Behind Every Good Story Is: A Lunatic

I've noticed a strange pattern when I come back from a trip.  I often walk through the door and say something along the lines of, "You will never believe what happened.." or "Listen to this!" or "So, I'm dysfunctional."  Whatever follows those opening lines is usually met with hysterical laughter, lots of quizzical looks, or sheer disbelief.  More often than not, it's a combination of emotions from my audience because some of the things I find myself experiencing are classic sitcom material.  I don't know how this happens, but it does- ALWAYS.  I've begun to form a theory that I, and by extension my family and some of my friends, am God's personal comic strip.  I know my theory has validity when friends start saying that their days full of mishaps or awkward moments are called "Sam days," and people look forward to the day that I don't have a story to tell.

I think Granada has to be my greatest story to date, and for once, all the madness had nothing to do with me.  Well, at least not caused by me.  Granada was where I chose to spend the second half of my Fall Break.  It had been recommended to me by a friend who had studied in Spain.  She claimed that Granada made her think of me while she was visiting there, and after my experience and my track record, I might be able to see why.

When I arrived in Granada, I had spent another night in an airport and had just left Dublin, my current favorite city in the whole wide world.  What I find amusing is that I had expected rain while I was in Ireland.  I didn't experience a single drop.  However, the rain I had managed to avoid in Ireland was waiting for me in full force in Granada.  I had just stepped off the plane and I was already wet, and I would remain wet for the next two days.  The bus I had taken from the airport in Dublin had made sense and had clearly marked stops.  When I told the bus driver in my broken Spanish the stop I wanted in Granada, he looked at me like I was crazy.  So much for the directions the hostel had provided.

Once we came to a decision of what my stop might be, I got off and could not find street signs anywhere.  No one I asked seemed to know where I was or where I needed to go.  Getting a little fed up with the fact that I had to buy an umbrella to keep from getting soaked and I was still getting ridiculously wet, I caved and went to a cab stand.  While waiting to cross the street, I got to experience the classic movie moment where the witty and charming heroine gets splashed with a giant puddle by a passing car.  I was given a chance to perfect my witty and charming heroine frozen look of disbelief and shock as I stood soaked from the knees down on the street corner.

Once I successfully made it into the cab, the cab driver had no idea where the street I needed was.  Well, isn't that just dandy?!  Between my directions and his ingenuity, we made it to the correct street.  However, once on the right street, he didn't know where the hostel was.  Several laps back and forth and we found it.

Once in the hostel, I was given a tour.  This hostel was incredibly small which has both it's pros and cons.  Pros: you get to know the other guests.  Cons: you get to know the other guests.  The solitude and autonomy  I had enjoyed in Dublin was gone.  When I realized that my computer did not register their Wifi, I went to the hostel computers.  Enter Crazy Russian Girl.  Her name was Julianna and she sat down at a computer next to me and proceeded to relate to me every thought that passed through her head.  I'm normally not one to talk to random people, especially when I'm tired, cold, and wet, and I excused myself from the conversation as soon as was polite.  Being away from my new friend, though I didn't know that little fun fact at the time, I was considering a nap to beat the rain when who should walk in, still talking.  As it turns out, Crazy Russian Girl was one of my roommates.  Instead of napping, I got to listen to her complain about the rain.  She also told me how she had come to be in Granada.  She had been working as an aupair in Madrid and once her time was up, she planned to travel for a few weeks then return to Canada where she had immigrated when she was 17.  To listen to Julianna tell the story of her resignation, she is the poor victim who was verbally abused by the wife.  She'll tell you she was abused, just ask her.  She would be more than happy, as she exhibited many times during our time together.  To listen to her story and use the sense God gave made most of us, she flirted with the husband, he flirted back from the sound of it, and yeah, the wife got jealous.  The wife yelled and Julianna felt under appreciated and left the family.  Funny how consequences work..

The rain finally cleared for a short while and Crazy Russian Girl dragged myself and another roommate out to the market with her.  While wandering around the different vendors, she told me about the flamenco show the hostel was going to take people to that night.  She convinced me into going, so that night I met Marc, the travel writer, and Sasha and Sierra, two volunteers at the hostel that had decided that they wanted to travel for eleven months right after high school.  Along with Julianna (Crazy Russian Girl), we all headed to the flamenco show.  About a third of the way there it started to rain again.  While this is no interesting phenomenon, the group reaction was.  They kept at their same pace and acted like nothing was happening.  I don't know about them, but I was getting wet.  Really wet.  We were at about our half point when the rain really started to pick up and it occurred to the group that, oh, that water falling from the sky isn't so great after all.  We didn't realize how far we still had to go and kept on walking, then running.  At this point, I'm Gene Kelly, singing in the rain because I'm so wet it doesn't matter what I do.  After battling a small flood, we make it to the restaurant where the flamenco was held.  I got to know the people I was with and we enjoyed the show.

