Europe #2: Spain

So we know you're all wondering where we went after France. Yes, you are. So we won't keep you waiting any longer!

From Paris, we took an overnight train to:

Madrid.

We were in first class. Apparently.

This requires explanation, as we wouldn't normally be so posh. We were the proud owners of First Class Global Eurail Passes. We would have obtained the cheaper option of Second Class...but apparently we're too old. Hmph. And even with the passes, you sometimes have to pay a reservation fee. In most countries, it's a few Euros. No problem. In Spain, however...the reservation fee for the reclining seats we got on this overnight train was abominable - we paid £75 in London. The sleepers were even more expensive. Apparently, it's hideously expensive to travel by train into Spain, and, as we later found out within and out of Spain.

So, we boarded this ridiculously expensive Spanish train, and the first thing we noticed was the slightly 70ish decor. The fact that this train was rather old was confirmed when the seats started to fall apart. When the girl in front of Eva reclined her seat, the whole back of it fell onto Eva's shins, and hung there for the rest of the trip:

And then Shayne's armrest decided it was tired of its boring existence:

So you can imagine it wasn't the most comfortable or sleep-filled night.

When we finally arrived in Madrid the next morning, we made our way to the place where Eva's cousin, Georgie, has been staying for the past few months while she's in Spain teaching English. We had to hike up a few flights of stairs with our heavy packs, as we had the feeling that this lift hadn't been working in a long time:


If any of you have seen the movie The Spanish Apartment, the set-up in this small apartment is very similar: five people, all of different nationalities (French, Spanish, Australian, Moroccan, and Danish), all sharing one tiny bathroom, kitchen, and living space:

The one on the left is Georgie. Can't you see the family resemblance?

We very very quickly got into the typical Spanish lifestyle: rising late, sleeping late, and eating unhealthily. Not to mention drinking...we noticed straight away that there's a more laid-back approach to life than in Paris. A bit like in Guatemala, rules appear to be deemed as guidelines rather than laws by a lot of people. For example, according to Georgie, when smoking was banned indoors here (pubs, clubs, restaurants), many establishments not only ignored this, but also put up signs informing patrons that they were in fact allowed to smoke on the premises:

Another sign of the laid-back lifestyle is that a lot of stores don't open until 10 or 11, then close at around 2pm till 5pm for siesta. In some ways, Spain feels like the missing link between Latin America and Europe.

We were only in Madrid for a few days, and we spent much of that time fitting in with the locals by sleeping. Here are a few of the cool things we came across when we were awake!

There was a cool food festival, specialising mainly in cheese and meat.

On the other side of the table, there was a massive boiling cauldron of octopus.

A cool square where people gathered to enjoy the beautiful day...and there happened to be a protest there. Something to do with Morocco...


There is an enormous park near Georgie's place called Retiro, where she said she can always find something that makes her smile. We know what she means: it was so refreshing to find a park where people could just laze around on the grass, after going to all those manicured, regulated parks in places like Boston, Paris, Toronto, Brooklyn, and Montreal, where they discourage people from doing so. Eva celebrated this attitude:


There is a lake in the centre, beside which there are buskers:

Including an old-fashioned Punch-and-Judy show (Spanish style...):

And this guy who played this hybrid instrument. Perhaps the result of an illicit affair between a trumpet and a violin? (Remember the Vancouver bam-truss??)

On the lake, there's the ubiquitous boat rental:

These heroes took it upon themselves to rescue a runaway boat. They eventually succeeded, but by God it took them a long time.
In the background of the picture above, you can see a cool Romanesque structure. Every Sunday (which was the day we were there), impromptu drumming circles form.

Amongst these drummers strutting their stuff are jugglers, dancers, and drug dealers who casually ask you if you smoke ganja, but don't press the matter if you say "No". Lots of people gather to enjoy the atmosphere and the music:

And watch the sunset over the lake:


Another cool, yet slightly random, thing we saw was this concrete wall covered in an organic living tapestry:


Spain of course, and particularly Madrid, is the home of TAPAS!! On our last night here we went out with Georgie and her mate Adam from back home (who's also living here and teaching), and they took us to a little smoke-filled bar where you got free tapas with every round of beer you bought. Eva thought she should get all the tapas, as she doesn't drink beer. Shayne vehemently disagreed.

