Sunday, April 19 - Granada

My birthday.  The celebrations happened all weekend long.  Thank you dear American friends for all of the goodies you gave me on Friday and the beautiful cards.

On Saturday my kids made and gave me beautiful cards.

On Sunday morning, as we were getting ready, Devon was playing hair dresser (hair salon) with Scott.  The boys had all recently had their hair cut at a local barber.  Scott's draped in Devon's blanket.  Devon then used his monkey as the razor and made great buzzing noises.

Meanwhile, Cody ate breakfast #1, Froot Loops, at the dining room table.

And Rosa wasn't quite ready to wake up, so she hid under blankets on the bottom bunk in the bunkbed room.

Per everyone's request, we headed back to the corner bakery, Helados Nordwik, for breakfast.  Yum!  It was good we got there when we did, because we found a table before it became standing room only.  

Here's a view of the bakery from across the street.  The awnings at both corners are for the bakery.  We sat outside by where the person in the red shirt is sitting.  To the right is a churros stand.  Many of the people ate churros for breakfast.

We started walking around and loved seeing the La Rosa ice cream store.  We see Rosa's name a lot here.  It always makes us smile.  One of Rosa's classmates asked me why her name is Spanish and the boys' names are English.  That also made me smile.  

This statue is on top of a building in the plaza where we'd picked up the bus the previous day to go to La Alhambra.

Just behind the plaza is this old building.  I'm not sure what it is, but we peeked into the courtyard.

Here's the roof and the upper wall in the passageway into the building's courtyard.

And then the search began.  We were looking for Casa Sefardi, a Jewish museum/house in Granada.  We had the address programmed into Scott's phone/map.  But, as we got near, it said we were there, yet we weren't.  There are all sorts of hills, so while we were close, it didn't account for the amazing maze of streets.

It turns out that we accidentally headed up Cuesta Berrocal rather than Placeta Berrocal (just a few steps away).  If we'd headed up the correct street, we would have seen the signs to the muesum rather than tour around for 30 minutes or so lost.

The kids were playing a game where the arms were in the main parts of their jackets rather than their sleeves.  And Cody took it to another level by having his jacket on backwards.

Here we are on top of one of the hills trying to find the museum.  Just next to us is where the Jewish people washed their clothes back when they lived in this neighborhood.

At last we found the museum.  We rang the bell and were greeted by a wonderful host/guide.

Mezuzah on the door

View up the hill from the house

Doorstep

Ready to enter

A view of the street name for the street we should have taken.

The museum tour was magical.  Our guide and his family live upstairs.  There are currently 5 Jewish families in Granada.  They travel 1-1.5 hours each week to another town to get kosher food.

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the museum.

We saw tons of current Jewish artifacts and very old artifacts, such as the jewelled breast plate of a Jewish priest.  The Jews moved to Spain after the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem.  While I remember the Spanish inquisition of 1492 expelled Jews from Spain, I didn't remember that there had been earlier troubles.  The Jews had actually lived in what's referred to as the old Arab neighborhood (El Albaicin) at first (peacefully with the Arabs), before an expulsion hundreds of years before 1492.  This muesum is in what's now referred to as the old Jewish neighborhood, El Realejo.  I'll try and remember more, but what I do remember most is the warm welcome and guide and pride our tour guide (dressed with a kippa and tzittzit) gave us as he walked us around and shared history, the letter a Jewish leader wrote to the King and Queen asking why they were being expelled in 1492, the 5 Jewish scholars of the Granadan golden age, and current happenings and pictures of his wife and daughter making challah, and the chuppah he and his wife had recently made, and the Sephardic music, and the brief film about Shabbat, and the seder plates, and other handiworks that he and his family have made.  As we left, we had the chance to meet his charming wife.  What an experience.

The kids all picked out something to buy at the gift shop.  This necklace is what Rosa chose.

This notebook is what Cody chose.

Around the corner is a statue of one of the Jews from the golden age.

Afterwards we walked by Plaza Nueva.

And saw this sign.  It cracked me up.  Notice that it's in English and not Spanish.

We walked across the river (Rio Darro) into the old Arab neighborhood (El Albaicin).  While this may appear to be a pedestrian-only street, like so many other pedestrian-only streets and sidewalks we've encountered in Spain, there were tour busses travelling along.

As we wandered around, we came across yet another Casa Sephardi.  This is more of a museum.  We didn't have time to explore it.

Here's a view of the Alhambra from below.

We started walking up the streets and enjoying the scenery.

As we went along, we started seeing signs for El Trillo restaurant.  Each sign shared how many meters to go.  This intrigued us and we continued climbing in search of the restaurant.  

When we go there, we were greeted by a garden oasis.  This was the obvious place for my birthday lunch.

We were treated to salmorejo to start.  In Granada, it seems that most restaurants give a free tapa with any drink order.  Then we had grilled veggies and different meat dishes.

This is the fish dish.

The veal dish.

Another picture of La Rosa ice cream shop - with a picture of a rose.  Rosa is Spanish for both rose and the color pink.

After lunch, we headed back to the apartment via the bakery.  The kids and Scott picked out two pieces of cake for my birthday.  Back at the apartment we enjoyed the cake, skyped with my parents, packed up, and hit the road.

Here's a picture of the railroad bridge being built, a view from the other side.

We could have stayed for many more days in Granada and still not have seen everything we'd have wanted to see.  It's a beautiful city, though so different from Sevilla.  If we return, we plan to take advantage of the hop on / hop off tourist bus.

When we got home, our American friends came over to drop off their Feria dresses.  They were about to pack up their apartment and head to Madrid for a few days, and there was no need to carry the dresses and get them more wrinkly.  We were super excited to meet Eric.

We had noodles for dinner at the apartment and went to bed early.