The Frogmarch

"I've got to pull up my stakes and roll, man." --Jean-Jacques Libris de Kerouac

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Postcard from the Road: Granada

Dear You:

It is warm here in the afternoon, when the sun inches above the Moorish city wall and down into our tiled courtyard, where a solitary lemon tree shades the neighbor's cats and a table and chairs. A 1.5L bottle of sangria costs 79 cents. In the arch of the Puerta Nueva a lone busker with guitar bashes artlessly through freedom-rock classics (don't like CCR? That's just, like, your opinion, man) but two blocks away two flamenco players work intricately on the Mirador San Nicolas, where a simple but crowded cafe overlooks the sprawl and towers of the Alhambra, with the snowcapped Sierra Nevada behind. The wide plaza--a stone dome over a font indicating that, like many other places here, the church was built onto a former mosque--is full of hippies selling homemade jewelry and assorted other hippie crap, plus old men leaning on canes and tourists snapping photos.

If I had remembered to bring a USB cable for my camera I could show you. But I didn't.

Today we leave Granada for the coast, a wide spot in the beach road called Puerto Cabopino. Did I mention that it is Christmas Day? Feliz Navidad, y'all, wish you were here...

XOXOXO (3 bisous not 2)

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Piping-Hot Fete Des Lumieres Video

...taken last night by V., as I was at home with Tater nursing an ear infection (his, not mine). The Fete (which I blogged about last year, with pics) is going on until Sunday, so if you leave now you might make it before the end. This year in Place Bellecour, they've turned the emblematic Louis XIV equestrian statue into a giant souvenir snow dome, like the ones you can buy in chintzy tourist shops in Vieux Lyon.