Strange parade

Granada, and I suspect Spain in general, is the land of strange parade's and demonstrations. There are loads of religious festivals and demonstrations against what is happening in the government and the country in general at the moment that involve people parading with some sort of theme while either chanting or making noise in other ways. Usually these pass me by without noticing but because they often go through my street I sometimes stand on my balcony in amazement. The picture is very bad but this one is one of the many in honour of the catholic three kings festival.

Bullfighting arena

It has been a while, I had been waiting to receive pictures from my birthday and other occasions that are on other people's camera's and while doing so I did not notice time passing by. Since the last time I posted so much has happened, I got to know the city intimately, mostly I have been engaged in social activities such as going out. As mentioned before, Granada has a great nightlife and the city is filled with students so there is always some party going on somewhere. Since a week I have been taking it easier to concentrate on the upcoming exams in February and finalise my internship so now is a good time to blog.

Anyway I decided it is probably about time to post something so here are some other pictures I took. These are of Granada's bullfighting arena, bullfighting is still very much a reality in Spain and many cities have one. It is quite a beautiful building and whether you agree with the sport or not, it is definitely an interesting cultural phenomenon.

My street: San Juan de Dios

Right + parade

Front

Left

Sierra nevada #2

View from the dam of the way we came

This could make a good waterslide

Autumn's not so ugly head

Exhibit B

Bridge maintainance is not a priority in Spain

The dam when we still had a bit to go..

View of the lake standing on the dam

I have not posted in a while and since the last time a lot has happened. Most memorable is the crazy amount of partying going on in this city but those escapades have not been documented unfortunately for the readers of my blog but probably for the best for me. I did feel it safe to take pictures on a more camera friendly past-time, mountainbiking.
It was one of the last days of great weather since autumn has been rearing its ugly head lately so we were very lucky. We rode out to one of the reservoir lakes close to granada which was a nice drive and very much worth it. The drive itself was nice and tricky and the lake stunning.

Spanish gym

All around the city you can find places like this, I'm sure they are a familiar sight in many countries warmer than my own but to me it is amazing. They look like playgrounds at first but really are free workout areas. Equally amazing is the fact that they are actually being used by young and old alike and I think it is a great idea. If only global warming hurries up a bit we will soon be able to introduce the idea to our own wet little corner of the world and can stop paying for gyms altogether.

Botellon

This is where we went next: it is called the "Botellon" which I think simply means "bottle" because it is a place that has been designated as a legal outdoor drinking zone. In the rest of the city drinking on the street is officially forbidden and you can get a steep fine if caught, so many people come to the botellon to hang out and drink on the streets. It is conveniently located at the edge of the city behind a huge supermarket so it does not bother residents too much, but still very close to the main bar street. On this particular night there were more people than ever, I took these pictures standing more or less in the the middle of the crowd and there must have been thousands of students. It was pretty late when I arrived at around 2 o'clock (not late for Spaniards) and in a couple of hours everyone and everything was smashed and the ground covered in a cocktail of all kinds of alcohol known to man mixed with other liquids,