in antiquity, and who knows whether that's true, but supposedly he inspired the name of the restaurant. ("El Orejas" translates to "The Ears.")

We had a good meal, though quite leisurely because our single waiter was consumed by serving a family of 12 (!), including at least half a dozen small children, at an adjacent table. (Plus three other tables besides ours.) Fortunately we didn't have to be anywhere fast!

Mezquita

Well, we are having an interesting time here at Las Casas de la Judería, where the internet has been out all morning. I've been up for more than an hour and eager to post, but the front desk told me that their web provider is down not just here but all over Andalucía. So I'm hot-spotting through my phone -- hopefully I can work my way through this post!

Yesterday we went to see the Mezquita, which I just learned is Spanish for mosque. The Mezquita is a medieval building that began on the site of a Visigoth Christian temple from the mid-sixth century. When the Muslims arrived, they built a mosque in the late 700s, and over the years, through the dynasties of several Muslim rulers, the mosque was expanded to become a veritable forest of columns with striped arch supports (above).

After the collapse of the Caliphate, the building was reconsecrated as a Catholic church in 1236, and over the ensuing centuries a gothic and baroque church rose from the middle of the former mosque.

That's looking up into the dome of the church.

Dave and I wandered around for a while, checking out all the chapels with their ornate paintings and artwork, as well as the Islamic ornamentation that dates back to the medieval mosque. Here's a video to show you what it all looks like:

When we first got there, a religious service seemed to be happening and we heard chanting and organ music, which you'll hear at the start of the video.

With its fascinating blend of Christian and Muslim architecture and influences, the Mezquita is certainly the most famous sight in Córdoba, and I'm glad I finally got to see it. When I came to Spain in 1994 and passed through Andalucía, I was traveling with a friend, and we opted to go to Granada rather than Córdoba -- and I've always felt like I missed something!

After the Mezquita, Dave came back to the hotel for a nap, and I went for a photo walk through some of the newer parts of town. I love Spain's quirky mix of retro old shopfronts and newer, swankier retailers. I walked up toward a large linear park that cuts through that part of town, and then back down to the Judería (historically the Jewish quarter, hence the name).

I passed through public gardens where tree-trimmers were pruning the palms -- seems like the thing to do at this time of year -- and oranges littered the footpaths. I've never seen so many oranges lying around in my life. They are literally underfoot. (Our driver from Monday, Richard, told us they're inedible -- I keep meaning to try one to find out if that's true. I suppose it must be or people would be picking them.)

Dave keeps commenting on how gay-friendly Spain seems. Yesterday he said he hadn't seen many rainbow flags, though -- and as if to prove him wrong I came across these benches on my walk. A little battered, but the sentiment is right.

In the afternoon we had a fantastic lunch at a restaurant on the river, La Regadera. We ate out front, streetside, with the sun so intense that the people next to us asked for an umbrella for their table. I just basked in it. Probably terrible for my skin, but oh well. For lunch I had a carrot with ginger and miso appetizer, followed by pig's trotter and a fantastic lemon sorbet/cake/foam dessert.

Then I went walking on the Roman bridge (above) which Mitchell recently featured on his own blog. I climbed the historic tower at the southern end, the Calahorra, which gives a great view of the bridge and the city beyond. The Guadalquivir River -- the name comes from Wadi al-Kebir, Arabic for "big river" -- still seems quite high after all the recent rain. All that water flows westward through Sevilla and eventually into the Atlantic.

That's the Mezquita from the roof of the Calahorra. The pigeon was not impressed.

Last night we had a quiet dinner of tapas at a nearby restaurant, which was almost empty when we sat down at 8 p.m. There was a stage for flamenco dancing and I was terrified they would crank up a show while we were sitting there, so we got in and out. (I'm sure, given Spanish timetables, any after-dinner entertainment wouldn't begin for several hours at least.)

Today, off to Granada!

Córdoba with Unexpected Pivot

Gigantic rubber tree in Málaga

Our plan yesterday seemed easy enough: Get up, have a leisurely breakfast and then catch a train for the one-hour trip to Córdoba. We were flexible on the time, so I wasn't worried about not finding a train. We could go whenever.

Only...when I tried to book a train online, none were available, of any variety. I looked in the news and on the Renfe website for some announcement of outages and there was nothing, and Google couldn't find any reason why there wouldn't be trains, so I figured it had to be some kind of booking glitch and I walked to the train station.

