Life in Spain

• 28 August 2026
• spain

Readers, you've been nothing but loyal, refreshing this blog on a daily, or probably hourly basis, and here we've been, frittering away our free time not writing you updates. Such is the burden of fandom, but I hope you all find the strength to carry on with only this morsel of an update.

We last left you in Logroño, and today we come to you from Granada. First off: Granada is pretty quiet in August. It's also quite hot. But we picked an apartment with air conditioning which has proved to be a huge boost to morale.

We wound our way toward the coast and then down from Northern Spain, discovering the delightful city of Zaragoza, home to not one, but two cathedrals. The pope made a special exception, they're normally only allowed to have one. One cathedral is ridiculously ostentatious, the other ridiculously enormous. They are also essentially located right next to each other.

Ostentatious or enormous? You'll have to go to Zaragoza to find out.

Anyway Zaragoza contains my favorite plaza in Spain. After eating in tens of plazas and walking through hundreds, I feel safe crowning the winner. It has a bar. It has some restaurants, it has a museum that's closed for restoration, and it has a church. So basically all the stuff you expect from a European plaza. But something about the trees, the atmosphere, it's just the best. This is probably the point where a traditional blogger might add an image. But I, dear friends, don't have one. So just imagine the perfect plaza, and that's it basically.

In Vegas they have Taco Bells with DJs. In Europe they have this around every corner.

So we saw cool places, yes, and went to Valencia and Murcia and finally Granada. Where we continue to learn Spanish, and can at least talk to people now. We still make many mistakes, unless I'm wishing you well, I can't use the subjunctive in daily conversation, and I learned I should probably learn Chinese because they don't have a past tense, whereas Spanish has 4 past tenses they use plus one for legal texts.

Contemplating whether the pluscuamperfecto tense also needs to use the subjuntivo imperfecto. No idea why we're smiling.

Between learning tenses we've soaked in the sites of Granada. The Alhambra is its most famous landmark, and it's quite incredible to see lit up from one side of the city.

We went to an incredible flamenco show, because southern Spain is the birthplace of flamenco. It actually originated from gypsy groups and has been incorprated into all kinds of styles, including flamenco ballet.

A famous street artist in Granada paying homage to flamenco

We also took a tour with an awesome guide in the Sierra Nevada National Park, right outside Granada. He spoke to us mostly in Spanish (at our request) and it was fun to learn about the geology and wildlife from a local. He also had an incredible dog Kai that joined us for the hike.

The final summit.

Ok well I guess there's that summit behind us. Maybe next time.

So in Granada, much like the Italian Riviera, you get free food with your drinks. Here they call it tapas, which means lids, because they used to serve them on top of your drink. Now it just comes served on a side plate. But I am a big fan of this tradition!

We're about to board a plane to Georgia, and then have a brief visit in Copenhagen with a dear friend who we haven't seen in ages. I would say I'll keep you updated, but given our recent track record we may be regaling you with tales in person. We'll see!

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