Kati en Granada

Granada - I am coming! While the air hostesses do their usual show the last two weeks are passing by. After finishing more or less successful five exams in one week, the following days have been dedicated to producing a short film and enjoying the first shafts of sunlight at the river Elbe.

Bye, bye Hamburg - Granada I am coming. I felt weird flying to Spain knowing not to meet Raquel or any of my dear Spanish friends. This trip was a journey back in time to me. 2005/6 I was part of the EU-ERASMUS programme myself. Now, I was going to visit Gabi in the midst of her exchange year. Crazy.

Again I had to make the experience that one should not rely on low cost airlines. The plane arrived late in Malaga and I missed the bus to Granada. Plus, I was starving. Unsure, where to eat something "sin gluten", Mc Donald's was my first choice. I managed to order salad and fries in Spanish chunks... and it worked.

I arrived late in Granada. It was really good to see Gabi. She picked me up from the bus station and dragged me home, where I had five minutes to change my clothes. We went to La Vogue, a club that strongly reminded me to my fav club Schwarzes Schaf in Münster. Home sweet home. Some of her international friends were there and although we could hardly community (their English was as bad as my Spanish) I started to like them.


One day later: Happy Easter. We were invited by the Italians who whipped a fantastic Easter lunch with different courses - most of them gluten-free (they checked the ingredients in the net) - I decided to love them.

On Monday, we had to get up early since we wanted to catch the bus to las alpujarras.
Moritz (D), Mareike (D), Gabi (D), Simon (F) and I (D) would spend two days at a self-catering youth hostel, founded by a former Waldorf teacher from Germany. Cristhian (PE) and Elisa (I) would accompany us during the first day. Barbara, the host, told us about the two essential rules of the hostel:
1. Take the torch to the loo in order to find the hole
2. Switch your mobile phone off.
Said and done.


I loved these two days: we were eating Spanish "sin gluten" food (Spain is a paradise for ppl like me), drinking different kinds of red wine, playing (and singing) the guitar, enjoying the sun, smoking some porros, gathering and chipping wood, wandering and climbing through the mountains and taking millions of pictures with Gabi's camera.

I did not want to leave - ever. But Tuesday evening it was time to say goodbye. It started to rain again IN SPAIN!!!


That night we decided to meet with the whole mountain gang again, in order to slowly disconnect - how Mo put it. We also met a lot more of Gabi's friends and visited a lot of pubs and bars before we again ended up in La Vogue. It was a great night! I already felt as if that experience was my ERASMUS, too and Gabi's friends asked me to stay longer. I really wished I could. And then... it happened: I put my beloved black leather jacket on the floor in order to dance freelier - one sec later it was gone. How I hate thieves. It's not only the fact that they take something away from you that has material and immaterial value to you but also the fact that they do it on purpose, in a night club, a place where people kind of belong to the same group, same age, they enjoy themselves... they are not supposed to steal from each other... I skimmed through the whole place, I could have stolen so many jackets myself, nobody paid attention to their clothes. But I could not find my jacket. So we left. I knew I should have paid more attention - I felt so stupid.

We spent the next day all day in bed. I woke up again and again and always suddenly remembered that some idiot stole my jacket and then fell back to sleep. Thank God it was raining anyway... Later that day we went to a concert of The Wailers who used to play with Bob Marley. I totally enjoyed that concert!



Everything's gonna be alright. So true. We went back to La Vogue to ask for my jacket and big surprise it was there! The mean person obviously just wanted to look for money or mobile phones in the pockets. But I am not that stupid.

Thursday = shopping, sun, sightseeing and millions of pictures. If you ever wanna feel like a VIP ask Photogabi to accompany you for one day. You also get free "how-to-take-the-perfect-picture-lessons".

all these pics are taken with automatic release - a real photographer does not ask laymen for help

Later that night we - of course - went to La Vogue again. Since I got my jacket back I did not have an objection against that place any longer.

Friday: first day with our rental car. I love driving with Gabi. We invited Mo, Mareike and Elisa to join us in the hot fountains in Santa Fé. The way there was really bad - thank God we had a rental car that we tortured through the bumpy roads. Near the fountains there was a small community living in tents and we also made the encounter of two German unemployed guys who seem to spend their benefits on drugs and alc in Andalucía. Later that night we went to La Percha - a typical Spanish bar with a gay host who seemed to love us from first sight and included us to his inner free-drinks-circle. Paco - te echaré de menos!

On Saturday we were on us. No more annoying German girls who ask for oranges all time. Just Gabi, her camera and me. The weather in Granada was dizzy again but we decided to drive to Cabo di Gata anyway. Our decision was right: we spent all day at the beach. Gabi also forced me into the sea that was still freaking cold.

Later that night we just went for tapas in the neighbourhood cause it was raining like hell. Tapas in Granada are the best and biggest. Although there are a lot of tostadas and breadstuff, I still had a great choice of papa de pobre, tortilla, home made chorizo sin gluten, aceitunas and many more. All included when you buy one tinto de verano for 2 Euros. I miss Granada!

Lying in the sun all day made us pretty tired. So we went to bed early and got up early to spend another day at the beach: this time in Nerja. I could not believe how time had passed by that fast. Gabi took me to Malaga airport and we had to say goodbye too early.

Take care little Gabi and enjoy Granada! Thank you for sharing your Spanish life with me, for making your friends my friends, for having me relive the ERASMUS feeling, for all the pictures you took of me, and the free photo lessons, for all the nerv-racking Spanish-English-German translations... I miss you loads!