"No trains to Córdoba," the woman at the ticket desk helpfully informed me. She said the track had been "broken" by the recent accident -- even though it happened north of Córdoba -- and the whole line was down. I'm not sure when this closure happened, because I had researched whether trains were running before we left London and they were.

Looking for Plan B, I popped next door to the bus station, which as you can imagine was somewhat chaotic. I stood behind a young man in a gray sweatsuit who had obviously recently been in a fistfight and had a crusty, bloodied nose. He was still in a bad mood. I managed to buy a bus ticket for a 7:30 p.m. departure -- the earliest available -- but we wouldn't get to Córdoba until 11 p.m.

I felt better having the tickets, but I didn't want to show up in Córdoba at that hour, so as I walked back from the bus station, I tasked Dave -- back at the hotel -- with finding out if flying was an option. It was not.

Fountain in Málaga

He did learn, however, that we could book a private car with a driver. We agreed it was worth the money, and soon enough, "Richard" was assigned to pick us up at 2:30 p.m. Whew! Much better.

We put up our feet at a cafe on a main square in Málaga and watched people for a couple of hours, and I wandered around and took photos. I saw (and heard) some exceptionally noisy monk parakeets in the Plaza de la Merced, with its central monument to General Torrijos:

Finally, at the appointed time "Richard" did indeed show up in a luxurious black Mercedes. It made me feel like an ambassador. We meandered through town and onto the freeway, which snaked through scrubby hills that reminded me of L.A. (Especially when traffic came to a brief standstill for some road work!)

We pulled into Córdoba about an hour and a half later. I was so happy to just get here.

This is our hotel, Las Casas de la Judería de Córdoba, a collection of former houses gathered around a series of inner courtyards.

The hotel had a welcome slideshow playing on the TV, telling us about the local amenities. This was one of the photos, and it cracks me up. Doesn't the woman on the right look like she's thinking, "God, I wish I could get away from these two." Clearly they've been traveling too long together.

We explored Córdoba a bit, including the area around the Roman bridge and the Mezquita, which we are scheduled to tour today. That's the 18th-century Triunfo de San Rafael de la Puerta del Puente, above, a triumphal column with Raphael, the guardian angel of Córdoba, on top.

We had a glass of wine and some tapas at the foot of the Roman bridge. I wrapped our tiny, crusty breadsticks in slices of ham, creating a "blanket in a pig."

Finally, in the evening, Dave and I walked into what looked like a slightly newer part of town and met up with blogger Mitchell and his spouse San Geraldo, Córdoba dwellers who are Internet celebrities in their own right! Unfortunately, as I belatedly realized, I scheduled our dinner with Mitchell at exactly the same time that I had to be on a conference call with my family to discuss my late stepmother's estate. HOW MANY MORE CURVE BALLS was this day going to throw at me?!

I wound up making the call from a sidewalk outside the restaurant, which worked out fine -- I got to hear the important points while Dave entertained Mitchell and SG. I finally joined them after half an hour and got a much-needed glass of vino tinto before dinner. They were very gracious about my double-booking.

Here's what I ate -- "broken" eggs and ham over chips with "baby eels" on top. The eels are not really eels, Mitchell and SG assured me, but gulas, made from fish that has been extruded to look eel-like. (I didn't want to eat actual eels because they are struggling as a species from overconsumption.) I thought they were pretty good but a vegetable wouldn't have killed me.

And of course Mitchell and I both forgot to take a selfie, which astonishes me and will require hopefully a second meeting, if I can tear him and SG away from their devoted cats.

Málaga With Screaming Children

Yesterday might well have been the longest day of my entire life, from getting up at 4 a.m. in London to going to sleep at 8:30 p.m. in Málaga. I was exhausted by the end of it. But we're here now!

That's the view from our hotel balcony, looking down at a souvenir stall on the Calle de Granada below. As you can see, the weather is so far cooperating, with bright sun and blue skies.

Getting to Málaga was not that fun. Soon after 5 a.m. we took the tube to a very crowded train -- surprisingly crowded, given the hour -- and got ourselves to Gatwick. There, we stood in the British Airways queue to check in, since I'd bought the ticket through BA, but it turned out the flight was actually operated by Vueling, so we had to go stand in a different queue. And then my boarding pass didn't work at security, because of a printer defect at the Vueling counter, so I had to go back and get a new one.

