What a day!! There were no windows in our tiny room and with all drapes closed we had no idea of time, so when we woke up it was 8.55am!!! We had requested our hotel almost 2 months ago to get us tickets to see the Alhambra. Apparently they get sold out very quickly and our guide book as well as Indu and Venkat (who had been there last spring) told us to be smart and get them earlier, so the hotel folks had got us tickets for 11am. We had to be there an hour earlier to exchange our voucher for the tickets or they could get cancelled, so we had planned accordingly to leave at 9am, and here it was almost 9am when we woke up!!! We dashed around madly and believe it or not, were down at breakfast at 9.20am! We got done in 10 minutes and took a cab to Alhambra and were there by 9.50am! Whew! We stood in line which was fortunately a lot shorter than the line standing to get tickets. When we got to the counter the lady asked for our credit card to make sure it was the same number mentioned on the voucher. Bummer! We didn't have any cc. We usually leave all our passports, cards etc in the room safe! Then she asked for some ID!! Bummer again! No ID on us. Irritated at us she shooed us out of there and told us to get in the line for tickets!!! Darn darn darn! I quickly got in line while R stood there scratching his head wondering what to do. Suddenly we ( or rather "I") had this idea. The hotel had given us a sort of ID card, it didn't have a picture but it had our names and confirmed we were staying at the hotel. R fished it out, went back to the counter, he sort of cut in, and I guess the lady was so busy, she abstractedly gave him the tickets!!! That was close!
We spent about 4 1/2 hours at Alhambra, left at 2pm and took the bus back to our street. By now it was raining and not such great walking weather. We stopped at a Middle Eastern place for lunch and had spinach sambusek and veg lentil soup with beer and the mint tea which had become a real hit with us. We fell for this drink so much we bought a tea set - a sliver plated tea pot with 6 glass cups - so we could recreate this back home. We got back to our oom, browsed the Internet for a while, had a bath since we had skipped one in the morning, packed a little and left to go shopping for souveniers at 5pm.
We went looking for a dagger...R had been wanting one for a while but everytime he found one, he would ask the shopkeeper for some history on it...whether it was a Spanish dagger, how old, what do the motifs on it mean etc etc. Not one of them knew anything. so off we went again! We got everything but a dagger...had dinner at Kasbah restaurant - veg cous cous and soup- and came back at 8.30pm.
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Come back to Granada and stay in the white nest!! in Hostels Granada
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