Last week I turned 22! I had a nice day full of lots of good wishes from friends and family. Since my birthday was on a Monday I had class, but spent the rest of the day shopping, walking around the city with friends, and having a birthday dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
I went back to García Lorca's house to tour the inside (Huerta de San Vicente). They didn't allow photography so I'll just have to tell you about what I learned and saw. The García Lorca family used la Huerta de San Vicente as a summer house from 1926-1936. It was in this house that García Lorca wrote some of his most famous works, such as Así que pasen cinco años, Bodas de sangre, Yerma, and Diván del Tamarit. García Lorca was arrested and executed in 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, in a small town outside of Granada. He lived in this house the days right before he was killed. In 1933, García Lorca wrote:
"Then we can spend all summer together, as I must work hard and it is there, in my Huerta de San Vicente, where I can write my plays with the greatest serenity."
The house is now a museum that runs various programs, activities, presentations, lectures, readings, etc. throughout the year. The house is open for public tours. I toured the entry hall, piano room, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom of García Lorca. All of the furniture, decorations, utensils, etc. are the originals. To me, the most impressive and humbling part of the house to see was García Lorca's desk. Having read some of his works, it was cool to see where García Lorca wrote them and to be in the environment where he felt most at ease and inspired. In the house there was artwork by Dalí and other well-known artists, as well as correspondence between García Lorca and his contemporaries. It was neat to see his handwritten letters, and to see photographs of García Lorca in the house. I'm really glad I got to experience this.
My study abroad program took us to a flamenco show in Sacromonte. We walked up to Sacromonte to see the show right as the sun was starting to go down and the Alhambra looked beautiful.
Here are some of my friends and I waiting for the show to start.
Seeing a flamenco show in a cave was neat because the atmosphere was fun and the dancers were just inches away from the audience. We had to tuck our feet under our chairs so we wouldn't get stomped on. There were some close calls!
Some friends and I went back to Guejar Sierra to do another hike. It's such a pretty area that we wanted to see it again before leaving. Our goal was to make it to this one ridge in order to see what was on the other side. We ended up losing the trail like we did last time, and spent a long time forging our own trail. We didn't make it to the top, but were happy to have made it as far as we did.
Here's Courtney doing a bit of rock climbing in search of a trail.
This picture is a good example of what we were hiking on. It was easy to think something was a trail when it wasn't because sometimes the vegetation lined up perfectly, leaving a dirt path in between. A lot of the shrubs were prickly and we all had bloody legs by the end of the hike.
As we were coming down the mountain we stopped to take pictures on this rock that jets out over a big cliff. As I sat down on the rock, a large piece of it came off in my hand. The rest of the rock felt pretty sturdy, but that piece coming off was not very reassuring. We got the pictures quickly and headed down to town to have paella.
Here's a link to more pictures:
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