My walk to school has its own routine, I’ve noticed. What I mean is that every morning my twenty-two minute walk is spiced with nearly the same exact people and events. This is how it goes: I walk down the several flights of stairs in my apartment (I live on the fifth floor), and pry open the far too heavy steel door, and enter the far too busy street. Anyone who knows me knows this: I am NOT a morning person. Thus, having to be at class every day at 9:00 am has been a challenge. However, this morning walk that I take each day helps to alert me, and acts as an alarm clock for my mind, which is the last part of my body to wake up. I love this walk, because it’s becoming a part of me, and each day that I make my way through the plazas and the skinny cobblestone streets, I observe my routine in a different way. Okay, where were we? Oh yeah, we had hardly left the apartment building. I turn left up the street, and pass my favorite pasteleria (bakery), eyeing the chocolate croissants and the sweetbread chocolate beauty in the window. Just past that, a little boy struts towards us with his parents dotingly following him as he gives what seems to be well-prepared speech. Chin at a forty-five degree angle with the ground, he speaks loudly and confidently as his parents listen and applaud his intelligence.
Alright, we’re onto Calle Pincón, and we pass two other pastelerias and my favorite café, El Tren. El Tren serves coffee with all sorts of alcohol, from whiskey, to vodka, to rum. They also have the very best chocolate croissants: heated croissant, and melted chocolate. Clearly, a deadly combination. I was in the café last night, writing in my journal and dipping my deadly combination in my café con leche, when a huge chunk dropped in and splattered my journal with beige. I attempted to casually rescue my croissant from drowning in the overly sweetened coffee (overly sweetened because of the entire packet of sugar that I poured in). I was finding no success with using my fork as lifeboat, so I stuck my hand in and pulled the drowning croissant out of the dark sea of coffee. Hand dripping, journal stained, and half my croissant a soggy mess, I giggle hysterically to myself and continue writing. I might just mention that the workers are very cute, with the strongest Spanish accent I’ve ever heard. Whenever one of them approaches my table and asks me a question or makes a comment my default answer (when I don’t understand) is always a smile, a “Gracias”, and a bat of the lashes. Since most of the time I don’t understand them, they must just think I’m some smiling, thanking, eyelash batting extranjera, incapable of any normal human reaction.
Back to the walk. Past El Tren, there are two primary schools that are less than a block apart. At 8:30 in the morning, the sidewalks are overflowing with parents and children. This trip is the first time I’ve really been immersed in another culture, so I truly enjoy observing the details of daily life in Granada. Each morning I pass a certain family, two sisters (one is about three years older than the other) and a father. I always notice the older sister because she never watches where she’s going, as she happily trudges through the swamp of people on the sidewalks. Her younger sister tries to keep up, both of them dragging suitcase-size backpacks behind them.
Next, we enter Plaza Trinidad where the trees look as scary as those out of Snow White, ready to reach out and snag me by my new bufonda (scarf). There are two kiosks in the plaza; one sells lottery tickets and the other sells bread. Every morning the old lady working at Kiosco Enriqueta (the bread kiosk) looks as though she’s won the lottery of loaves, with stacks and stacks of bread from floor to ceiling. Her hair is as white as the inside of the bread she sells and she looks like someone cut out of the “Ideal Grandmother” magazine. An apron, a perpetual smile, and the most hug-able round body I’ve ever seen. One day, I will buy a loaf of bread from her. And then possibly give her a bear hug, depending on how daring I feel.
Past the Plaza of Scary Trees, I wind through a narrow cobblestone street with stores of every kind. I turn left at “Women’s Secret”, the Spanish version of Victoria’s Secret. There are a lot of stores with the craziest English names, like “Neck”, “Bear and Pull”, and “If”. There is graffiti on the side of Women’s Secret that says “No permitimos las fiestas” or, “We don’t allow parties”. Speaking of graffiti, most of the graffiti in Granada is truly stunning. It is incredible artwork that should be displayed in a museum. There are many depictions of faces splashed across the side of buildings with inconceivable detail. One piece that I pass that reminds me of the girl on the cover of the playbill for “Les Miserables”. At some point, I will have to take a day to walk around the city and capture this art in photos, and then perhaps play curator and post them on my blog.
Past Women’s Secret to Plaza Bib-Rambla. In this plaza one can see the famous Cathedral peaking over the roofs of the buildings. Bib-Rambla is one of the larger plazas, and hosts a mini merry-go-round, a few mimes and of course Orange trees. It seems like all the plazas here have Orange trees. My Señora told me that the plazas are the best in the spring because the air is filled with the sweet smell of orange blossoms. In Sevilla (where I guess there are even more orange trees) there is a song about the smell of oranges in the spring.
Anyway, past oranges and mimes and merry-go-rounds, we head up the narrowest street yet. In this street, you can find my favorite old man in Granada. Every morning without fail, this man comes from the opposite direction clutching a newspaper in his hand and sometimes a coffee in the other. He has a goal and is determined to reach it. But he isn’t walking; it’s more like he’s jogging without straightening his legs. Just imagine that, for a second. Shall we move on?
The traffic light at the end of this street acts like a temporary dam for the pedestrians. We all pile up on the edge of the curb and wait for the light to change. There are always a few people who sneak across in between the roaring buses and Vespas, but most of us wait impatiently on the curb. When the little walking green man appears (his legs move similar to the old man mentioned above), we gush into the street. Walking past an the large fountain, I make my way up another not-as-interesting road and turn left onto a “street” so narrow that I could probably touch both sides at the same time if I stood in the middle. One last turn and I have arrived at El Centro de Lenguas Modernas. We made it, all is well, let the classes begin!