1. "Granada" means pomegranate in Spanish. And they like to remind people by putting little iron pomegranates all over the city at just the right length so that my knees are perpetually black and blue.
2. Spaniards have an obsession with the lottery. All day, every day, you will be assaulted by young men, old men, old women, young children trying to sell you tickets for "el premio gordo". And the most amazing part of all... people buy them EVERY day! That's who we call people with issues.
3. We have here a very small and close-knit community that can only be found in Granada. No, they're not the gitanos. They're the perroflautas. Dog-flutes. Who are they? Let's examine the word. Perro-flautas. They're certain people who like to wander around with unwashed hair and low-crotch pants of rainbow colors, performing songs on flutes or other strange instruments with varying success, and always, ALWAYS, have some sort of mangy dog following them. It is up for debate where they live and how the actually manage to support themselves, since I have literally never seen one work.
4. The botellón. A very important Granada institution. Apparently a few years ago, those who couldn't afford bars (read: students) would just go to the supermarket and pick up alcohol there and drink it on the street with their friends. But as you can imagine, it got kinda messy. Not to be too graphic, but I don't even want to imagine all the bodily fluids that were flowing down the street on a Sunday morning. So they decided to designate one parking lot in the outskirts of Granada to be the only place where people can legally drink in the street. And let me tell you, any given night, you will find approximately 75% of the Universidad de Granada student population congregating there, with a few Americans thrown in. Trust me, it makes for some fun times.
5. If you ever come to visit Granada one day (and you should), you no doubt will be strolling along the Cathedral, soaking up the sun and enjoying life. All of the sudden a nice, old lady will approach you and offer you a sprig of rosemary. You would think, 'oh, how nice, I do love the smell of rosemary'. As you start to walk away, sprig in hand, the nice, old lady will turn into an evil hag before your eyes. She grabs your hand with the pretense of reading your palm, and then will not let it go until you give her money. This is the gypsy-giving-you-rosemary scheme, and somehow, it always works on tourists. So beware!
That's a little taste. I'll try and add more every week or so. See you all soon!
I almost expected for myself to hate it, because that seems to be the general trend for me (I know, I know, sue me I don't like the Eiffel Tower). But you can really get in the mood! Everyone around you is having fun, so you have fun. The best part is the live music. After bar hopping to about 7 different bars, we finally settled on one that we really liked the music. We were once again the only girls in the bar. What is it with these ratios in the UK? But I soon realized that all the men standing around us had smiling, rosy faces, all were drinking heavily, wearing strange clothes, blonde hair, and blue eyes, and were singing badly. Oh God, my people followed me to Dublin. I think about 70% of that bar was Dutch. And the fun part was they thought we couldn't understand them. Hehe. Apparently I smell good. Regardless of the lack of Irish company, we still had the time of our lives. 
But once again, traveling on a student budget bites the big one. So eating won out over touring inside the castle. Oh well, it was a good mashed potato. 
