Road Trip To Granada

Beautiful lush Granada

Once upon some years ago, we first settled in the Granada region for just a small year. It was a little longer than a year in total in Spain including our volunteering months, but having our own rental was good even though it was not that great without heating in winter or AC in summer, lol. I felt blessed for being able to rent for such a low price so that we had the opportunity to breathe and see where life would take us.

The saying "You don't know what you've got till it's gone" surely goes for my appreciation for Granada. Although I was happy there, had good memories overall, despite the challenges we faced at the time, it never occurred to me that 7+ years later, I'd long for Granada every single time we enter the lush province.

Greenhouses are far as the eye can see

Some call it futuristic, others will find it repulsive to look at if surrounded by them too much time. Both me and my boyfriend belong to the last group. Thankfully, I can also see more beauty in the area now, and I'm open to explore more as well to make sure I will have fond memories of this region once we move on in the future and probably never look back. I truly believe that once we close the chapter in this region, we will not have a reason to go back.

Not all that bad!

Never say never because who knows in the end we will end up going back for whatever reason, I can't say, this is just how I look at it right now. I'm very pleased that I can wake up with a stunning view over our "gold coast" as I should call it because it doesn't compare to any other part of this town to be honest. I feel lucky for living here, especially now that summer adds a community pool to the facilities making the rental price worth it for a few months.

Big contrast

It's insane to me seeing the province change from dust and brownish to lush green as far as the eye can see. It instantly makes me happy and put a smile on my face every time we enter Granada. The contrast is huge though, and it's usually a little disappointing when all we see is the ocean and greenhouses again. We then know, we're back in our own province.

Sunday road trip

Last Sunday it was finally time to pick up the indoor bicycle we bought from our friend as he prefers using the gym in his community building instead. It was a great deal, yet another thing to be thankful for, especially after the treadmill horrors from Cecotec. Thankfully, that chapter has closed and now I'm ready to start a new one. In a few weeks I see the cardiologist and I'm going to aim to show him some workout stats which may or may not tell him something interesting to investigate because I still have the 24 hour test pending.

Cheat day

Although not planned, this Sunday ended up being a cheat day in terms of diet. Not fully by choice to be honest, we had a time limit before F1 races started and were supposed to head back home, so not finding a place to have a quick toast for breakfast was a huge bummer and made me very hangry at some point.

My boyfriend hates strolling through Carrefour (I don't like it either but he truly hates it) so when we almost were at the store, he saw Burger King and said let's order something in the Drive and be done with it. I regret it the moment I agreed, even more so when I forgot to check coupons in the app and trice as much when she told me it was 24 euros for the few things we ordered.

BURN these calories!

I didn't even finish the burger and felt like I should make an extra effort that evening to compensate by swimming AND doing some indoor cycling for the first time. So I did ... Back to healthy tomorrow and the rest of the week for sure!

I'm surely doing something right with swimming because I feel it in my arms when I went for a swim and I also have the idea that it's getting easier on my back the last few times. Let's see how that goes for another 10 weeks or so. I had to skip two days because of the extreme winds after I noticed how bad my back reacts to the cold from just the few minutes out of the pool to our home. Now at least I can compensate such days with some indoor cycling (and of course: saddle pain at first lol).

Ready set go!

I'm feeling ready to get some stuff moving into the right direction this week and I hope I can hold on to this feeling and not get any health set backs this week. There's another MRI scan coming up this week to check the status of my back as well but I'm not nervous for that, it will only give me some clarity.

Food allergy or sensitivity?

I also learned something last week, the heart palpitations I had last month, happened at the exact restaurant again last week when we had (almost the same) tapas there last week. I almost fainted and realised that this can hardly be a coincidence and asked the restaurant for an ingredient list while I also learned that many restaurants add MSG to the food to enhance flavours.

I hope that I can unravel the mystery so I know what caused it and can avoid that from now on. I don't believe they will see us back there any more though, it was a scary experience but thankfully this time, I went to bed a few hours later and woke up feeling ok. Maybe because I only had 2 tapas this time. We'll see, but somehow it feels reassuring that it's probably food related.

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Edit: if you noticed the funny perm link of this post, that's because it was scheduled but I forgot about it and didn't add the pictures until I was notified that I published a new post. Oops. Is it even possible to change this afterwards? If so, please let me know in the comments..

All pictures above are mine, taken during another trip to Granada a few months ago..