QuinnRoads

A SHORT WALK IN THE ALBAICÍN

Where One Discovery Leads to Another

There aren’t many walks in our neighborhood that don’t require either walking down the hill to Granada proper or up the hill along the highway. Neither prospect is overly appealing in the summer heat. Some days, when we feel like a pleasant stroll but don’t feel like walking down the hill — which we do five or six times a week — we wander from plaza to plaza. That’s pleasant enough, though the walk is relatively short.
We’d been living in the Albaicín for several months when we discovered a pleasant alternative, a walk that took us to the Sacromonte. The Sacromonte neighborhood is famous for its cave houses, gypsy residents and Flamenco clubs. From our house the walk zigs and zags through narrow, pedestrian lanes, gently climbs along a narrow street until the street becomes too narrow for cars, then continues on as a cobbled, sidewalk used by both pedestrians and motorcycles. On the left are the cuevas, the cave houses of the upper Sacromonte. There are a few small, hillside-clinging houses on the right, except where the hill is too steep; then there is just a low wall. Over the wall you can look down on the rooftops, back towards the Albaicín or over the river valley to the Alhambra. Although we’ve done this walk a number of times now, there’s one place where we always stop to take it all in. As we continue, the hillside becomes steeper, and the rooftops are further and further down the hill.
At one point, just before it curves sharply left, the walkway widens, and there is a lookout, with two trees and several small benches. The view is spectacular: the steep hillside, rooftops and narrow, riverside road below; the Sierra Nevada in the distance, the Alhambra stretched along the hilltop across the valley; and downtown Granada and the Cathedral in the distance.
An enterprising couple, who live in a small cave house facing the lookout, have taken advantage of the site by creating their own cafe there. The cafe, which doesn’t have a name, consists of a short bar across their front door, three tables, 12 chairs and an umbrella placed to supplement the shade of the two trees. From their front room they serve bottled beer, wine and soft drinks, sandwiches and what the lady calls tapatitos. If you arrive early, before they’ve had time to prepare anything, the tapa might be a plate of potato chips. Otherwise, it could be a slice of chorizo on a slice of bread or a small ham sandwich. Once it was a small plate of tomato wedges sprinkled with minced garlic and salt. It was delicious. A beer and tapa cost €1.20, about $1.45. The couple, who are gypsies, are very friendly, as is their puppy, which is given to licking your toes while you’re sitting at a table.
The walk to the café takes about fifteen minutes, making it the perfect destination for a short walk. Occasionally we go on beyond the café and stop on our return. We do it about once a week, before lunch, when we feel like stretching our legs a bit, or in the late afternoon when we want to make the short walk to the market a little longer.
One recent afternoon, while we were sitting in the cafe taking in the view over a cold beer, the proprietor, who usually plays Flamenco music, put on something entirely different. It was rowdy, rollicking and raucous, like drunken circus music, reminiscent of the music Nina Rota wrote for Felini movies. The language sounded like Spanish; the instruments were guitars, trumpet, piano and accordion. Wow! What was that?
So I asked the proprietor what he was playing. He and a buddy, who was drinking a beer at the “bar,” tried to explain to us that the group was Catalan and French. And the group’s name? Bunbury. Freak Show, said the other. Bunbury? Freak Show?
I asked if we could see the cover. Sure enough, the group was called Bunbury and the album Freak Show. The cover was not in a jewel case but a thin, plastic sleeve, the type sold by the bootleg marketeers on the sidewalks. Which is where he told us he bought it.
The main pedestrian streets of downtown Granada are lined with what I call “tarp shops” because they consists of a piece of material or tarp strategically placed to block the most traffic. The most common “tarp shop,” always run by young African men, sells pirated copies of the latest CDs and DVDs. When I say latest, I mean the movie is playing in the local theater; sometimes it hadn’t even opened yet. Mr. and Mrs. Smith has been sold on the sidewalks for weeks here. CDs sell for €3, DVDs for €10-12. Not long ago the government announced a crack down, but we’ve seen little evidence of it. When the police do wander by, the tarps are quickly rolled up and stuffed in plastic shopping bags.
These young men also roam the cafés with handfuls of CDs and DVDs. If you spend more than 20 minutes in a cafe, inside or out, you can depend on being approached. They are never intrusive; they simply hold out a stack of CDs, and if you’re interested, they’ll show you what they have. Shake your head no and they pass on.
Now as it so happens, our neighborhood recently acquired a tarp shop, it’s one and only. I guess we don’t have enough shoppers to justify more. This young man spreads his tarp on Calle Agua, the pedestrian street that leads to the cafés and marketplace on nearby Plaza Larga. He’s there every day from late morning till mid-afternoon. Although we’ve never bought anything from him, Kay says hello every time she goes by and he always returns her greeting with a smile. We’d looked over his wares once or twice but never seen anything interesting. Most of the tarp shops sell recent hits and popular groups.
We decided to check him out. CDs are very expensive here, €18-20, more than $20, and we weren’t going to pay that much for music we’d heard only three or four tracks of. So the next day we looked his stock over. He asked what we were looking for and Kay told him. He nodded, then took out a small notebook and wrote it down.
“Mañana,” he said.
“Mañana?”
He nodded and smiled.
So the next day we walked down. As soon as he saw Kay, he reached into his bag and whipped out a copy of Freak Show. €3.
The music really is fun. The first track, which we hadn’t heard at the café, is a Nina Rota piece.
Discovering a new walk led to the discovery of a cafe, which lead to the discovery of some fun music, and then to the discovery that our local pirate took orders.
I wonder if he delivers.

