We got Older Son on the shuttle to the airport (back to school for him!). We then ordered an Uber to Atocha train station. I won’t really say much about Seville for now, we come back to it in a few days. There was this one thing though…
We’d reserved a car from the Hertz Atocha location. We were chagrined and irritated to find there is no Hertz desk at the Atocha train station. The Hertz Atocha location is about 2 miles from Atocha. So we cancelled that reservation (better not get charged, dammit), and got a car from Avis. Standing next to us at the counter was a young couple, I presume on their honeymoon. The husband is hovering behind his wife, looking sheepish. He’s as exceptionally handsome as she is beautiful, and he stands about 6’5”. His wife is a half-note down from a full-on tantrum. She doesn’t understand the rental agreement. She doesn’t want the insurance. Yes, she can see that it’s only €20, but she doesn’t want it! The agent, another agent, and the agents’ manager are telling her no problem, they just have to void that already-signed contract and type up a new one. “I don’t understand!” she barks. “Just don’t charge me.”
She’s now taken more time than if she had just shut up and let them rewrite the contract.
Now, we’ve got our keys and just need to walk to the parking lot. She tells me She’s got to go to the restroom, so I sit on a bench outside the Avis office and wait for Her. I put the rental agreement in my passport and start checking our map to Granada on my phone.
She got back to the bench and grabbed Her stuff. I grabbed my duffle bag, and we headed out to Parking Lot 3, about 200 yards away. Soon we found ourselves at Lot 3 trying to interpret where our car is. “What spot does our paperwork say?” She asks.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “You’ve got it.”
She looked at me, and I’m instantly panicked. I left the paperwork on the bench! With my passport!
In less than one second, an entire movie plays out in my head. It’s a tragic comedy about some idiot who spends his entire vacation holed up in the US embassy in Seville, Spain, while a nefarious opportunist has assumed the identity of one Asshole McDickhead.
I sprinted back, like a large, soft gazelle of a certain age. I haven’t run like that since I was 17. I shoulder my way through a small crowd and there, somehow both reassuring and mocking, was my passport and rental agreement. I walked back to Her and triumphantly waved my stuff, like I just got the gold in the Dumbass Olympics.
In researching this trip, I discovered that if I wanted to drive in the Eurozone, I’d need an International Driver’s Permit. It was easy to get and cheap to buy. It took a trip to my local AAA office and $20. Since I got one and She didn’t, it meant I had to do all the driving. And She’d have to navigate. Now, She’s exceedingly smart and wise, but She also doesn’t know Her left from Her right. Seriously. Nonetheless, She manages to get us out of town and on our way to Granada, a couple hours drive away.
Granada is beautiful. I know I’ve said that about the previous stops, and I’ll end up saying it about every stop. But Granada is amazing. It’s also old, and has a more concentrated mix of cultures than I’ve ever seen. Christian, Muslim, and Jewish all mix in a small center of the city, built on a couple hills. It’s wonderful.
Rising above it all is the Alhambra, a palace and fortress built by Muslims on top of an ancient Roman fort. Breathtaking.
After navigating the winding, frighteningly narrow streets to an underground parking ramp, we meet up with Ricardo at his office to get into our Airbnb. Ricardo is handsome and short, harried and helpful. He walks us about one block to the apartment. It’s clean, renovated, perfectly located and small. It’s a studio apartment with a murphy bed. Really small, about 7 paces wide. But it was very charming.
Ricardo pulls out an illustrated map of Granada and starts giving us notes. Where to go to have the best chance at securing Alhambra tickets. Where to go for the best view of the town and the palace. Where to get good food. Where to get good drinks. Where to go shopping. Ricardo was the best. We said goodbye to Ricardo and followed him out of the apartment. We had some exploring to do.
We wound our way through a couple neighborhoods, in no way hiding the fact that we were wide-eyed tourists. We were aiming to be at the top of one of the hills just before sunset, a time and place Ricardo and Rick Steve had said were optimal for viewing the Alhambra.
Just below a little plaza crowded with tourists is a quiet little restaurant with tapas, drinks and a perfect view (El Huerto de Juan Ranas). The view was everything we’d been told. I had to stare for a few minutes and let my brain catch up to what my eyes were seeing. An ancient palace perched above an ancient town with birds flying between, a river flowing under an old stone bridge and snow capped mountains behind. We sat, had a drink and absorbed it all. Not long after, the sun having set, and with a chilly breeze growing stronger, we headed back down the hill towards the apartment. Time to look for food.
We ended up sitting at a high-top table for two, being served by a staff of outrageously handsome Spanish men, and enjoying a very good meal. It’s important that I mention that, because…
I woke up in the middle of the night when She leapt out of bed and into the little bathroom. Less than a second after shutting the thin pocket door, I heard her vomit, then groan. Rinse and repeat. Over and over. When She finally came out I asked how she was.
“Bad.” And She climbed back in bed.
During her third trip to the bathroom, I too leapt out of bed. It hit fast. This is bad, I thought, there’s only one toilet. I may have herniated something trying to keep everything inside that was forcing it’s way out, up high and down low. She heard me, and was able to leave the bathroom to me for a moment.
So began 30 hours of bathroom tag. One in, one out. Rinse and repeat. Over and over.
She and I have been together a very long time. I watched her give birth to our sons, once while enduring the effects of being induced and suffering the consequences of a severe Demerol reaction at the same time. We’ve seen things, She and I. But this was a new layer, a new dimension to our closeness. That cute, charming, and perfectly situated little studio apartment had become an abattoir of puke and diarrhea.
But you know what? It wasn’t a bad day. We watched a couple movies (though they got paused often). We played some cards, we read our books. We vomited. We opened the windows, and heard the sounds of kids, and people. We were still part of things, from the second floor. From the bathroom.
And that evening I, with Her questioning my wisdom and making sure I had the keys and my jacket, ventured out to try to find a market where I could get water, saltines or plain white rice. Her concern was unnecessary though, there was a market across the street, about 15 feet from the front door. The very friendly Chinese man at the market knew some Spanish and no English. We communicated through charades. We were laughing together while I paid for two bottles of water, some instant white rice, and some herbal tea.
Not a bad day, all things considered. And it wasn’t food poisoning (she still can’t eat octopus). It was the flu. Older son had it when he got back to school, and his trip to the doctor confirmed it.
For obvious reasons, I need to get back to Granada. Maybe just for a couple days. I feel like I missed some stuff. Duh.
We left the next morning. We had decided we wanted to see the southern coast and the white hill villages next.
Oh wait, one more thing. Remember that thing at Avis with the couple and their insurance? Well, as we were leaving Granada we couldn’t recall whether or not we had declined the insurance. We always decline it here in the US. The question had become relevant as soon as I’d misjudged the tiny corner in the parking ramp and scraped the paint off the car on a corner stanchion. Cost me €20 and zero time. Take that, Pretty Newlyweds.
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