Day 5 - Black Pudding

Wednesday, May 16th - Barcelona to Granada

Five hours later the alarm was going off,,,, ugh.  Neither of us wanted to get up but we didn't have a choice.  We quickly got ready and went downstairs for a quick breakfast.  Nothing "quick" happens around here but, fortunately for us, breakfast at this Hotel Palace is served buffet style so it was easy for us to run in, grab a bite and run out.  We packed our bags and headed to the lobby.  Our driver was there ready and waiting to take us to the airport.

Katie and I made our way through the airport to the check-in counter.  We waited our turn and got to the check-in counter.  The lady behind the counter was extremely surprised that we had four bags (and they aren't the smallest or lightest bags in the world).  The short story is that we ended up having to pay just over 200 Euros for our additional bags and additional weight.  I was really wishing we had shipped my missing bag to Madrid.

The rest of the board process was fairly normal.  1.5 hours later we were in Granada.  The first thing we noticed was the heat.  WOW.  It's a lot warmer here then in Barcelona.  We grabbed our bags, found our driver and headed to the hotel.  The check-in process went smooth.  We got to our room, changed in to shorts and then headed out on the town to explore.

Siesta time??  I've heard about siesta time,,,,, stores close for a few hours, etc.... They had it in Barcelona but it was nothing like it is here.  The stores just don't close,,,, the town closes.  Other then bars and restaurants, everything was closed.

We ended up stopping at what looked to be an authentic tapas joint.  We were told that this area invented tapas and that tapas here are free with drinks.  The place we found was authentic (more so then what we bargained for) and the tapas were free.  Sweet!  We ordered a few beers and started ordering from the menu.  The waiter didn't speak a word of English so we did our best to communicate.  We just started ordering from the menu, guessing at what we'd like.  At one point we ordered "Morcilla con Brie y Marmalade."  That means Morcilla (which we didn't know what it was and unfortunately do now) with (con) Brie (cheese we like) y (and) Marmalade (what we all know and love).  The dish was served on a big toasted baguette.  It looked awesome.  The chunks of stuff we assumed were Morcilla and we guessed it was crush olives (that's what it looked like).  We dug in.  It was awesome but after eating a few bites we knew the Morcilla wasn't crushed olives.  I figured I'd look it up on Google and see what we were eating. Something I should have done prior to ordering or not at all.  It turns out that Morcilla is "Black Pudding",,, which,,,, pudding,,, sounds good, right?  Further translated means "Blood Sausage."  That's about all my stomach can handle for now,,, if you want to learn more just google it.

We did a bit more walking around and figured it was no fun to explore stores that were closed.  We headed back to the hotel where I got a lot of work done and Katie got her daily siesta in.  Around 9 PM we headed back on the town which was surprisingly busy.  We went on a search for dinner but decided we didn't want to settle on the first place we saw.  We made our way to the top of the hill and found a cute little outside tapas/bar,,,, we ordered some drinks and a squid tapas.  We decided one dish was enough from this place so we kept walking, and walking, and walking --- around mid-night we gave up and ordered a pizza.  It ended up working out great --- the pizza was awesome as was the server.  After that we headed back to the hotel for a nightcap on the terrace and then up to bed.  Tomorrow we meet our guide at 10 AM to do some more exploring,,,, stay tuned.