We INTERUPT THIS DOLDRUM . . .

Sometimes a Little Excitement Goes a Long Way

(This entry makes more sense if read after the previous entry)

As I said in the blog of only two days ago, we find ourselves wallowing in the summer doldrums. Nothing happening. No guests. No trips. Too hot to dance. But night before last, our boredom was interrupted for thirty minutes, twenty-nine of which were most unpleasant, the thirtieth . . .
When the weather is comparably mild, as it has been the last two days, we enjoy having dinner by the open doors to the balcony. We open the doors wide and pull the table to the sill. This is not a particularly Spanish thing to do; in fact we’ve never seen anyone do it. We eat dinner around nine, at which time there is a steady stream of pedestrians heading into the Albaicín to enjoy tapas or dinner in one of the many outdoor cafes. Going out for a night on the town in the Albaicín is like going to North Beach or Sausalito. Because only residents and commercial vehicles are allowed to enter the Albaicín during the early evening, people park in nearby lots and streets and walk in along our street. It is absolutely great people watching.
So there we were, about 9:30, our meal almost finished, when the burgular alarm on the house across the plaza went off. This is not the first time the alarm has gone off, it had happened several times while they were installing it. From our balcony, we could see over a high wall and courtyard, as the downstairs of the house was transformed from a garage into a large living room.
This burgular alarm is very, very loud, It was not the clanging of a bell, like a fire alarm, but more like the bleap, bleap of a air horn. It was a terrible sound and could surely be heard for a quarter mile or more. But nothing happened. Pedestrians continued on their way. The bench sitters in the plaza continued to sit. People did not rush out from nearby nor adjoining houses, waving their arms in indignation. The police did not arrive. Other than the flashing light that accompanied the piercing alarm, the house itself was still.
We could hardly hear our own music. After ten minutes, our meal finished, we pulled the table back and closed the doors. How long could this go on? What if the occupants of the house were on vacation and the alarm continued into the night? Why weren’t the police here? Why didn’t the alarm shut off automatically; if there had been burgulars, they would have emptied the house long ago and by now be enjoying a cold beer in another town.
The only business open at this time of night around the plaza is the cafe-bar across the street. One of the café regulars is a man we call the telephone man. He is on the street, cell phone in hand, from just after seven, when the cafe downstairs opens, till evening. Every call is conducted in the street, presumably as a courtesy to the customers of the cafe he’s taking his coffee in. He speaks very loudly and dramatically, waving his arms around and pacing up and down the sidewalk and into the plaza. We would love to know what business he’s conducting. It can’t be illegal, because 500 people would be knowledgeable of every detail of every call.
After the alarm had been sounding for about 15 minutes, telephone man came out into the street and gazed at the house. Something, he seemed to realize, was not right. He pulled out his phone and began making calls. We hopped that he was calling the police. After a few minutes, he jumped on this motorcycle, the primary means of transport up here, and took off. Within minutes, he returned, opened the doors of the courtyard and was soon in the house. He was soon joined by another denizen of the cafe. We had now adjourned to the balcony in the guest room to see what was going to happen. We were giddy with anticipation.
After a few minutes, another man appeared down the narrow street with an extension ladder. The men leaned the latter against the wall and telephone man climbed quickly to the alarm and removed the cover. He looked at it, then climbed half way down, where he was given a tool. Back up he went and Presto! Silence. We, along with a half dozen people in the park, applauded and cheered with enthusiasm. Two men walking just below looked up.
“Treinta minutos,” Kay explained to them, pointing at the house.
“Ah,” they shook their heads in understanding. “Treinta minutos.”
We then watched as telephone man removed the ladder, turned the lights off, closed the doors to the courtyard, and rode away on his motorcycle.
We, practically weak with excitement, retired to the salon to discuss the miraculous events.
We are desparately in need of some action.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE?

