Adventures in Spanish Language: When a room wasn't clean at check in, and no interpreter in sight, I bravely ventured down to the desk to sort it out. I figured all the words out using my phrase book, and got 6 seconds into my sentence before the concierge, who spoke a little English, demanded that I switch to English and hurry up. Deflated, I went back upstairs, searching for "well you can keep your stupid language and I'll just wait for all of Spain to learn E...

After a long trip through the countryside, we arrived at the Alhambra palace in Granada. Before I tell you about that, let me just re-emphasize how many olive trees were on the way. Tons. My informal estimate has about 95% of all living things in Spain being olive trees. Okay, I'm really done with the olives now. The Alhambra palace in Granada was the last seat of power for the moorish kings of Spain, who ruled from 711 to 1492. It was beautiful in a way that i...