Mom's visit

I'm not so hot at this blog deal. We've had our apartment for almost 2 months, it's almost time for me to go home, and still no pictures of it! That will come in time. I had 4 days back in Granada between trips, and now I'm spending most of my time doing an anatomy review before school starts. I'm trying to remember how to balance daily life and school- this is a good warm-up!
Mom just left last Saturday. Javi and I drove down to Malaga to pick her up. On the way back, we had a fried fish lunch typical of a beach town nearby and gave Mom a tour along the coast and through the Sierra Nevadas. I don't think her stomach much appreciated it after 3 flights! The next day we set off on an epic walking tour of Granada. We walked for 8 hours with a long lunch break, but saw all the sights of Granada in 1 day, thanks to our experienced tour guide (Javi). He had also woke up early to try to get us tickets to tour the Alhambra, but no luck. The next day, Mom and I got up at 6:30 and staked out places in the line for tickets. We got lucky and headed off for Mom to see her first palace. The Alhambra is a Moorish palace from the 1300's that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. There are tons of gardens, fountains, and really detailed ceilings. I suggest a Google image search! For Mom's last day in Granada, I showed her how I live a typical day. Going grocery shopping at 3 different stores, drinking great coffee from tiny cups, eating Javi's mom's food, packing for the next trip, relaxing at the Arab baths, the usual. We spent an hour in a cave with plinky music, cold, medium and hot baths, a lavender steam room, tea, meditation rooms, aaaaand a massage. We were all gelatinous after.
The next day, Mom and I flew to Barcelona to resume our rigorous walking training. And see some sights. While there, we saw all the Gaudi buildings and his crazy park again. We walked on the port, in Las Ramblas where we saw good mimes, the Gothic quarter, the markets, the cathedral, but the best of all was the Chocolate Museum. It had the history and production of chocolate plus amazing sculptures. It made our Christmas gingerbread houses look pretty lame.
After that it was off to Madrid! First, we went to the royal palace. Too bad Javi wasn't with us, or he could have hung out with his new buddy, the king. No, they don't really live there. It's too big, they might get lost walking around. My favorite room inside is the Gasparini room. This website gives a little tour, so you don't even have to go! After checking out the royal pharmacy and armory, we walked all through the downtown of Madrid via their Broadway street, Gran Via. On the way, we saw 2 mariachi bands and a lot of bad mimes. The mimes are people that dress up and stand on the streets and expect money. The good ones have amazing costumes and stand so still they look like statues. The bad ones have cheap Hello Kitty outfits and take their heads off to smoke. Gran Via turned 100 this month, and while walking on it, we saw the president of its restoration and maintenance group being filmed for the news while he was walking down the street. I recognized him because he's been on TV a lot recently. We missed our opportunity to be in the background of Spanish news! When we got to the end of Gran Via, we went to go meet up for Indian dinner with Javi, who had stayed in Granada to work. The 2nd day in Madrid, we wandered around the huge park there, where they have the only statue dedicated to the devil. Then we spent time just walking around the neighborhoods in Madrid. Javi went to go running shoe shopping while Mom and I visited museums. We went to the Reina Sofia museum, which is mostly modern art. We spent 2 hours on just 1 floor! There are a lot of Picassos and Dalis there, most importantly the Guernica. Then for an extreme change, we walked across the street to El Prado, which is all old art. It was mostly portraits and religious art, and they all started to look the same to me after a while! For dinner, we went to a really famous Basque restaurant. We were lucky to get seated because we went early (at 9:00pm). They served sooooo much food and it was incredible. One of the dishes you could order was “carne a la piedra” (meat a la rock), where they brought you raw meat and a really hot rock and expected you to cook your own food, causing the entire restaurant to be filled with icky meat smoke. I was not a fan of this part, but I did like the champagne with lemon sorbet and free house plants they gave us after!
The next day, we drove Mom to the airport to see her off. It was a fun, busy trip! There are a ton more details to all those stories, but I have to go pack for Italy! Javi and I are visiting Milan, Florence, and Venice on a “long weekend” (6 days). Let's hope this adventure goes well too!