And then we were on an airplane with a family with three small children in the row in front of us, and those kids fought like cats and dogs the entire flight -- screaming at the top of their lungs. The girl, probably kindergarten-age, was upset because her brother was playing the video game that she wanted to play, and then she was convinced he had Internet and she didn't, and the completely ineffectual parents kept trying to negotiate with the kids to use this or that game console or iPad and the kids were having none of it. Tantrums, tantrums, tantrums.

As Dave and I remarked later, the negotiation needed to stop. The parents should have separated those kids and taken away all the digital devices, and after about 20 minutes of staring at their shoes they would have been more compliant. There was a similar meltdown from the youngest daughter just before landing, and the flight attendant actually came by to ask them to be quieter. Permissive parenting -- ha!

A pre-arranged driver collected us from the airport and we found the hotel and, praise God, they sent me the access codes so we were able to get in. We dropped the bags and set off for a wander around town, where I saw this clever monk parakeet snatching food from the pigeons on the Plaza de la Merced.

We settled into a sidewalk cafe, where we had a few drinks and some tapas like gazpacho with cubed salmon, sardines on a skewer (apparently a Málaga specialty) and a ham & cheese board. There was some kind of carnival event going on and there were people wandering the streets in costumes, mainly children.

I found this sticker near the gelato place where we went after our tapas. I guess some family made a cartoon of themselves to post here and there on their travels? They look like a friendly bunch.

As the afternoon wore on, Dave went back to the room and I set out for the water. I wanted to see the sunset and the Mediterranean. So I climbed up a series of paths to the hilltop Castillo de Gibralfaro, overlooking the waterfront. Lots of people had gathered there to watch the sun go down.

That's the bullring down below, in the district of La Malagueta with the beach beyond.

And here's a 40-second video clip so you can get a better sense of what it was like on that hillside, with the sun going down and a guitarist playing nearby. (The "birdcalls" are actually whistles, being sold by another vendor.)

As the sun got lower I found myself on the waterfront near the glass cube of the Centre de Pompidou, a branch of the Paris art museum.

I made my way back to the hotel and joined Dave, who had already collapsed into bed. Today, we're off to Córdoba, but we'll be back to Málaga for one more night at the end of our trip.

Rodentia

I'm cheating a bit by writing this post on Saturday afternoon, and scheduling it to publish Sunday morning. That's because we have to catch an absurdly early train to get to Gatwick in time for our 9:40 a.m. flight. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought these plane tickets -- 9:40 a.m. seemed like a reasonable departure time (and the tickets were probably cheaper) but when you consider that you have to get to the airport two or three hours in advance, well, ugh.

The good news is, I reached out to the hotel in Málaga via Whatsapp and they did receive our documents and told me somewhat impatiently that I would be getting access codes to the door on the day of our arrival. So never mind that thing on their website that says we get the codes 48 hours in advance.

In other news, look! The bench outside the phone exchange on Finchley Road has been replaced! I'm shocked that they bothered to install a new one. I figured they'd just go benchless after hauling the old one away. After all, who sits in front of the phone exchange? But no, a new one was evidently warranted.

I spent yesterday packing, doing routine houseplant care and catching up on blogs. I am bringing no books but at least ten of my back issues of The New Yorker with me to Spain. I'm going to read them there and/or throw them away, one or the other.

We did nothing special for Valentine's Day, though Dave did buy me a pastry on the high street. If he's not trying to get me to drink more, he's buying me pastries. Has he taken out extra life insurance on me?!

This week's garden cam video comes from the patio, where I set up the camera right outside our bedroom door to see who or what is prowling around out there at night. Plenty of foxes, or perhaps just one very persistent fox, as well as a few unwelcome critters.

