te amore granada

1. some older guy´s phone rang in the hotel lobby today. the ringtone was the main theme song from suspiria, the really creepy one with the weird percussion and the continual whispering of "witches, witches." it was awesome. for all i know it was dario argento´s brother.
2. the alhambra is maybe the most amazing building i have ever seen. from the outside it looks fairly pedestrian, aside from that late afternoon sun-hue that´s fairly striking. on the inside it´s a symphony of calligraphy, vegetation, fountains, hot, cold, closed, open--basically like if soto (formerly of atlanta restaurant scene) decided one day to build a house. i´m floored.
3. spanish people are not as charmed by my language deficiencies as the japanese were.
4. the albaizin/old arab quarter is kind of like morocco for pussies. i would like to go to morocco, just not by myself. until then i´ll setttle for the days of wondering the labyrinthe of the albaizin and overpaying for the ambience of eating cus cus and drinking arabic tea in dark little restaurants.
5. last night i had to choose between watching bbc world, an uncut version of monster´s ball, some political satire show that featured an unbelievably offensive puppet of condoleeza rice, complete with large, jutting, caricatured buck teeth, and the hard core porn channel--all on what i assume is standard television. i won´t mention what i chose. during the day, the hard core porn channel features card readers of some sort, and i guess you can order prostitutes, or talk to hot girls, if you call the numbers listed on the side of the screen. late last night i watched apocalypse now in spanish.
6. in the tradition of huevos mcgringo i will call bullshit on one aspect of spanish life: namely the fact that any restaurant of note will not serve food between lunch and around 8:30. i´ve read that the tradition of serving tapas began as way for bartenders to complement the tasty beverages they served with a light snack. i´m wondering at this point if it was more an attempt by those who disagreed with the unfathomably late dinner hours of reaching some sort of midpoint. what the fuck? that being said, my experience with spanish food, namely tapas has been pretty delightful. one thing they really get right is the iberian ham sandwiches. whereas in america they would just pile on a bunch of shit on a shitty piece of bread with a shitty piece of ham, in spain they simply give you some really nice bread, and a few nice slices of cured iberian ham, no mayo, no lettuce, nothing else, and you´re set. still have not eaten paella. no one seems to want to let me order it. maybe it´s out of season...