The rain in Spain, old clothes, and Humphrey Bogart

Although I went to sleep last night without any specific plans, today has been a fascinating and very unexpected day. I woke up this morning when the phone rang at about 9 a.m. I didn't really think anything of it, and fell back asleep until about 10:30, at which point I got up and went to say good morning to Hortensia. She was in the living room-type area with my roommate, and they had just finished listening to a radio interview with Marcos Ana, a famous Spanish poet who had been a political prisoner for 23 years. To our surprise, Hortensia informed us that Marcos Ana had actually been imprisoned with her father, who was a political prisoner for 16 years during Franco's rule in Spain. "From the time I was little" (she indicated with her hand measuring the height of a small child) "until when I was about your age, my father was in prison." He was a university professor, but also played the violin, and Hortensia showed us photographs of her father in prison and also a drawing that was done of him, with a poem dedicated to her inscribed on the bottom. It was pretty amazing to hear about that and to see the pictures of her father, and kind of put my petty concerns into perspective at the time.

After we ate breakfast together, Lauren and I went to a museum down the street from our apartment, which is called Casa de los Tiros, which roughly translates to "house of the shots" or "house with the guns." The name came from the fact that the building used to be on the outskirts of the city, so the owner of the building (it used to be a house) put guns on the top to protect himself from robbers. The museum was mostly filled with art and artifacts from Granada's lengthy history...my favorites were the drawings of different parts of the Alhambra and photographs of people in Granada's neighborhoods.

When we got back, Hortensia had cooked us a dish that she called "ropa vieja," which means "old clothes" in English. I thought that was pretty funny, but it's kind of like the American concept of leftovers, with a twist. She took parts of two dishes that we had eaten the day before (chicken and chickpeas/vegetables) and combined them with more vegetables to make a new dish, which was delicious. One thing that I've noticed about Spanish culture is that there is very little waste, with food, water, garbage, etc. For example, instead of throwing away orange peels and nut shells, Hortensia burns them to create a sort of potpourri, which smells really good.

After a relaxing afternoon, I decided that I wanted to go to see The Maltese Falcon (they called it "El halcón maltés"), which is a Humphrey Bogart film that was part of the classic film festival that's been going on all week. The movie was in a cinema in the shopping mall across town, so I braved the rain (which has been happening for about a week...so much for the supposed drought) and walked over. I got some yummy popcorn (which is called "palomitas" here, which translates to "little doves"...I'm confused) and watched the movie, which was in English with Spanish subtitles. It was cool to see how things are translated, or not translated, from one language to another and the reactions from the audience, and that Humphrey is popular over here, too.

Now I'm back at the apartment, eating lemon yogurt and a peanut butter sandwich, and contemplating what to do this evening. Despite the rainy coldness of the past few days, I'm truly in love with this city and how, in the same day, I can witness so much history and so much innovation. It's pretty incredible.