Flamenco is a very interesting form of dance but it's quite fun.  The audience gets really into it and you just want to start shouting OLE!  I don't, however, recommend this while you're soaking wet.  Flamenco is all about the footwork and is very impressive.  It also comes with it's own sort of music.  The singing is very throaty and most of the instrument part of the music is clapping.  The clapping is very interesting.  It changes tempo and beats according to the movement of the dancer.  It's actually really intricate, for clapping.

The following morning, Crazy Russian Girl talked me into trying to find the Gypsy barrio (neighborhood) with her after an early wake-up call that I had not requested.  Before we set out, I needed new shoes.  I had only allowed myself one pair of shoes in my backpack for the break and with the flood waters they had lately encountered, they were forgetting how to be proper shoes, not to mention they stunk to high heaven, as Crazy Russian Girl took every opportunity to point out, along with my snoring and many of my other flaws.  There are many to pick from I discovered.  Personally, I felt my largest flaw was thinking that I could break in new shoes (boots, of course, to combat the rain) on cobble stones that were more like mini spikes and walking up and down the hills of Granada.  Terrible idea.  Absolutely terrible.  I have never seen such large blisters nor have I ever seen them turn that color.  Purple, if you were wondering, is what color blisters filled with blood are.  In addition to this painful wandering, we managed to add a member to our party when we asked a passerby for directions and he decided he would personally take us there then show us all his favorites spots along the way.  We were getting a little creeped out, but it was when he picked up the used cigarette on the ground AND USED IT that the red flag officially started flying.  We found the nearest group of people and stuck with them and had them scare him off.  We finally found the barrio, only to discover that it was closed.  At that point, I would much rather have had my new boots shoved up my butt than make that little discovery with them on my feet.  I seriously could have cried.  The views were beautiful, but between stalkers, and no breakfast, and hurting feet, and relying on a crazy Russian to guide you will taint the experience just a bit.

We stopped for lunch after, which I thought I had greatly deserved and had the best burger since coming to Europe.  I could not have been happier.  The restaurant we had stopped at had hookah and it was free if you spent so much on your meal.  We met the minimum and decided to do hookah.  We had a nice discussion about books and school and learning about our respective countries, but when she said that everyone was wrong when they said that the U.S. won WWII and really Russia won, I began to clue into the real madness behind the otherwise normal exterior.  I attempted to explain to her that in non-Soviet countries, we are taught that the Allies won WWII.  She wouldn't accept this as an answer.  Apparently Russia just has something that the rest of us are missing.  I became seriously alarmed when she said that Russia needed another strong leader like Stalin.  Now I was panicking.  Just to make sure I hadn't gotten my world leaders crossed, I asked wasn't this the same guy who was responsible for the death of ten million of his own people?  Yes, she conceded, but they were all political enemies and that was ok.  He was a strong leader.  I made a mental note that I was going to try to avoid her for the rest of my time in Granada.  (See why she is called Crazy Russian Girl?)

Crazy Russian Girl had mentioned that she wanted to go to a salsa club and before I realized that she was freaking psychotic, this had sounded appealing.  Marc, Sasha, and Sierra had invited me to go dancing, but given that Crazy Russian Girl didn't like anyone, she didn't want to do anything involving them.  I had said ok to Crazy Russian Girl, but somehow weaseled my way out of it and went dancing with the others.  While we had a great time and I was exuberant in my happiness to be away from Crazy Russian Girl, this was not my best life choice in terms of my feet.  I made it through the night, but just barely.

The following morning I had every intention of sleeping in and going to Alhambra, the Arab Palace.  This, however, was adjusted by my dear Crazy Russian and I was rudely poked in the butt for my wake-up call that morning.  I had hoped with her mini panic attack over the bed bugs she believed to be in her bed (it was allergies) that had moved her into a different room would keep her from waltzing into mine like she owned the place.  False.  I found myself dragged out of the hostel a short while later.

While I'm not going to hide that I'm the biggest wimp in the universe, I'm pretty sure it can't be argued that blisters up and down hills in new shoes is not a fun experience.  I begged for band-aids and a taxi.  Luckily my neurotic Russian allowed such mercies.

