Saturday, August 19th, 2006: Granada

"que tu miras..." the slurred words staggered in the distance as we walked uphill, the Alhambra, shown here, to our right.

"QUE tu miras!..." it repeated louder. Amused that I could understand what the grumbly voice was murmuring I turned to Angelina, "I think he's saying, 'what are you looking at?'"

I turned around to see who was looking at what "QUE TU MIRAS!" shit, I think he's yelling at us!

The filthy stumbling drunk came charging at us up the cobbled road "QUE TU MIRAS!" the slowly-stretched, slurred words dominated the busy street. Hoping there was a chance he wasn't targeting us we turned and started walking quickly uphill.

"QUE TU MIRAS!" He was closing in. We should duck into a shop.

"QUETUMIRAS!" the words shot direcly into my left ear, I had to do something. My blood began to boil; prepared to fight I turned to face him, "WHAT!? WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

"Que tu miras!" the words spattered their way through his rotting, crooked, yellow teeth. He was wearing a torn, stained green t-shirt. His eyes dark brown like his hair; his scrawny frame couldn't have been older than 30 years.

Adrenaline surged, it's hard to express anger in a foreign language, but I tried, "Vamanos! (Let's go!)" He stared. Tourists stared. "VAMANOS! VAS! VAS! (you go!)" No one came, no one left.

At a standoff the yelling continued, I was mixing in English and hand motions.

Angelina was up ahead and I motioned her on; with my fist clenched and without taking my eyes from him I began walking. He began following. Shit. But soon gave up. Thrusting his hand in my face with his middle-finger raised he spouted some crude curses that I clearly understood after working at a construction site all summer.

Welcome to Granada.