Ah, the squad. A lovely group of people overall, though our posing skills may need a little assistance. I've had a lot of adventures with the squad lately, hence my busyness and lack of timely posts. Apologies.
Last week we went to Acuario Sevilla, which was nerd heaven. I've got a thing about cephalopods. The aquarium has open tanks where you can pet starfish and sea urchins and the like, complete with signs reading "You may touch these creatures, but please consider that doing so may be very stressful to them," which I appreciated. They also had a few small, shy octopi and a cuttlefish, which is my favorite animal. I spent way too long staring into the cuttlefish tank saying things like, "Look at the chromatophors!" until someone pointed out the shark tank. The massive shark tank included a few large nurse sharks, some smaller reef sharks, sting rays, and a wide variety of big ugly groupers. Groupers really need to learn how much eye contact is too much eye contact. They also had a tank full of speedy little black-tipped reef sharks, one with two napping sea turtles, and another full of little yellow puffer fish. These particular fish triple in size when threatened, but they refused to puff up for us despite my attempts at mildly threatening behavior.
Last weekend we went to Granada for a few days on a school-sponsored extended field trip. Granada is situated way up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and although most of us were a little dehydrated and sniffly from the altitude, we still had a great time. On Saturday we visited the Royal Chapel and Cathedral. The Royal Chapel is burial site of Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand, the first rulers of Spain as we know it. They are the only Spanish rulers not buried in El Escorial in Madrid. Buried with them are their daughter Juana and her husband Phillip, rulers of Castille and Leon, as well as Ferdinand and Isabel's grandson Miguel, who died in childhood. Beside the chapel stands the Cathedral, which was absoultely freezing inside and also particularly lovely, although the taking of photographs was not allowed at either location.
On Sunday we visited Alhambra, a palace and fort complex built by Emir Mohammed ben Al-Ahmer while Granada was still an emirate. The Palace of Charles V was inserted onto the site after Granada was recaptured by the Spaniards in 1492. The complex includes exquisite and extensive gardens, filled with fountains, flowers, and orange trees. I really adore the traditional Islamic style of garden architecture, always complete with mosaic tiles, sweet-smelling fruit trees, and tiny fountains. The site now also includes an functional Catholic monastery. We stopped in the famous Court of Lions to take the above glamor shot.
I also got lost.
I firmly maintain that it was not my fault. The tour guides asked if anyone needed to stop to get water or use the bathroom before we entered the Palace of Charles V, so several of my friends and I ducked into a shop to buy water bottles. I was right behind my friend, and somehow, in the time it took the shopkeeper to hand me my change, she and the entire tour group disappeared. Despite taking a headcount and finding they had only 27 people instead of 28 and my friend's insistence that I was not with the group, the tour guides decided everything was fine and continued on the tour. I called another friend, who gave me some rather confusing directions, and I ended up halfway down the mountain on a country road before a security guard got on the phone and directed me back to the entrance to the palace. He said he too had told the tour guides they were short one person, and they hadn't believed him.
In the end, I missed out on seeing exactly one rather boring hallway, and I also got gummy bears, so I was not terribly torn up about it. I do wish people would stop making "Is Katie lost again?" jokes though...