Adrift in the Summer Doldrums

One of the challenges of retirement, perhaps the major challenge, is filling the day. You get up in the morning looking at sixteen hours, each one waiting for you to decide what to do with it. Even if you sleep in or take a siesta, you’re still looking at fifteen. I think most people have some ideas of what they’re going to do after they retire: volunteering, working in the garden, golfing, traveling, taking classes, practicing piano, reading, surfing the net, walking with friends, lunching with friends, whatever.
Taking the retirement show on the road, particularly to another country, and most particularly if you move to a non-English-speaking country, presents a whole new set of challenges. The above list, specially if one doesn’t play golf or the piano, shrinks quickly.
Until a few weeks ago, the first of August to be exact, when our last guest left, this has not been a problem. We’ve always had more than enough to do. Simply not having a car and refusing to multitask fills an extra hour or two each day. But now, 22 months and 50 fun- and adventure-filled blogs since our arrival in Granada, our retirement cruise has slipped into the doldrums. The sails are slack. We are, for the first time, adrift in the stagnant waters of ennui.
So what happened?
During our first five months in Granada, we explored the city, outfitted our apartment, took trips, attended Spanish classes and sampled the tapas.
During the next three months, we experienced the festivals - Semana Santa, Dia de la Cruz and Corpus Cristi - and entertained five sets of guests. We spent June and July in the states.
We moved immediately upon returning to Granada, which led to more exploring and more sampling. We visited Madrid, traveled to Italy and in December we entertained new acquaintances. Our explorations of the city continued through the winter, and in March we made our second visit to the states.
April and early May were festival time again. In May we reopened the Hotel Quinn, hosting five sets of guests in nine weeks.
Then came August and the departure of our last guest. It’s hot. Most days are at least 95 F., many one hundred plus. Any thing under 90 is like a breath of fresh air. When I get up, around seven or so, the temperature of the terrace is in the 70s. As I’ve said before, 100 F. in Granada is more comfortable than 85 in North Carolina. But that still doesn’t make a long afternoon walk a particularly attractive option. Having a beer and a tapa - even under an umbrella - is not that appealing when it’s 95.
So we run errands and walk in the morning and try to be back home by one. We eat lunch. We now have nine hours to fill.
Air conditioned movie? All movies are dubbed. Stroll around the mall? Well, there is one mall on the outskirts of town; it’s a long hot walk there and it’s pretty horrible. Go to the library? Don’t read Spanish.
There is music to be heard in the evenings, and we’ve done a bit of that. The concerts usually begin at 10:30, when the temperature has, one hopes, dropped below 90.
Fleeing the city for the beach or the mountains would be nice, except that August is the peak month of the high season, and rates are doubled if you can get a room. We have planned a train trip to the north and northwest of Spain for early September, and we look forward to it like kids for Christmas.
So how do we fill our nine hours? We read (thanks to those who sent or left books and magazines). We take cool bathes and cold showers. We listen to music or rent a DVD. Cooking is minimized because the kitchen becomes a sauna. We watch an hour of two a week of TV. No matter how low you drop your standards, and mine have plummeted, 95 percent of Spanish television still falls below the mark. I found that watching a western starring Charles Bronson, even in Spanish (it was probably shot in Spain) to be far more enjoyable than I could ever have imagined. Some evenings, when there’s a breeze, we go up on the terrace with a gin and tonic and listen to music and the sounds of the city.
These doldrums shall end with our September train trip. After that we travel to the states, and when we return the summer heat will be long gone. We’ll resume our long, tapa-punctuated afternoon walks, have lunch on the terrace, take short bus trips or even hikes to nearby towns. Kay will resume preparing elaborate dinners and we’ll entertain. We’re planning at least two more long trips trips before next June. We hope for more guests.
In the mean time, we remind each other that we’ll never spend another summer in Granada.
Trouble in paradise? Not really. But the natives are restless.