Discovering my new twin

1492- Not just the year that Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  For those of you who haven't extensively studied Spanish history and who may not have much interest, I'll keep my nerd facts brief.  Granada (one of the most historically culturally diverse cities) was conquered by los Reyes Catolicos, Queen Isabel & King Ferdinand, on 2 January 1492.  The Muslim ruler, Emir Muhammad XII (a.k.a. Boabdil) surrendered the city.  Shortly after that, in 1499, all of the Muslims and Jews were forced to convert or leave.  This was an act of Isabel's with the intention to unify Spain under one religion.
As Mattias was driving us the 20 km from Granada to Sierra Nevada early on Friday morning, he told us that the former Muslim ruler, Boabdil, was buried in the tallest mountain.  After our previous trip to Granada & seeing where the Catholic kings were buried, it was very cool to find out that just a few kilometers away lay another great ruler.  Fast forward to around the 1940s and what not so great ruler was dictator of Spain? Franco.  He transformed the naturally dry, bare mountains into a forest of pine trees.  As you can guess, when a plant is not native to an area, it can cause a lot of problems.  The pine seeds spread all over the mountain, resulting in tremendous forests of really weird looking trees.  The pine trees are incredibly tall, but surprisingly bare.  In the spirit of Christmas, think Charlie Brown trees...and lots of them!

Gracie and I started our trip on Thursday afternoon with a four hour car ride into the city (via blablacar.com a great, cheap way to travel all around the globe--heads up fellow students).  Right in the center of the city near our hostel there was a Christmas fair going on, but we were really craving some Moroccan tea & food (you know, when in Granada right?), so we found a nice Teteria (literally house of tea) and dug into some delicious vegetable couscous.  We got a good night's sleep and woke up before the sun to go meet our ride to the mountain, Mattias.  It was about a 30 minute ride up steep & windy roads, but it was so beautiful! When we got to the mountain they suited us up in rental clothes & boards and we rode the gondola up to what we thought was the top.  Not! These mountains are HUGE! It was snowing on the middle part of the mountain, so we were all excited...until we got to the top & couldn't see anything.  It was so snowy & foggy, it was crazy.  But hell we didn't go to sit in the lodge, so we got soaking wet & freezing cold, and had the best time.  At one point I couldn't see and I was leading, so I figured, yeah I'll just follow the lift!  I plowed into a huge snow bank, probably around 5 ft of snow and then Gracie plowed into it behind me.  We were laughing and eating snow, literally the only ones on the run.  I could have stayed there forever and made a snowman, but we decided it'd be safer to head to the bottom portion of the mountain.  That night we got some wine & stayed in, a guy from Wales serenaded our dinner at the hostel, then we hit the hay exhausted around 11.  The next day was absolutely perfect and gorgeous.  The sun was shining, it was a balmy 13 degrees and no blustering winds!  I took a venture and asked the rental guys for nicer boards and they gave us practically new, matching boards.  Ok guys....here's the picture of me and my long lost twin, Gracie.

Don't you just love the candy cane boards? So we headed back on the night bus on Saturday night and when we got in around 5:30 am there were still people out partying, of course! There ends one of the greatest adventures of my time here in Spain. Now all that's left is a lot of reading, a lot of papers, and two exams that total 6 hours in one day, then I'll be home before I know it.