Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Albaicin: The Barrio of the Baeza People

The visit to Granada was great. The visit to Granada was the best. The visit to Granada was wonderful.
Spanish kindness in the form of Balien, showing us a good time.
 
Honestly that about sums up my feelings on the subject of my Visit to Granada.
Leaving the very homogenous atmosphere of Jaen and being transplanted to the mutli-cultural, alternative everyday life of Granada was just what the doctor order. Just as I was wondering when the homesickness would exit through the gift shop or when I just knew that the next Spaniard to comment negatively about my hair while tisking loudly about the color of my skin was going to be my prompt ticket home byway of the Civil Guard we took a little trip to Granada.
I bought no souvenirs, I didn´t make a life long connection with anyone I met at the hostel, and my visit to The Alhambra was regulated to the areas that dealt with King Charles. But who cares, I could not have planned a better trip.
I did meet some pretty great people at the Hostel, Makuto, whose travels across Spain seemed to be going quite well. I also meet this sweet little couple who in two weeks had traveled to 6 places and had 5 more to do before the end of the week. I was able to watch the sunset at The Miradora San Nicolas. There were so many street artist whose talent and skills went far beyond the norm idea for how objects, metals, images should be represented.
Then as the strawberry covered in chocolate topping  (I´m allergic to cherries) I attended the best guided tour anyone could experience. I signed up Thursday night for a Special Interest tour on the subject of King Charles and is impact on the Alhambra as well as the city of Granada. My tour guide graduate from university with a degree in Tourism and a master in History, focus on the development of Granada.
 The tour was on Sunday, it was in English and I was the only person to sign-up. It was more like a conversation focused on the Alhambra, past Kings and Queens, the Moor cultural impact on Spain and the history of Granada. I was able to see rooms and locations that I didn´t even know existed. My tour guide was obviously passionate about the subject and I´m even planning on attending a Wednesday night tour he guides about the roles of women in the growth of the city of Granada.
 
Alhambra at Sunset from the Miradora San Nicolas

Miradora San Nicolas midday from the Alhambra

View of the grounds from the Queens room.
On our first afternoon in Granada we ate at this little café called Cuatros Gatos and this college girl explained that while the city was great upon first arrival it could definitely get old after awhile. My plan is to visit often enough that it does get old- that we become old friends, with old haunts, and old memories that will last a lifetime.
Have you every visited Granada, please share your adventures and if not, is this somewhere you'd be interested to visit?
Until next time, Adios, Hasta Pronto, Be Blessed . . .
 
The Ladies and I enjoying the views!
 

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Music For the Road

The other day someone mentioned being able to connect to Spotify and listen to their tunes from home. This then divulged into a lengthy conversation of all the memories attached to music- the songs we love, the songs we dance to, the songs we hate, but can sing along to perfectly. And often the songs we find ourselves too emotional for words while listening to every syllable as if it is our last connection to the dust in the corners of our homes that we forget about until we move never to return.


What you don't wear your gafas to concerts, trust me the last thing I needed to worry about was taking out contacts come bedtime.
That last set of songs are the ones you start craving when all comforts have been exchanged for adventure, suitcases and a new face around every corner. Once you install your Tunnel Bear or find Hola Unlock and can access the joy that is your digital collection of music from the first time you were listening to a song and then stopped to really listen. Then replayed the song again trying to figure out what was different that time around, but you can never have that moment back. You can only have the memory- which is great for times in your live when memories are all you can really carry because of the time difference, or faulty technology, or no privacy to really just hold a conversation with your "talk for hours without a second thought" person.

While, I'm definitely excited to have all of my Spotify playlist and the playlist of my friends back in my life, for some reason I keep returning to the same artist over and over. Listening to his select few songs and enjoying the memories.

While the rumors are true and this is possibly one of the hardest working musicians in Texas, people enjoy him because he's got stories and he likes to tell them through his music and while he's knocking back that "on the house" shot in between songs.

The majority of my readers will have never heard of him, he's no Prince style musical innovator or JT making women of all ages swoon, but if I was to hear his voice playing over a speaker anywhere in the world I would stop and listen. Then stay a little while afterwards to savor the richness of everything he put into that one song. If you are located in Texas go to his website, find the closest show to you ( any driving under 10 hours will be worth the night) and have a good time!
Ladies and Gentleman without further, lengthy introduction I present to you Mr. Josh Weathers:
Mr. Weathers feelin' good. @Jeff Prince fwweekly.com
It was a good night, er day. @damoonman.wordpress.com

 
I hope you clicked on those links and didn't pull the whole, "what I have to follow a link" technology baby pout. If you did sad day, you missed out. If you didn't have a great day humming those tunes!

Until next time, Adios, Hasta Pronto, Be Blessed . . .