All posts tagged: spain

Mad for MAD

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Prime people watching in Retiro park. Apparently it is illegal for people to go shirtless in the city, but I didn’t see any arrests out in the lake. Ah, España. You and your tapas and late bedtimes. Last weekend I popped into Madrid for a few days to catch up with a friend from school and unexpectedly also indulge in some solid brunch. Let me tell you, the neighborhood to be is Malasaña. Street art, coffee, more coffee and boutiques tucked in here and there. If you can deal with expats of the Instagramming and gossiping variety, a few places I would recommend for a java jolt in this hood are: Toma Café. Major props for the witty postcards, the cold brew and the ’90s pop playlist they had goin’ on. Federal. Aussie inspired. Flat whites and vegan smoothies galore. Beware people at the communal table stealing your avocado toast (true story). La Bicicleta. A real coffee shop, like the laptop/work kind of place. A wonderful mixture of couches and segregated seating for people who want to type …

Andalucia Part 2: Granada

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Gorgeous doors and mosaics abound in Palacio Nazaries within the Alhambra.  Granada is only about a 3 hour drive from Sevilla (together with Cordoba they form a little triangle) so we cruised on over there for a few more days of Mudejar style buildings and tapas. The most interesting thing to me about the Alcazar in Sevilla, the Mezquita/Catedral in Cordoba and also the Alhambra in Granada is how much the Christian rulers kept of the Moorish style architecture when they rose to power. We saw several rooms inside the Alhambra where Arabic script reading “there is no God besides Allah” still lined the walls…and where Christians held regular masses. Either they didn’t know what was going on or they were just exceptionally tolerant. Regardless, they left beautiful rooms and courtyards like this one intact for visitors like me to see today. How nice of them. Granada is an interesting city in the sense that the Alhambra is up on a hill (it was a palace/fortress, after all), the “downtown” is one big boulevard and then …

Semana Santa in Sevilla

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First bullfight of 2015. Apparently the hashtag was #tardedetoros. More below. Gotta love predominantly Catholic countries for giving you a week off from school. When I was in Argentina, I also enjoyed a week off for Semana Santa, or Holy Week. In that case, it was also a non-spring “Spring Break” given that I was living in the Southern Hemisphere. But I digress. I have been itching to get over to Andalucía ever especially since visiting Morocco back in November. From mosaics to the doors to the Arabic script to the courtyards to the overall Mudejar style…something just fascinates me. Mostly the geometry and the colors more than anything. My parents and I arrived in Sevilla on Friday evening–just in time to catch one of the evening processions. Over the course of the week, more than 60 floats organized by local brotherhoods pass through the streets. Some weigh more than a couple of tons and they are carried by teams of guys who train for several months late at night. I didn’t remember enough from my Sunday school days to …