Granada - English version

The air smells different in Granada; a lulled atmosphere permeating with artisan leather bags sold along the narrow “Moroccan” streets, a hundred different teas from all over the world, , kebab – the famous “schwarma”, mixed with the dank, rich spices of Morocco and Pakistan, Sierra Nevada and hope…

It seems that time stands still there, as if there was no hurry for anything: ragged hippies in the winding callejones of Albayzin, on the little squares next to the fountains and on the viewpoints fill the already dreamy air with melancholic tones of their mainstream and alternative instruments. Even the church bells toll slowly. The streets belong to them, and most of them came from all over Spain, Europe and the world; they found their own self, they feel at home and act accordingly. Granada is their home.

And you are probably a tourist? Pretend that you understand. Be cool, sit on the sidewalk. Start a conversation. Look, as if hypnotized, at the maestro’s fingers playing flamenco guitar. Take photos of him with your pro camera - as if you too are an artist, only in the world of photography or amateur film, among the indigenous people, whose customs you want to present in your own village back home, and everything is cool. Everything is immensely cool.

So the years go by. If you’re not careful, you may wake up one day in Granada and understand that your life had passed in inebriation with life, in the open, in parties, in flamenco nights, long walks, immeasurably long observing of the Alhambra and “the most beautiful sunset in the world”, as the criminal Bill Clinton phrased it, from the mirador of San Nicolas. A plate was placed at San Nicolas to honor him, something like “Billy was here”…but it’s no longer there. It wasn’t me, I swear!

Is Granada more sun or rain? Sun, lots of sun. But there is rain as well. The boring, seeping rain that can go on uninterrupted for days on end in a lackluster, melancholic way. And then, the sun will rise and the smell of paella, seafood and who-knows-what, prepared on garlic (the trademark of Spain) will fill the narrow Arab streets. That same garlic bothered Beckham’s wife while her husband played for Real Madrid: “Spain smells of garlic! Yuck!” sayeth Victoria and fell in disgrace with the Spanish people. It happened recently, a few years back. I told you, time is relative in Granada, and it feels as if it had happened just the other day, when it actually happened once upon a time.

And then, one more day breathed in to the fullest. I walk down the steep streets of Albayzin; I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I’ll go past the “Teteria”, i.e. the Moroccan tea and Andalusia Arab tourism street, reach Calle Elvira, with super-alternative bars, go left to Plaza Nueva or right along the Elvira.Or I might just walk straight down to Gran Via Colon, the largest street in town, cross it at the Cathedral and then sneak in again in the small tea, silk and velvet streets, fancy shops, souvenir shops, among the tourists and the Granadine semi-snobs (Gran Via Colon is the border between the Hippie Empire and ordinary people). Small and big squares take turns to the left, right and straight ahead, and then everything ends with the line at Burger King. From that point on, the town is starting to get serious a bit, taking the shape of an ordinary European town. The stores are lined up along the three rays of streets, one of which leads all the way down to the Garcia Lorca Park, namesake of the Spanish poet who loved  Granada and spent most of his life there.

I’m already thinking of whether to go back from where I came, make a left turn to the bull arena, and find El Nido del Buho bar (The Owl’s Nest), where some of the best tapas in Granada are served, abundant and tasty. For 2 euros, as the price was some time ago, i.e. for 2.20 euros (what can you do, it’s the crisis time) today, in 2012, you get a 0.33 l draft beer and a nice plate of food. My all-time favorites include: salmon with cream cheese, salmon with red sauce, paella (if available), and surely the Iberian prosciutto (jamon iberico). The choice is magnificent, almost like Suleiman the Magnificent: there are hamburgers, hot-dogs (oh, yeah: they call them “perritos calientes”, literally, hot dogs!?), avocado, skewers and what not.

After three years I am back in Granada. What a flash! No wonder that while I lived there everything felt like a dream. The atmosphere is just like in Alfred Tennyson’s poem “The Lotus Eaters”. Tennyson actually got inspiration for this poem on a trip to Spain: the sailors full up on lotus, or, to translate it into English – on henbane, grow so numb and fall into a state of blissful day-dreaming, isolated from the rest of the world… Almost nothing has changed. I am walking the same sidewalks along Gran Via again, I see the same shops, the same tourists, only in the body of somebody else, I recognize the faces of some of the shop-keepers…

And so I was and I was not. At times it seemed that only a shadow of me was walking those streets where once upon a time Cedomir Pusica, the owner of the body who sleeps somewhere in Serbia, in Italy, in Greece, in Hungary, in Matrix, studied and fooled around. Something changed. Me. Joder…