It's Official.....
...we now have three teenagers living in this house. Jamie turned 13 today. The celebration will be a low key event (Jamie has never, not even as a young child, been one for big parties) with a family barbeque and a chocolate cheesecake for dessert. A few of Jamie's friends in the neighourhood might come over, but that will be about it.
Still Waiting
My suitcase still hasn't been returned to me. On Friday afternoon I was told it was en route from London to Vancouver, but when I called again yesterday it hadn't left London yet. My frustration level is growing....I don't care about most things in that suitcase but all my gifts I bought for people are in there, along with my flamenco shoes and three new pairs of shoes I bought while I was there. If I don't get those back I won't be fit to live with!
While I Wait....
...here are some more images from Spain, this time from Granada. We spent about eight days in this small city (about 300,000 people) and I could have settled right in there. So beautiful. Granada is perhaps best known for La Alhambra, a sprawling palace/fort that was built by the Moors in the 13th and 14th centuries. After Granada was conquered by the Spanish, they added to it, with architecture that appears clunky and almost ugly beside the Moor's simplicity. I say simplicity because from the outside, the Moorish buildings are very plain. It is only on the inside that you see spendours almost unimaginable.....cooling gardens and fountains, intricate tile, wood inlay and plaster work....nothing that I've seen (except perhaps the Taj Mahal) rivals it in terms of beauty.
It was in this setting that we had an opportunity to see a number of performances.....a ballet by the Berlin Ballet, a performance by the Berlin orchestra and a mesmerizing performance by Whirling Dervishes from Turkey. I'll talk more about those in another posting. For now, here are some scenes from the Alhambra.
The Alhambra, viewed from the Albayzin, the old Moorish part of Granada.
La Peurta del Vino, the Gate of the Wines. Claude Debussy wrote a short piano piece about what he imagined life would have been like outside this gate and in fact there's a plaque near-by thanking him for his work. I sat by the gate and let the music run through my head, and imagined away the tourists and instead tried to envision what it might have been like during earlier times. Wine was actually stored inside this gate for villagers to come and buy, which is how it got its name.
Looking into the Court of the Lions
This fountain originally told time. The twelve lions were set up like the face of a clock, and depending on which lion was spouting water at any given moment, people knew what time it was. When the Spanish conquered Granada in 1492 they took the fountain apart to try to figure out how it worked. They couldn't, and it has never worked properly since.
Detail of a section of one of the ceilings
More ceiling detail
Joe
You can tell I'm big on ceiling detail...here's another one
Wall detail
One of the many arches inside the palace
I wonder how old this tree is, found in one of the gardens at the Alhambra. I wonder what it has seen and what stories it could tell.
7:38:49 AM 
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