Why, hello! Long time, no see! Sorry about that. I've been really busy with classes and planning trips and chilling with friends in this amazing country called Spain. Here are some pictures you've all been waiting for. To avoid any misunderstandings, the comments I have about each set of pictures will be BELOW the pictures, not above.
These pictures are of the ceiling of the very, very old Arab baths in Granada. This is a museum we were in. There are some baths that people actually use that are in a different part of the city. Anyway, the only windows in the Arab baths are the ones in the ceiling. Why? Because the bath users were bum naked. Also, they were smart and realized that the steam of the hot baths rises. So, not only did they value public decency, but they worked with the properties and characteristics of nature.
Baths. The room we were in with the pictures of the ceiling windows was a bath itself, but the bath is now covered with a tile floor. Sad, I know. I wanted to see what it actually looked like. But these pictures here are a close example. They're smaller, so I'm guessing they could only hold one person.
This was an air duct that passed under the baths. There would be burning wood at one end of the air duct, and the warm air from the fire would pass through under the baths and keep the water heated.
Bath. Roped off. Probably in an effort to preserve it, if only a little.
The entrance and courtyard of the bath museum.
This is a really cool house that was across the river from us. We were on our way to the Albaycín which is the oldest part of Granada and at the very top of it is a very famous view of la Alhambra and the rest of Granada and the surrounding suburbs, which you will see if you scroll down.
This is just a small side street and a bit of the Alhambra.
Ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent Alhambra...
...and the rest of the view from the Albaycín. Granada isn't THAT big. This is a view of Granada itself and all the other districts and suburbs surrounding it. It's beautiful nonetheless.
This was taken from the view of the bus rest stop on our way to Ronda, which is about three hours away from Granada.
The bus rest stop places are pretty cool. They're usually just a big building with bathrooms, a café and another place to buy snacks and drinks. I shared a Napolitana with Carrie and it was delicious.
What is in Ronda, you ask? Well...
...an arena for las Corridas de Toros. Translation: bullfights. This place was huge. I couldn't get a single picture of the entire thing because it was so big. So y'all are just gonna have to deal with pictures of parts of it. I actually thought of taking a bunch of pictures and then photoshopping them together to make a big panoramic view, but my laptop lacks the technology.
Cool, huh?
This is where the toros are kept. In each bullfight there are six toros and three toreos that participate Toro = bull; toreo = dude that fights (and eventually kills) the bull. These numbers are just general figures; sometimes there are only 2 toreos, and sometimes there's only one (which is rare).
No, that's not a guillotine. This is where they put the toro to get ready to enter the arena. The red door is lifted so the toro can run out.
I was disappointed that we didn't go to see an actual bullfight (don't judge. I just wanted to experience one, once), but I can give you the low-down on what happens, más o menos ("more or less." I am enjoying showing you non-Spanish speakers some Spanish lingo). You can check the validity of my explanation on Wikipedia, I guess. The toreos use these spear-things to stab the toro in the back, and they also use the red muleta (the cape-thing) to agitate the bull. Naturally, the bull becomes scared, angry, and more dangerous. This goes on for twenty minutes, and at the end of twenty minutes the crowd shows how they felt about the toreo's performance. If they say he did well and admirably, he gets to kill the bull. If not, the bull lives. I'm not sure how often the bull gets to live, but when the toreo gets permission, they are given two minutes to kill the bull, stabbing it in the back with a sword. From the videos I've seen, it's pretty bloody.
Not everyone in Spain likes the bullfights. It's a controversial issue. Some people say that the teasing and killing of an animal shouldn't be a public spectacle. Others say that 1) the toro is allowed 5 years to live in the countryside, so it lives a long and natural life; 2) the toro only suffers for 20 minutes; 3) the number of toros that participate in las corridas is nothing compared to the number of animals slaughtered daily for food. Finally, it is a cultural tradition that symbolizes the constant fight between man and nature. Me? I'm okay with bullfights. I'm not saying I like seeing people kill animals, but it's a tradition that's been going on for years and years, and reason number 3 convinced me. There you go.
Ronda is a city that's split into two parts by a ginormo cliff. One side is older than the other. They both have amazing views of the paisaje/countryside.
Ta-da!
I honestly don't remember what this house is. In my defense, we were all REALLY hungry (it was before lunch) and it had to have been 97 degrees outside, so sometimes it was really hard to listen to our tour guide. I think I remember our tour guide saying something about the mayor, or a past mayor of Ronda. It was a really nice house.
And it had a piano. It was all I could do to not start playing it. I probably would have been yelled at, anyway.
The views were amazing. I really wanted to go swimming in that pool, it was so hot.
More of the beautiful Spanish countryside.
Carrie with a statue of a bullfighter. ¡Qué lindos! :)
That's it for now. I'm going to do a separate blog for other pictures so I don't get anything mixed up.
Hasta luego,
Amy