Once we got there, Crazy Russian Girl had to return her ticket she had purchased for another day and in the process found a shorter line for bank cards than the one I was currently standing in.  She, of course, did not have her card, so I paid for both tickets with a promise to pay me back.  I kissed that money good-bye.  After finding this short line, she began to gloat about how stupid everyone else was for waiting in the long line.  By this point, I'm reaching the end of my rope.  First, she only found it because she was running around trying to return the original, so we avoided the long line by sheer luck.  Second, why is this necessary?!  Not knowing doesn't make you stupid.  I was getting so fed up by this point.  We were finally allowed in and she continued her random attacks on passer-bys.  She also could not find anything worth seeing on the grounds.  She is quoted to have saying that the gardens were nothing to look at and that the look-out of the city was boring.  She even told other tourists it wasn't worth seeing.  I'm cursing under my breath at this point.  She became a bigger pest (didn't know that was possible..) when she realized that she didn't have a ticket for all the palaces on the grounds.  We had to stop at one point so I could get my band-aids on and she couldn't resist telling me that me feet were gross (I'm telling you, my feet weren't hurting for nothing.).  We'll just add to it to her insults about my messy hair (sorry if I've been traveling for a week and didn't pack my beauty kit..) and skin rash (that she knew she could fix with the right moisturizer) from the day before.  She then had the audacity to complain about how much pain her feet were in.  I was going to throw her over the freaking parapet or start looking for ways to start a new Cold War if she didn't cut it out.  Crazy Russian Girl was suddenly satisfied when she found some of the classic Arab arches that the palace is known for.  Despite my bi-polar companion, I thought it was absolutely wonderful and gorgeous.  I would have gladly spent more time there and I did try to suggest that we split up so I could stay and she just didn't get the hint.  I would rather leave prematurely than listen to her complain a moment more.

On the way back to the hostel, she resumed her most constant complaint that there was nothing to see or do in Granada.  I fought her on this one.  The rain had really not been kind to us in this regard and it was simply a matter of looking.  Our bus stopped at the cathedral and I said that I was going to go see it.  By some wonderful miracle of the merciful Lord above, there was an entrance fee to the cathedral and being the cheap -skate that she was, she didn't want to pay it.  Sorry about ya!  But actually, I'm not really sorry at all.  I had a few glorious hours to myself in a beautiful church and chapel and I went back to the market to look for souvenirs without being judged or pestered.

When I returned, I decided that I was going to refuse to leave my room.  I really was exhausted and I wanted nothing more to do with Crazy Russian Girl.  She did find me and try to tempt me to go to a party with her that was being hosted by some boy she had happened to meet.  Nope, sorry, but no.  After realizing I wasn't budging, she climbed into my bed.  It's like she could sense my every weakness.  She finally compromised to just going to dinner and I relented, mainly to get her out of my bed.

At dinner, she offered to pay for my glass of wine to make up for the ticket I bought for Alhambra.  Let me just make it clear that the glass of wine was 2,50 euro and the ticket was 7,50 euro.  Mmm, good effort, but not quite.  She then proceeded to suggest a really gross dish to me and bash on the waitress the entire time we were in the restaurant.  I could not get this meal over fast enough.  When we paid, our money situation panned that she would pay for part of dinner and my wine, perfectly equaling 7,50 euro.  I was content that we had settled the score, but when she wanted dessert, she insisted that I pay for her chocolate bar because she had paid for more than my wine.  I wasn't even going to go there with the delusional monster, so I went with it.  Karma was on my side when the chocolate bar turned out to be white chocolate and she hates white chocolate.

She spent the rest of the evening trying to get me to hang out with her, which I did for a few minutes, but then  I decided to channel my Crazy Russian and sneaked away to go hang out with the group that was going bar hopping.  I spent the evening just chatting with everyone and taking in Granada night life, which is a little nuts.  They go out really late and stay until the early hours of the morning.  I gave up early when Crazy Russian Girl was at one of the bars we went to.  I didn't even announce my departure.  I just left.

The following morning, it was finally time to leave.  I did friend Crazy Russian Girl on Facebook, but only to get pictures from her because my camera broke in Dublin.  Turns out she's still crazy and she de-friended me a couple weeks later and before I could get the pictures from her.  Thanks. For. Nothing.  I said good-bye to the civil people I had met and liked and made the earliest excuse I could to get to the airport.  I got to the little, one terminal, municipal airport three and a half hours early.

While my experience and opinion of Granada are colorful, to say the least, I enjoyed the wake up call.  People are really so vital to how we relate to everything.  This is a curse and a blessing.  No matter how crazy the crazy ones are, there are good people to balance it out.  Like Marc, making jokes about our stupidity because we both decided this was an opportune time to break in new shoes.  Like Sierra, running up to give me huge tackle bear hugs whenever she saw me, especially when Crazy Russian Girl was around to annoy her.  Like Sasha, for just being the chill person I could sit and observe the world with and for letting me sleep past check-out with no repercussions.  I love that I met these people.  I'm sure there will be one day I love that I met Crazy Russian Girl, aka Julianna, but for now, I haven't figured out the punchline for this episode of God's personal comic strip and I've just got to wait for it to come.  It always does.

I've come to realize that for a good story you need a lunatic.  It's just dawning on me that the reason I have so many humorous and outrageous stories and experiences is probably because I'M the lunatic.  So long as I don't drive everyone around me too crazy, I'm OK with that.  I'm just going to be thankful that I wasn't the lunatic this time.

Hoping that you find my stories and your own stories worth reading!
Sam