The Fetmans Take Granada Day 3: All done, more travels

Wednesday, June 21

Woke up at around 10am to a loud knock on my door. It was Daddy telling us to hurry up because check-out was at 11. I had completely forgotten that we’d have to check-out! So I had to rush to get ready, pack up, and hence had to skip out on taking a necessary shower. Damn. At 11 we were checked out and stored our baggage in a conference room downstairs. We then called a cab and headed to town. You know, the whole hotel being far away thing really didn’t make much of a difference. It all worked out in the end. We got to Plaza Nueva and headed to a nearby croisantería to get breakfast. This was an intense croisantería because they had all sorts of pastries and empanadas. I got a good ole tuna empanada which wasn’t bad. We ate outside on a bench on the sidewalk. We then wandered around without much else to do. We had already done all there is to do in Granada. We had shopped, explored, gone to the Arab Dsitrict, Alhambra…what else was there? We went to a couple shops on the street and Mom bought a really nice sketch that she had been eyeing for awhile. We were again at a loss for something to do. So we wandered over to the non-Arab area to the main plaza to a café for coffee. Shana fed more pigeons. We went to a bunch of souvenir shops, went to some more Arab shops, and basically just passed the time until lunch. We ate at an eatery with really good service and pretty good food: we got an appetizer of different breads with smoked fish and such on top which was delicious. We all got salads for our main course. I got a shrimp and avocado salad which was pretty good. After lunch we wandered some more, exchanged some money at American Express, I bought an Arab-esque skirt. We wandred some more into the area near the University of Granada. We found an internet café and all went online for a half an hour which was much-needed. I found out that I passed my Art History exam, yayyy! I got a 6, which was lower than I had expected, but whatever, I passed. But the 6 makes me nervous about whether or not I’ll pass Iconografía. I emailed my professor for that class and I still haven’t gotten a response. Yeesh. I also hadn’t heard from Stacey yet which worried me. Anyhoo, we then we went back to Plaza Nueva to see if we could find a mini-van cab (the plan was to take it to the hotel to pick up our bags and then go to the train station). We were early, but we really didn’t have anything else to do. We had exhausted Granada. No big cabs were coming, so I called the cab company and ordered one. I was surprised that it all got communicated so well because we got a perfectly large mini-van with a super nice driver. Yesss. It always makes me happy when I have successful Spanish phone conversations.
We then rode back to the hotel, loaded up the van, and headed to the train station. We had 2 hours to kill at the small train station, so I wandered around, read some Harry Potter, etc. I went up to the information desk to ask some procedural questions (since we were taking and overnight train which was very new to me) and the 60-something-year-old guy behind the desk was flirting with and hitting on me. Yuck. What a weirdo. Did he actually think that he had a chance? I later ran into him near the bathrooms and he held my arm and continued. Uhhhhh, sorry, buddy, but no way. Our train was scheduled to leave at 9:25pm and get into Barcelona at 9:27am. The train pulled up at around 8:45. We were aloud to board, but the air conditioning hadn’t been turned on and it was scorching hot and terribly stuffy. We loaded our luggage and sat outside until about 9:20. There were sketchy people wandering around, and major confusion so we were being super vigilant. We finally boarded, but the air hadn’t been turned on although the conductor told me that they would turn it on at 9. So we sat in our room fanning ourselves like crazy. It was unbearably hot and stuffy. Shana and I were in room 2 and Mom and Daddy in 4. The rooms were small, but nice. Plenty of space to store luggage, the beds were bunked with a staircase that folded out so one could climb to the top bunk (in this case, me). The bunk beds could fold up and become two seats. Daddy did that in his room but then couldn’t get it to convert back into beds, so once the train started moving I had to get someone to fix it for him. Ha. The train didn’t leave until 9:50 which I figure is due to electrical problems since the air didn’t turn on until 9:35. After having our tickets collected and getting completely settled in we all headed to the dining car for dinner. The dining car was an actual dining car! I had never seen anything like this…I mean, it was like an actual restaurant. The waiter even wore a vest and tie. The food on the menu was pretty fancy, too, and overpriced. We all split two pretty good appetizers: a red pepper salad and a caprese salad, but our meals were less-than-spectacular. Shana got spaghetti off the kids’ menu, while the rest of us got the grilled chicken which was bland and dry and came with overcooked vegetables. Ah well, what do ya expect. Shana’s meal came with dessert since it was off of the kids’ menu so she got a pear tart which was alright. After dinner we were exhausted and it was already 11pm, so we went to our rooms to go to sleep. Shana and I stayed up for an hour—Shana listened to Whitney (of course), and I read a couple chapters of Harry Potter. I’m really upset right now because I write this blog on my plane ride home from Europe, and I am aware of the fact that I left that Harry Potter book on the train. I am such an idiot. It sucks because I can’t just go on and read the 4th, which I have with me, because I just can’t. And it was just starting to get good. And it wasn’t even my book, it was Evan’s. Ugh, I feel terrible about that. But I digress. I read Harry then was asleep by 1am. My sleep was pretty good considering the circumstances (sleeping in a hard bunk bed on a moving train). I woke up a few times due to when the train would stop periodically and the stuffiness of our room, but for the most part I slept pretty deeply. No complaints. So I experienced my first overnight sleeper car train ride across Europe. It was pretty fun! I actually enjoyed it. Hehe, I’m a dork. Next stop on the Fetman Spanish whirlwind tour: Barcelona.