After yet another near miss due to a train-timetable misread, we took a train to:

Barcelona
Or Barr-the-lona, as the locals call it. Ever since we'd entered Spain, we'd had trouble adjusting to hearing the language we'd learnt in Guatemala spoken so damn quickly and pronounced so differently. Even though he knows that the language originated here, Shayne can't help but feel that the Spanish have butchered it somewhat.

Anyway, when we got off the Metro station near where we were staying, this was the landmark that we first saw:

Yes, Barcelona has its own Arc de Triomph (here known as del Arc de Triomf). Like everything in this city, it was much more over-the-top and ornate than the original. This will come up later.

We had arranged Couchsurfing here with a guy called Ferran Ferran. We first assumed this was his penname on Couchsurfing, but it turns out that that is the name on his letterbox...for the entire duration of our stay in his flat (6 days), we saw him twice, for about 15 minutes each. The first encounter occurred more than 24 hours after we'd arrived! We were given the keys and shown around by his friend and neighbour. Having said this, Ferran was very friendly when we eventually did see him, and helpful with advice and directions to places, not to mention an invitation to a party, despite his limited English and our equally limited Spanish. So for 6 days we had this very cool flat to ourselves, with the use of his kitchen, washing machine, and DVD player, not to mention a room to ourselves for a change!

Ferrran's flat was very cool. It had some random things in it, like the light fixture for his foyer:

And because he is apparently a member of a theatre group, some props and set pieces. This one brought out Shayne's inner mushroom:


Within a few days of being here, we realised it was one of our favourite cities that we'd visited so far, and of the few we'd seen in Europe, definitely the one we liked the best. It had the same laid back feel of Madrid, combined with a certain energy and vibrance. It has a very open layout compared to most European cities we'd seen before, or since. Many of its avenues are impressive, with enormous footpaths:

Perhaps one of its most impressive streets is one that's quite famous, called La Rambla, which stretches for more than a kilometre in the central Barcelona and is what Swanston Street can only dream of being.

It's lined on both sides with stalls, selling anything from flowers to ferrets, and street performers of all kinds:

Halfway down there's a great market which, although not as big as Queen Vic, is buzzing, and had some delicious food. Yes, Eva went a bit crazy over the (very expensive) chocolate:

At the top of La Rambla is another open square called Catalunya Place, where we encountered more pigeons than we had ever seen before. And for some reason, stupid people, like this girl here, encouraged these diseased rats of the sky to crawl all over them...


Another open space in Bacrelona which felt particularly non-European was the beach.

Complete with cool climby-thing:

The sun shone for much of the time we were here. It wasn't exactly warm, but it was a hell of a lot warmer than in France. It all felt very Mediterranean.

Like London, there are a lot of parks in Barcelona. There the similarity ends - thee parks here are nothing like London's, or anywhere else for that matter, even Retiro in Madrid. There's an eccentricity bordering on insanity in the two parks we spent a fair bit of time in, and this eccentricity can be seen in many aspects of the city (remember the Arc de Triomf?). This was something that particularly drew us to the city. Near Ferran's place is Parc de la Ciutadella, which boasted, among other things, this rather ornate water feature:

and...a life-size (we think) stone mammoth:


The second park is even more over-the-top. This is the very famous park, Park Güell, the brainchild of genius/raving lunatic Antonio Gaudi, one of Spain's most celebrated and, now, revered architects. He was given free reign on this piece of land between 1900 and 1914, and this is what he did:








The famous dragon:


As you might have gathered, he had a thing for mosaics, as well as extremely curved lines. He also had a thing for organic- and blobby-looking buildings. His most famous work (which is still being built long after his death!) is La Sagrada de Familia, a huge church which staggers the imagination, but unfortunately we ran out of time to see it. However, we did see the outside of Casa Batillo, in the middle of downtown Barcelona:

It reminds Eva of somthing out of Hansel and Gretel, or perhaps more like Alice in Wonderland. Shayne's still not sure what he thinks of it.

