With our travel problems, we decided to meet at the bus station and secure seats to Cordoba in the morning. Hopefully there will be no bus strikes tomorrow, as we seem to choose the wrong transportation method each time. A visit later to the Royal Chapel finally put the family tree together for me. Ferdinand and Isabel we all know from Christopher Columbus. However, their marriage unified most of modern Spain with how much land each brought to the marriage. The southern kingdom of Andalusia remained Moorish until Ferdinand and his troops conquered the leaders of Granada--thus the country became Catholic. They had a son named Philip I (Philip the Fair as apparently he was hot) and he married Joan (later called Joan the Mad). Apparently she had jealously issues because of his looks and after he died, kept his corpse in her room for two years, kissing it each day. They had a son named Charles V, who inherited an enormous kingdom from Holland to Bulgaria. Charles moved the court to Granada. His son Philip II moved the court to Madrid and ended up losing most of Spain's riches and power. The leadership's intent on a Catholic kingdom overseen by one ruler was their surmise. The coffins of Ferdinand, Isabel, Philip I and Joan are in the Royal Chapel in plain black boxes--which is a bit creepy--as they are really there....
One thing I have yet to get used to in Spain is siesta time, also called my errand time (1:30pm - 6pm) when everything closes. I hiked 30 minutes uphill today to see a mosque, whose archives present the Muslim perspective of Granada. Arriving at 2:30pm, the door closed for siesta. Nice hike I figured, so I headed for my tea house in town to get onto the internet. Arriving there, it was siestaing, too. I don't like running errands after 6pm everyday.
Another interesting thing in Spain is the location of their doorknobs. Kind of reminds me of
Alice in Wonderland--fairytale-like, I guess.
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