Here we stand at the end of all things

I thought I might pretend that I had been keeping up on the blog and post three updates about Avignon, the Alps, and Rome; hoping you would think that I’ve been matching your enthusiasm for reading with mine for writing. However, the truth is that I am sitting in the kitchen of our last hostel in London and this is the first chance I have had to use a computer this week. The last week of this trip was quite the whirlwind tour. Starting with a few days of rest in Avignon, then a race up, down, and trough the Alps, a very late (early) night in Rome, the Vatican, seeing the rest of Rome in one day, and finally a flight to London which put us in our hostel around four in the morning. Like the rest of this trip, there was a lot of taking the good with the bad, and like the rest of this trip the good won out in the end. If I had to do it all again, all the stress, all the planes and busses, and all the sleeplessness I would. Below you will find photos from the last week, keep checking back in the next few days as we will probably write a few more blogs after we get home. See you all soon.

Rome in Photos

Avignon and the Alps in Photos

Almost homeless in Rome

Two in the morning, lost, and tired. No one wanted to say it but everyone was thinking it “this is like Paris all over again”. We departed Chamonix early to ensure that we would arrive on time at our apartment in Rome.  Everything was going smoothly until Brig where our train was delayed. By the time we reached Milan we could not catch a train that would get us to Rome before dark. The train from Milan to Rome was further delayed placing us in Rome in the dead of night. At one in the morning we arrived in the Trastevere neighborhood and started looking for the apartment. We were using directions that I had written from Google Earth but it was getting us nowhere. Finally Ben and I headed into downtown Rome to find an internet café or an adaptor for the laptop because Italy is on different plugs than the rest of Europe. Around seven we found an adaptor and wifi and wrote down new directions. These directions proved to be as useless as the first making us wander aimlessly around some very steep hills. I trekked back into Rome (I think I saw the entire city in one night) and found the correct directions in an old email. We tiredly trudged across Rome one more time arriving 12 hours late but glad for a bed.

Granada in Photos

On the Road Again

The Long Awaited Off the Grid Photos

Walkabout

By Isaiah Brookshire

Granada, Spain (LF)—I have just returned from a hike through Albayzin, the Moorish district of Granada. I began my trek from the top of Alhambra down a cobblestone lane so steep and so slick that the brave mountain bikers who attempted to descend it couldn’t use their breaks. The lane flanked the north eastern wall of the Alhambra, blood red in the sinking sun. I continued down through the Sultan’s gardens and into a modern neighborhood.  Sounds of life reached my ears, a family eating dinner, a mother scolding her child. I reached the Darro River; this was the bottom of the valley separating Alhambra from Albayzin. Now the real hike lay before me. The lanes are so narrow in some sections of Albayzin, when minibuses pass you have to press, face first, against the wall and hope that your camera bag doesn’t catch one of their mirrors. I arrived at San Nicolas church sweaty but satisfied in my climb. San Nicolas graces the top of Albayzin looking over the Alhambra and the center of Granada.  San Nicolas has long been a popular spot for lovers and even US presidents to watch the sun set.  It is always best and most crowded right as the sun is dropping behind Albayzin, gracing the Alhambra with a last few rays of light before dusk. I sat, legs dangling precariously over the road below watching the crowd and soaking in my last night in Granada. The square in font of San Nicolas was filled with tourists, hippies, and old men. Every now and then someone would burst into impromptu Flamenco adding even more magic to the night.  After dark had fallen and the crowds dispersed I headed in the general direction of our hotel. I walked down wide lanes and dark allies all the while hoping I had not wandered into the Gypsy district of Sacromonte. I finally came to a narrow stair case, on one side was a condemned building on the other a heavily graffitied wall.  I hade made up my mind to turn around if the next street failed to be more promising.  As I walked the sound of Flamenco reached my ears once again. A few more steps and I burst onto a street thick with smells of Moroccan food and hookah.  I could not help but feel like some adventure reaching an oasis in the desert.  From there it was a simple matter reaching the hotel and heading up to the room with another lifelong memory.

Granada

By Luke Hawkins

Granada, Spain (LF) — Take me back to Granada. As my pipe smoke curled and swayed in the half breeze above Plaza del Carmen, I stood staring from our balcony at the cathedral lit in the distance, listening as an accordion player paced the alley next to our hotel. The sound of moped exhaust and clanking tapas bars blended with animated Spanish voices. We’re leaving Granada tomorrow, and I’m already missing it.

 

I understand why my mom fell in love with this place years ago. I understand how it could become one of those oddly familiar memories that lodges itself in the back of your brain. I could love this place for its narrow streets cast in detailed stone work, its walls and alleys artfully lined with evocative graffiti, its kebab shops, and its unrestricted moped daredevils. And I could love this place for its romance – the flamenco foot stomp and the mother pushing her son in a stroller through the plaza at midnight.

 

Granada stays up late. The city starts breathing heavy after ten o’ clock, with tapas joints filling up and benches being claimed by elderly couples jockeying for prime position in front of the one of the city’s many fountains. It’s at night when this place starts to sound like it looks – when the old Spanish architecture, touching old Moorish tradition, blends in the hot moonlight with flamenco guitar, winding accordion melody, and occasional lamenting vocals of one of the saints of Granada, soaring above everything, aided by Spanish wine and the flavor of age. With this swaying sound, Granada moves under the moonlight.

 

Some cities move fast. They run at such a break neck speed that there’s no time for faces or names. In Granada, it’s a different kind of fast. It’s like a racing pulse. It’s like a dance that stays hot and locked in ten steps. It moves and it blurs, but it keeps the music; it honors people. It is a speed that is utterly human. Even the heat here is human – you can watch the local people walking down the main street at noon with glistening foreheads from the direct Spanish sun, and you can sense some esoteric vibration that links them to one another.

 

During our three days in Granada, we played the part of witnesses, with ice cream or kebab in hand, we sat and stared as the city carried on its work. African immigrants hawking sunglasses and Lacoste polos on the sidewalks blurred with the Turkish Kebab shop employees and homeless men sitting shirtless on park benches. The Alhambra in all its detailed glory – boasting Arabic carvings with 9000 praises to Ala, hundreds of chambers with thousands of years of history, fountains, marble, domed ceilings, geometrically stunning gardens, and the terraced houses, sitting stacked on the surrounding hills – it amazed us, enveloped us, and because it was massive, made us thoroughly tired. And near the Alhambra, the narrow Spanish alley-ways melted into the Moorish neighborhood, called the Albayzin, standing as a testament to the historical interplay between Catholicism and Islam. We came into this place from a completely different world, at a completely different pace. The more we saw of Granada, the more we loved it. I think we’ll miss this place.

 

The Healing Power of Music

By Isaiah Brookshire

Granada, Spain (LF) — I don’t think that I have hidden the fact that Paris was not my favorite place on earth. I had fun seeing the Eiffel Tower and the Seine but other than that it was stressful and trying. After we dropped Caleb off at Charles de Gaulle Airpot Luke and I were heading back into the city on the metro. A woman in her late 50’s or early 60’s walked up to the door a few seats in front of me. She announced in French that she was going to sing and she appreciated our attention. She began to sing a haunting melody in Arabic. Her voice was remarkably good, and the song so powerfully I could not help but feel calm. After she finished, she walked around the train with a paper cup collecting tips, I gave her two euro because she had done a great service of healing Paris for me. From that moment on I no longer felt the stress that had been associated with getting people to the right train or plane, I just felt happy.