Belying the openness that is a part of much of Barcelona was the little labyrinthine district called Barceloneta, right next to the beach. We don't know if this place was poorer than the part of the city more inland, but it was definitely high-density housing:

Even though it looked a bit grubby, the brightly coloured buildings and children running around the streets made it seem lively and friendly, and reminded us a little of Guatemala, even though where we were in Guatemala lacks that sort of apartment living.

Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, which even now considers itself somewhat autonomous from the rest of Spain, with its own language, Catalan, which is Ferran's first language. We didn't understand how this worked, so we decided to educate ourselves by going to the Catalyna History Museum.


The history of Catalonia is long and bloody, and it has been declared an independent nation several times throughout this period. However, if there was a problem with this museum, it was that there was a lot of assumed knowledge. Additionally, a lot of the exhibits were in two languages - Spanish and Catalan. However, there were guns!

Unfortunately not loaded. Disclaimer: Shayne did not want to kill the photographer. Really.

And some cool dioramas of a time called The Tragic Week where Catalonians protested at being drafted to fight in the Morroccan War in 1909, and were quickly crushed by the government:


So, in the end, we still had a somewhat confused idea about the history of Catalonia, and how it exists as a semi-autonomous nation within Spain. Please don't test us on it...

Barcelona has a reputation as a party city. Well, we didn't find out about this until the fifth night we were there, as we had been far too busy enjoying Ferran's apartment, couch and DVD player (he has Lord of the Rings!). Through the Couchsurfing website we hooked up with a social group of Couchsurfers and hosts, and we all met in a bar just off La Rambla, where we stayed, mingled and drank...a fair bit, actually...before some of us moved on to a packed, sweaty, smoky and loud club a few doors down and Shayne once again was drunk enough to dance to crap music. It goes without saying that Eva danced. Anyway, we met these amiable people:

Next to Eva is Alyssia, who actually lives very close to us in Melbourne but is away for a year or so. And Eli, an American also on the road for at least 5 years, who currently lives in Paris. Lucky bastard.

Needless to say, the next day was a bit of a blur...

Summing up, Spain seemed to us to be the least European country in Europe. Even now, after we've seen much more of Europe, it still feels that way, and it stands out in our memories. However, one thing it had in common with France was the abundance of pharmacies. They were EVERYWHERE. We think we've said it before, one could be forgiven for thinking that Spain and France are populated with hypochondriacs. Also as in France, the Spanish love their dogs and take them everywhere. However, unlike France, the grog was dirt cheap. That reason alone makes Spain worth revisiting for Shayne! Eva will go for the tapas. Actually, we'll both go again for many reasons.

We leave you with a Barcelona sunset on the beach.

The beginning of our European Adventure - France

Preliminary note: We are still alive...

Since the start of November, we've been on a whirlwind trip around Europe, leaving us really no opportunity to update this thing. Thus, we have a lot of catching up to do, and as we said in our last post, there will probably be more photos than writing. Probably a relief for most of you. That being said, this is us we're talking about...

PARIS
On a sunny 3rd November, we arrived in the city of luuurve. See what we mean?:

Look closely. Ménage à trois, anyone?

We had arranged to stay with a couple who we'd never met before... for those of you a bit worried and/or confused, it's a networking project which allows travellers to meet/stay with people from the place they're visiting, which not only helps with the cost of travelling, but it also enables you to see a place through a local's eyes and meet all sorts of interesting people, and usually you get a much less "touristy" experience. For more on that, see htpp://www.couchsurfing.com

Anyway, our first CS hosts were Julien and Louise, a lovely couple who live just outside inner Paris:

and their adorable, if slightly insane, young cat, Mouche. This is her staying still for one rare moment:

She spent a lot of time pouncing on anything that moved, or even things that didn't...including sensitive parts of Shayne's anatomy when he was sleeping. However, at one point she did curl up underneath the blankets next to Eva. On her back to have her tummy rubbed. Maybe she sensed that Eva's really a dog person.