Here are some highlights:
-- At 0:20, you'll see a fox trot by with several links of sausage hanging out of its mouth. This is not the first time we've seen foxes with sausages in our garden. Someone must be feeding them, or maybe they've figured out how to raid the high street butcher's rubbish bin?
-- At 1:03, yikes! A rat! This is not terribly surprising since we live in the city, especially with foxes gnawing on sausages in the garden. But it doesn't make me happy because the last time we saw rats on the patio we had to call an exterminator and I am still psychologically scarred.
-- At 1:23, a token pigeon. I got tons of videos of solo pigeons wandering the patio in daytime.
-- At 1:44, a pair of amorous robins. That male is definitely trying to get the female's attention.
-- Random fox wanderings, and then at 2:52 it runs in at top speed and seems to be surveying the corner. Maybe it saw one of the rodents? It looks like it's in hunting mode.
-- At 4:04, a robin sings happily in the pre-dawn darkness.
-- At 4:26, the fox sneezes while sniffing the garden plants. I think it's hunting again. At least there's no coughing this time!
-- At 4:30, we get a brief daytime shot of the fox. Look at its beautiful red fur! It's easy to forget how colorful they are, looking at the pale infrared footage in my nighttime videos.
-- At 4:40, a mouse visits. I'm not sure that's any better than a rat.
-- At 5:00, I put down a bit of duck breast for the foxes. Now, before you criticize me, let me assure you I have only done this sort of thing three or four times in all the years we've lived here, and I would not have done it had I known we have rodents out there. So don't blame me for the rats. I think they're probably coming around because of the bird feeders. (You can blame me for those.)
-- At 5:12, the fox eats the duck breast and sniffs around hoping for more.
-- At 6:13, the rat is back. The camera caught no evidence that the rodents got any of the duck, thank God.
-- Two token squirrels at 6:47, the only other daytime visitors besides the pigeons and robins.
-- We finish with a last fox sighting. I think the fox is probably attracted to the patio partly because of those rodents. I hope it eats them.

Interesting that we saw no cats on the patio -- where it looks like we need them!

This coming week, I've set up the camera to film the bird feeders directly. I want to see if those rats or mice are climbing the pole and having a nosh. If so, I need to relocate the feeders away from the house. (I probably should anyway.)

Ch-ch-ch-changes

This is sitting in the driveway of a neighbor down the street. I think it's the soundboard for an upright piano. As I understand it, old pianos are very hard to sell nowadays, given that lightweight and easily portable electronic keyboards are available. Remember how my family struggled with that issue when we tried to sell my grandmother's Steinway years ago? And that was a baby grand, not "just" an upright.

Still, it makes me sad to see a piano reduced to this condition.

I have had a killer week, and I'm not sure why. It should have been easy, with two days of parent-teacher conferences during which I dealt with no students. But of course I had plenty to do, because God forbid I be permitted any downtime. Yesterday and Thursday I weeded part of our non-fiction section and covered and labeled about 50 new books, among other things, and when I balked at immediately stamping, sorting and boxing up all the weeded materials, my boss seemed surprised. It was 3 p.m. on a Friday before a break and I was done. I came home.

I only have 26 days of work left! That freaks me out a little bit, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to retirement. My co-workers are talking about making major changes in the library, "genrifying" the collection (sorting mysteries from romances from classics, that kind of thing) and getting a new computer system. I am nothing but relieved that I won't have to deal with any of it.

I'm sure I sound like a spoiled, work-averse baby here (is there such a thing as an enthusiastically working baby?) but as I get older I find that I am much less able to embrace workplace changes, and my boss is a rip-everything-down, nothing-is-sacred kind of person. I need to get out.

Meanwhile, Dave and I have to get ready for Spain! We're leaving early tomorrow morning, and I'm already having a bit of anxiety about our first hotel, in Málaga. The reception is closed after 2:30 p.m. and I was told to send them our documents and they would give us access codes to the door, and I've sent what I'm supposed to send, but I've received no codes. If I'd known this "hotel" was really serviced apartments with no full-time reception I'd have booked somewhere else. I want to be checked in by a person. Argh!

Here are some fun or interesting links I've saved that you might enjoy:

-- The story of the North London house that gave the band Fairport Convention its name.

-- Five photographic treasures displayed at the somewhat recent Paris photo fair.

-- A CBS News segment about a mysterious cache of photos from San Francisco, taken during the Summer of Love.

-- A discussion of the impact of ring-necked parakeets on our local ecology. You'll recall we see lots of these birds in our garden on our bird feeders.

-- One of our favorite video clips from British television, from the TV show "This Morning," in which Gino D'Acampo takes down presenter Holly Willoughby in ineffably Italian fashion.

-- And from just this week, the obituary of actor Bud Cort, who famously played Harold in "Harold and Maude," one of my favorite movies.

Bulb Report

As you can see, the bulbs are a bit further along now. The snowdrops are open...

...as are the daffodils. We have four clumps of them running down the side of the rose bed, all planted before we moved in, and they come up reliably every year. (And we no longer have to put protective stakes around them because Olga's not here to trample them!)

The Leucojum, which is similar to a snowdrop, is blooming too.

The crocuses looked promising at first. This (above) was taken on Feb. 7.

But this was yesterday. The squirrel gods have deemed that no crocus shall be allowed to reach flowering stage!