The day did not start off the best; we woke up at 7AM, as we had done each day of the trip, and decided to try a Spanish cafe before heading to the coach station - the food itself was nice but I somehow forget the Spanish definition of customer service and punctuality is different from the British idea. As a result, breakfast took much longer than anticipated and we had to rush to the coach station, which was a 20 minute walk away. Whilst we arrived at the station in time to catch the bus, there was only a single seat available which caused us to wait an extra 40 minutes for the next one which had no seats together but at least it took us both to Granada. Once the bus arrived, we took our place in a long queue of animated Spaniards and pretended we belonged there. The next two hours weren't the most comfortable as individually, we were next to people we couldn't understand in a country we were unfamiliar with and the bus route went along las sierras, which meant we were being driven along narrow and twisted mountain paths on a coach. Needless to say, this experience is was the catalyst for getting my driving license.
Arriving in Granada, a sudden realisation hit us both: what do we do now? This was not an easy question to answer, and thus, led to walking around the city in order to find the main part with all the interesting shops and beautiful sights. Now, due to my inability to walk past a bookshop, we ended up a little sidetracked after taking photos in the Parque Federico García Lorca by a few bookshops which then led us to walking around aimlessly until we saw a signpost for Alhambra and decided to try and find it using the signs around the city. This turned out to be the best thing for us to do, as it enabled us to see the city whilst having a goal in mind and made the adventure more comfortable. Once we got to the bottom of Alhambra I excitedly started running up the hill whilst my friend just walked. Upon reaching the top, we got some beautiful views of the city, although that was all we got due to Alhambra being closed at the time. We decided to call it a success anyway, until we reached the bottom of the hill again. My friend rushed to the bottom this time, which ended up being a bad decision due to both his inability to speak Spanish, and attraction of pan-handlers to popular tourist spots. When I reached him, he was trying to get away from an elder Spanish woman who was speaking quickly in Spanish about blessing him and his family before handing him lavender and asking for money.
For safety, we decided the best idea was to walk back to the coach station after this to make sure we were able to get the earlier coach due to there being 4 hours between that and the next. The rest of the time in Granada was rather uneventful as we walked through side-streets for fun and talked about my friend being scammed out of nowhere. Though, I do remember hearing a really interesting series of conversations while waiting on the coach; there was a Dutch, University of Granada professor speaking to someone on his phone in Spanish to a colleague, before then taking another call in English from someone in The UK about a student's admission status being blocked by lack of funding due to Brexit, and listening to a Dutch man in Spain speaking English to someone in the UK whilst making sarcastic comments about Brexit is a hilarious event to witness.
If you'd like to see what to do in Granada, then this video has you covered;
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