Julien and Louise took us around Paris on our first night there, and showed us around a couple of famous sites, like Notre Dame:

The outside of the Louvre, the gigantic museum.

It was as close as we got to Leonardo's Mona Lisa, being cheap and not wanting to queue.
After that, we had a delicious meal at a typical French restaurant (well, they assured us that it was!), where, shock horror, they discovered that Eva does not like wine. No, not even French wine. We hope they weren't too insulted...
Later that night (mignight, in fact), we met up and partied with Shayne's friend from online, Maddy, who claims that her impeccable English pretty much comes from watching Buffy. Hmmm...anyway, we kept the Parisian theme up, and danced for a while at...an Irish pub.

Left is Maddy, next to her are her friends from work. The poor thing works at the Disney Store, where they sell all sorts of stuffed and plastic Disney paraphenalia, including a Winnie the Pooh dressed up as the pope. Don't ask us why. Anyway, it nice to finally meet her!

The next few days were spent in a relatively touristy fashion, although we didn't even try to cram in even half the famous sites of Paris. Instead we started with a scenic cruise down the Sienne, which covered a lot of "key" sites, albeit from a distance, complete with commentary and cliched French music. Unfortunately, we have forgotten most of the names of the things we saw. We've been on so many tours and seen so many countries since that it all starts to blur a bit...so we present you with pretty photos and half-arsed descriptions.

Cool bridge with turrets and a lot of heads. With individual features:


Another bridge, with Notre Dame behind it:


We think it's some kind of town-hall-y thing.


And some tower that looks like it's made of Mechano...


Getting back to land, we decided not to climb that tower that everyone else wanted to climb (because of the queues and the price. NOT the steps...). Instead we went back to Notre Dame and ventured inside:

With its disturbing friezes of Herod slaying babies:

And its famous rosette stained-glass windows:


We ended up spending a lot of time in the Latin Quarter. One of its famous sites is the Pantheon:

The Pantheon is a fascinating place, but unfortunately we have no photos of the inside, as, yet again, Shayne stupidly to bring the camera. But, it used to be a church before it became a more secular place of remembrance. Here, influential Frenchman or those who have been seen to have served France well are buried, including Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Marie Curie...and other dead people. There are also heaps of empty crypts. Something to aspire to, hey? Also inside was a replica of Foucault's Pendulum. We're not explaining it. Google it. It was very cool.

The Pantheon is flanked by a university building and this statue, which, for the time we were there, was always adorned with this attractive headwear:

Louise referred to him as "Harry Potter".
The Latin Quarter has everything you could ever want. There was even a red light district for vaccum cleaners:

The puns. ALL the puns.

We spent another day and evening with Maddy, when we went to the Rodin museum (he's her favourite sculptor). Once again, no photos, as GUESS WHO FORGOT THE BLOODY CAMERA AGAIN?!?! That same night, we went to yet another Irish pub, this time in the Latin Quarter. This seems to be a theme with Maddy... the girls played darts instead of dancing. Oh! We forgot! CREPES WITH NUTELLA OR LIQUID CHOCOLATE AND GRAND MARNIER! Which Eva proceeded to spill all over herself. Once again, Shayne regretted not having the camera.

One thing we forgot to mention about Paris: the mad drivers and motorcyclists. They actually speed up when you start to cross a road.

All up, this was a rather short visit to a very beautiful and interesting city, but we met some great people, and were blessed with great weather to enjoy the almost-uninterrupted beautiful old grandeur of its centre.

After a few days in Paris, with the help our trusty old Eurail pass, we headed west into Brittany, where we stopped for a night in the small capital city of Brittany:

Rennes
This was really just a stop on our way to our next destination, but it proved to be more charming than we had expected. Especially its historic centre, which used to be fortified like many old European centres. The actual settlement dates back to BCE.

This kind of narrow cobbled street has become quite a common sight for us during our European jaunt, but this was the first time we'd encountered it on this trip, as the Paris streets we explored tended to be wider and grander.

