Magical and Mysterious

My work took me to a wondrous place last month, Granada, Spain.  I had never heard of it before, it is a  city at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains; in winter, it is quite a ski destination but that isn't what makes it so magical and mysterious. 

It is renowned for an Arab fortress and palace called the Alhambra.  While we studied European history in school, there was very little if any that I recall about the Arab Empire. This area of Spain was under Moorish control since 711 AD.; it was't until 1492 that Christians took over the area.  It was from Alhambra that Christopher Columbus  requested royal endorsement from Queen Isabella. Alhambra is a World UNESCO Heritage site. 

Two of my sisters joined me on this trip. We arrived on Saturday morning, my workshop didn't start until Monday morning so we had the rest of the weekend to look around.  We didn't actually go to Alhambra until the following Saturday as even though we booked a couple weeks in advance that was the only time we could get tickets to the palace at the same time. 

That first afternoon we just walked up to the tourist information office at city hall so my sisters could get their Welcome to Granada cards. Then on the advice of the agent we walked some of the small market streets.

The weather was quite unsettled with a few thunder storms rolling through so we decided to stop and have a meal and a drink to avoid the rain. We quickly learned to ask if they had tapas rather than to ask for the menu.  If they had tapas, all you had to do was order a drink and food would come with it.

The weather was a little better on Sunday and we spent the day walking around, this time up to the old Moorish area of the historical city centre. During our walk, we found some tourist apartments that invited you to come in and see the view of Alhambra from the terrace; which we did, the picture below is from that  terrace. Great advertising; we looked up those apartments online, they would make a perfect base for a visit to Granada. Since on Sunday it turned out that many attractions are free, we were able to visit a monastery and the archaeological Arab baths. 

View of Alhambra

Monastery 

Old Arab baths

Arab baths

River Darro

Monday morning, I had to head off to my workshop but my sisters enjoyed another day of strolling around as their cards didn't start until the Tuesday.  Tuesday evening, we had a workshop dinner.  It was held outdoors on a beautiful patio.  The weather that evening was very nice, even perhaps a tad warm.

Going up to dinner

The next day the workshop was only a half day for those of us that had decided not to do the tour of General Dynamics Land Systems. The previous evening had also been one of my sister's birthday, we had surprised her with a reservations at an actual hammam, an Arab bath so we enjoyed the baths and a massage that afternoon.

Side street location of the hammam

Entrance to the Hammam

It was quite an experience, warm, cold and hot pools, a sauna, mint tea, music, all followed by a massage. The whole place was beautifully tiled. It was my first massage. 

Our workshop ended on Friday at noon, so I was able to play tourist again with my sisters. They had kept a few places to go that were near by to our hotel.  We also planned to go to see Alhambra lit up at night. They say sunsets are spectacular but unfortunately for us unsettled weather and clouds had rolled in again.  

We visited another archaeological site and another monastery before heading up to find a place for dinner. We had planned to walk but a gentleman told us it was very steep and we had better take a bus. That was a good idea, it was steep. How those bus drivers manage those tiny streets I'll never know. 

Granada at night

Panoramic view

The restaurant  was rather expensive but it was better than sitting on the wall in Plaza San Nicolas for nearly two hours. We only ordered a bottle of white wine and a plate to share so it wasn't too bad. Had they come and asked us if we wanted anything else they probably would have made some other sales.

The next day, Saturday was our last day in Granada. Our tickets for the Nazrid Palaces were not until 6:30 pm so we had a little time to sleep in and pack before heading out for lunch and then up to Alhambra, first to see the gardens and the fortress.  

But you know this post is getting long, I'm going to leave our visit to Alhambra for another post.

Nationals Recap

Last weekend, we went to the Agility Association of Canada (AAC) National Agility Championship. Keltic only got to play on Friday at the sanctioned trial events since he missed qualifying for Nationals by 0.4 points. Quite a heart breaker but as someone said he saved me money and the stress of running two dogs.  Keltic got to run two Masters Jumpers courses and was able to get his first Masters qualifying score with a very nice clean run. There was only one spot where I thought we might have had a refusal but another competitor, who is also an AAC judge, told me Keltic stopped but never had any backward motion. I thought all those tunnels in the middle would cause an off course but they didn't.

Beckett had two Steeplechase runs on Friday. Since Steeplechase is time plus faults, he managed to get a Q with a bar down (5 faults) but didn't Q on a clean run since we spent a lot of time getting the second set of weaves done and were over time. But that run was still good enough for third place and qualified us to run in the Steeplechase final on Sunday. More on that later.

They had so many dogs in the Steeplechase that they didn't finish running until about 8:30 pm and had to run under the lights of the grand stand. They also had to postpone the opening ceremonies until Saturday morning.

Some of the Nationals rings

Opening Ceremony

Judges in kilts

Saturday was the first competition day of Nationals. Over the two days of Nationals, we would run six courses, two Standards, two Jumpers and two Gambles. Our rotation on Saturday was Jumpers, Gamblers and last the Standard.  We didn't get a clean round in either Standard or the Jumpers, we had one refusal on the weaves in the Standard and two refusals in the Jumpers course.   We had a decent opening in the Gamble but could not get the main Gamble. We finished the day in 13th place out of 18 dogs in the double drop 8" veteran class.

Saturday night was the banquet. It was quite well organized and the meal was good too. I had the salmon.  They had highland dancers and step dancers for the entertainment.

Step Dancers

Highland Dancers

Complete Dance Troupe

It made for a late evening though. We left at about 8 pm. Getting home around 9 pm, it was off to bed after the dogs had been fed, Sunday would be another early day.

On Sunday, our rotation was Standard, Gamblers, then Jumpers. It was good to get the Standard done before it was too hot. The Standard had the weaves divided into two sets of six. Beckett was having problems with weaves over the weekend and sure enough he faulted the second set of six, we also got a refusal on one of the tunnels. Again in Gamblers we had a nice opening and Beckett did the first four obstacles of the Gamble before running out of time. I was quite happy about that.  Last up was our Jumpers, since we were in the Steeplechase finals they had moved Beckett up in the running order so we would have time to rest.  We had a beautiful clean round in Jumpers.  The standard course time was 49 seconds so we were over 10 seconds under time.

Finally, we had Steeplechase to run, there were a minimum of three dogs in each height class. Beckett and another Sheltie named Brigid ran very close in time in the sanctioned event but the third dog Cinn, an Icelandic Sheepdog was very fast in comparison.  I expected him to win. Beckett ran first since he qualified third and we set the time to beat. Beckett popped the first set of weaves at the tenth but we finished them before moving on. We ran the rest of the run clean even if parts of it weren't really pretty; Beckett even stayed in the second set of weaves. I didn't see Brigid's or Cinn's run; all I heard for Cinn's run was that he took 20 faults for not completing the weaves.  Maybe the handler thought he had done them but had put the dog back in at the wrong pole or in the wrong direction but in any case even a fast dog has a hard time making up 20 faults.  Beckett and I got first place, beating Brigid by only 2/100's of a second.

Overall I was  a bit disappointed. We finished in 13th place out of 18 dogs but there was some tough competition. That clean Jumpers run over 10 seconds under time was only good enough for 8th place. I did do the "what if" scenario, and if we hadn't had the weave issue, then we would have had a clean first Standard run. If we had run that clean, we would have ended up in 10 place overall and made the podium. But we had some nice runs and got to run Steeplechase with everyone watching. What a blast that was; I could hear people from the standings cheering us on.  Beckett gave me all he had over the weekend and that's all you can ask.

Keltic and his first Masters ribbons