Friday Night Fun

Not that some people need any sort of excuse to bar hop (I’m not referring to myself here), last weekend gave those of us who do strong reason to join the Spaniards and have a night on the town. Of course we ate dinner at an hour usually past my bedtime, so my flatmate (another girl in the program) and I met the group around 11:30 and arrived at the first bar fifteen minutes later. Much to my dismay, the general consensus was to begin at Hannigan’s, an Irish pub near the school. I wasn’t in complete approval because a. Irish pubs are EVERYWHERE and b. the idea of trading precious sleep time in return for being able to speak English (which I continue to refuse to do) to other Americans was simply not worth it. I tagged along anyway, with the promise that we could move on from there if it wasn’t enjoyable. Believe it or not, it wasn’t, enjoyable that is (perhaps because I rebelled and didn’t partake in the whole drinking part…that’s not the point, is it?)! So, six of the seventeen girls decided to head someplace a tad more authentic than Guinness posters and MTV music videos. It was a gorgeous night, so we wandered around the city for a while, baffled by the families out for ice cream and the strolling couples of seventy-somethings out so late. As we passed through one of the main plazas where we gobbled up churros y chocolate a few days earlier- long, crispy, unsweetened pieces of fried dough dipped in a mug of warm, pudding-like chocolate great for drinking once the churros are gone- we came upon one of those huge white tents that people rent for outdoor parties. Crowds inside and outside the tent signified some sort of good time. We stopped and observed the “type” of party-goers and could not figure out who this fiesta was geared toward. Some wore elegant black tie, while others looked like students in jeans and t-shirts. At this point, I decided we were not too underdressed to crash it, but only one other girl would join me. We passed a quick two hours keeping to ourselves under the tent amongst chic Spanish-speakers. It turned out to be the sight of the opening night gala for the Southern Spain film festival currently in Granada through this coming weekend. Somehow we fit right in amongst the wide range of eccentric, posh, casual, and generally interesting movie-lovers. I like to think the party was open to the public because it was smack in the middle of a central plaza and no one questioned our entrance a bit. We enjoyed the free concessions, consuming everything from veg sushi to bites of pates to chocolate-covered cream puffs and pineapple cheese cake for dessert. Both drinks I had were non-alcoholic flavored sugar syrups from the Indian food table. One closely resembled a mojito, but tasted like heavily sweetened mint sugar water (a mixer, perhaps?) and I could have sworn the other was sangria until one sip told me it was the sweetest pomegranate juice I’ve ever had (maybe in honor of the film fest location- Granada means fruit from a pomegranate tree). The back of the huge tent was blocked off and reserved for a screening. The next day, the other girls were jealous of our fun, free night with the movie buffs, so we vowed to see one of the films in the coming week.