After wandering around these narow streets, we suddenly came upon this massive square, with an old town hall on one side:

The place was bustling with activity, including a bunch of teenagers sitting there playing music together, not busking, just using the public space in a way we've never seen back home. Ever seen anything like that in Fed Square?

Along with the historic beauty of the place, they have a very modern and slightly disconcerting Metro system with driverless trains behind these sliding automatic doors:

Again, we have since encountered this in other places but it kind of weirded us out at the time.

We found this piece of graffiti an interesting reminder that Brittany was once an independent nation, and perhaps there's still a teensy bit of resentment towards Imperial France here.


One thing we found plenty of in this little city - pharmacies. You are more likely to stumble across a pharmacy (marked by a green neon flashing cross) than a supermarket here. We saw this in Paris too, but it was even more apparent here in such a small city. Another common sight in France in general are dogs - they are everywhere. At the train station, hotels, cafes...they love their dogs here, and they take them just about everywhere.

After a night in Rennes, we boarded a bus to our intended destination:

Mont Saint-Michel

The picture says it all. That isn't going to stop us from crapping on a bit more about it!

We'd been told about this walled city/abbey that straddles the border of Normandy and Brittany by our friend Rin and her family, who travelled there last year and fell in love with the place. It started off back the 8th Century as the site of a modest sanctuary in honour of the archangel Michael, after a bishop called Aubert was apparently ordered by Michael in a dream to do so. It became a major place of pilgrimage, and the sanctuary was added to over the centuries until it became the gargantuan abbey that it is today, which was later encircled by a fortified village. It was very hard to attack, being on a tidal flat surrounded by quicksand, so it became an important strategic position that everyone tried to get a hold of. Enough history now.

We walked through the winding village street, which is crammed with souvenir shops, expensive eateries, and Japanese tour groups. But charming nonetheless:

We made our way up to the ramparts and walked along them:






And of course, towering above all of this, is the abbey itself:


We had a guided tour of the inside, which ended up being just the two of us as we were the only ones who wanted it in English. Our guide (whose name we have forgotten) was an eccentric, bordering on certifiably crazy, woman, who nevetheless was very friendly and helpful to us, once she decided that she liked us. She was particularly fascinated with Shayne and his ethnicity, first asking him if he was Native American, and when he clarified that he was Australian, she then assumed that he was Aboriginal! After further clarification about his Sri Lankan roots, she repeatedly referred to the Indians and how smart they are...She did not, however, extend this same enthusiasm to the large private tour groups and school groups, telling them to "SHHH!" at the top of her voice, then proceeding to do her own spiel about the abbey to the two of us standing right next to her so loudly that her voice reverberated off the walls, drowning out any noise that the other tour groups were making anyway! In one moment of sheer exasperation when we were trapped between two large Japanese tour groups, she exclaimed: "I hate these Japanese tour groups!", well within their hearing. She then decided to "take revenge" on them, by showing us one of the oldest chapels in the abbey (over a thousand years old) which is not usually opened for public viewing:

For all her idiosyncrasies, our guide gave us a very insightful tour. Some of the highlights of this labyrinthine place were:

The Cloister

During the French Revolution, the abbey was used as a prison for political opponents, and in true revolutionary style, religious icons were attacked, like the cruifixes in the cloister:


The Former Monk's Ossiary
Which had this huge wheel instaled in the 19th century to haul up supplies to the prisoners held in the abbey - the power provided by the prisoners themselves, five men trapped inside running like hamsters to keep it going.

This is the track up which supplies had to come:


Among the modest rooms for the monks were larger, more luxuriant cavernous rooms for guests (they even had fireplaces!) when they visited the holy site, before the Revolution:


We lashed out and spent a night here, giving us a chance to get this to capture the abbey in completely different light:

The gold thing at the top of the spire is the statue of the Archangel Michael.

The next day, after a little bit of a mess-up bus timetable-wise, we were our way back to Paris to board a late-night train to...where? Stay tuned to find out! (yeah, ok, everyone knows...)