Granada

Every one who goes to granada feels the need to mention the alhambra. Specifically the nazareen palaces, which were sort of palaces for the moorish kings then kinda where emperor Carlos V stayed once or twice, then really just the place where thieves and vagabonds from the city spent there time and planned their crimes and cried when they were heartbroken and did all the things that people always have done and always will do. Only 400 people an hour are let into the nazareen palaces so theoretically, given about 16 hours of being open less than 7000 people a day are allowed to see them. Which isn´t really that much considering its one of the top five most visited palaces in the world. Its impressive. Most impressive are the fine plaster carvings that cover every wall in the complex. Mixtures of arabic writing from the Quran, the most delicate calligraphy I´ve ever seen except more important because a sixth of the world think its god speaking just for them, and geometric designs that are so well integrated into the caligraphy you can´t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Its perfunctory to discuss these palaces, they are impressive, yet as you move from one spectacularly decorated room to the next spectacularly decorated room it is difficult to keep up your excitement, you begin to feel as if it you have seen it all before, and at least for me i remember being a small child and thinking about heaven and how even something perfect would lose its splender if thats all I had and I started looking for something different, even something ugly to reground me so I could appreciate the beauty around me which was so like the beauty that was around me in the room previous.
For me, my favorite part was not the palaces. Next to the palace is a fort, its soul purpose was to fight against invading christians, who were constantly invading as Granada was the last muslim stronghold on the iberian peninsula. It was not made to be beautiful, or even kinda pretty. It is a blocky structure full of stone passagways and dank holes to hide and wait for enemies. It is where hot oil was dropped on invaders and where cannons crushed archers hidden in their turrets. It was impressive in every way that the palaces were not. We climbed to the main patio of the fort where all the towers where connected then to the top of the highest tower we could find. The torre de vista. The tower of the sight. It was a sight. Below us stretched all of granada and beyond mountains, some naked and defiant, others guarding their form with snow, giving them a look of purity that doesn´t exist outside of nature and children. I stood there and looked from one side to the next, then back, and around again hoping to ingrain it in my memory. After the ugliness of the fort this view was so much more spectacular than the palaces. It was our payoff, our reward for enduring the haphazard stones. It was the only heaven I´ve ever known, fleeting and only visible after seeing everything that heaven is not.
I´m probably writing in an even more melodramatic fashion than usual, mostly because I feel more emotionally confused than I usually do. A friend of mine at UNC was shot and killed on a street off of franklin street, our main road at UNC. Her name was Eve Carson and she was 22 years old. She laughed with her whole body if you were lucky enough to make her laugh. She started by leaning back slightly than the force of her would bring her forward, doubling her up as she laughed in a way that would make any prisoner feel free if only for a moment. She was the first person I met at UNC. She was the first person to remember my name. She wasn´t my closest friend, but she was many peoples closest friend and there is no fairness or justice or silver lining to her departure except that there is a chance that now we are hurting more than she. But I don´t understand death and dying enough to know what more to say. I hope if heaven exists it is better than I imagine it. I hate that she is gone because I selfishly don´t want to have to think about no one ever seeing her again. I don´t have any more words.
Sorry for this somber ending. As always I love you grandma and I hope that you are well. I´ll be going to morocco soon and I´ve taken every precaution I can think of to keep me safe. I have no desire to get sick or injured, I just want to see whatever I can while theres still time to see it. Everyone take care of yourselves. I love you all. I miss you all. I wish you all to smile even at innapropriate times. See you soon.