vendredi, octobre 13, 2006
Viva L'Espagne
Sorry Margs! I left the country without too many explanations, but rest assured that it was not a permananent flight to Sunny Southern Spain, rather a clever tactic to get some pre-eight-month-winter beach action into a month between jobs. Annika spending some time in Spain coincided too well with my month off to ignore, so I promptly joined her for a week (I'll take the opportunity to sympathise with the poor girl, probably somewhere over Thailand now).
Sightseeing highlights:
Art- lots of Goya, El Greco, Dali, Miro and Picasso, including the Guernica, truly awesome. An El Greco painting of a man nailed to a cross clearly confused two Americans I overheard at the Prado: "Are you sure that's not Jesus?"
Churches- two of the most impressive cathedrals I've ever seen: the one in Toledo, and the bizarrely modern (consecrated in 1993 by JPII!) Almudena cathedral in Madrid. From the outside it looks like your classical neo-classic cathedral, but inside! Wow! The stained glass windows are contemporary and slightly abstract, the ceilings painted in bright colours that look tribal African rather than traditional Catholic, big portraits of nuns are in the chapels instead of all the usual scenes. Really interesting. Perhaps not to everybody's taste, but I thought it was fantastic.
We made lots of friends on our travels, spending a disproportionate amount of time hanging out with gray haired men with various degrees of alcoholism. In Marbella we were invited to the birthday party of an old English guy, and met his band of similarly fat, gold draped, (at least semi-) alcoholic retired expat mates who have made this little beach town home, some for 20 years without learning a word of Spanish. Entertaining! In Madrid, there was Pablo, also grey haired, who seemed to live at the hostel. He slept in the bar a few nights and hung around looking for people to drink with and to regale with stories about his favourite movie Meet the Parents ("...it's really fantastic, then Billy Crystal says... no, wait, Robert De Niro says... well, I can't remember exactly, but it was really funny..."). Once again, very entertaining!
Aside from these shady characters, we hung out with some real, live Spanish people who befriended us and took us to a party, as well as hostellers with various degrees of personal hygiene. This included an Australian guy who spoke Spanish and Hungarian and is the former Hungarian national champion of Super Mario Brothers, and another guy who, after being pick-pocketed for his camera and unsuccessfully pleading for his almost full 1GB memory card, very philosophically forgave the thieves, explaining to them that it was okay, at least he still had his health. This sentiment was happily translated for the non-English speaking thieves by the previously mentioned Spanish-speaking Nintendo champ.
Finding tasty food was no problem either, though knowing what we were eating frequently was. From tried and tested tapas like spanish omelettes, chorizo, garlic mushrooms, patatas bravas, and croquettes, to paella, weird scrambled egg things with green beans, and cheese stuffed chilies, and fresh sardines cooked on a boat fire on the beach! Also churros con chocolate- deep fried donuts things dipped in heavenly hot melted chocolate. Delicious (with one or two definite exceptions!)! Also plenty of booze! Those Spaniards are certainly not stingy with their drink pouring and we learned quickly (and somewhat painfully) that a standard mixed drink contains 2 or 3 shots of alcohol! They bring your highball glass with ice and a bottle of whatever you've ordered to the table, and start pouring... and keep pouring until the glass is about half-full, then they look at it... and pour some more! Then they give you a mini bottle of soft drink mixer of which you can fit about a quarter into the glass. BYO Panadol the next morning!
Anyway, I'll finish off with some photos:
The first sangria in Madrid!
Sardines speared on a stick and cooked in front of hot coals! So good!
Churros con chocolate- yum!
Bottle in hand, like usual.
The famous Mezquita in Cordoba, once the second largest mosque in the world, reconsecrated into a christian cathedral after the reconquista in 1236. The moorish archetecture remains, including these amazingly intricate double arches.
The Madrid cathedral, showing the different sections of the roof and the dome.
Some of the stained glass in the Madrid cathedral.
Sightseeing highlights:
Art- lots of Goya, El Greco, Dali, Miro and Picasso, including the Guernica, truly awesome. An El Greco painting of a man nailed to a cross clearly confused two Americans I overheard at the Prado: "Are you sure that's not Jesus?"
Churches- two of the most impressive cathedrals I've ever seen: the one in Toledo, and the bizarrely modern (consecrated in 1993 by JPII!) Almudena cathedral in Madrid. From the outside it looks like your classical neo-classic cathedral, but inside! Wow! The stained glass windows are contemporary and slightly abstract, the ceilings painted in bright colours that look tribal African rather than traditional Catholic, big portraits of nuns are in the chapels instead of all the usual scenes. Really interesting. Perhaps not to everybody's taste, but I thought it was fantastic.
We made lots of friends on our travels, spending a disproportionate amount of time hanging out with gray haired men with various degrees of alcoholism. In Marbella we were invited to the birthday party of an old English guy, and met his band of similarly fat, gold draped, (at least semi-) alcoholic retired expat mates who have made this little beach town home, some for 20 years without learning a word of Spanish. Entertaining! In Madrid, there was Pablo, also grey haired, who seemed to live at the hostel. He slept in the bar a few nights and hung around looking for people to drink with and to regale with stories about his favourite movie Meet the Parents ("...it's really fantastic, then Billy Crystal says... no, wait, Robert De Niro says... well, I can't remember exactly, but it was really funny..."). Once again, very entertaining!
Aside from these shady characters, we hung out with some real, live Spanish people who befriended us and took us to a party, as well as hostellers with various degrees of personal hygiene. This included an Australian guy who spoke Spanish and Hungarian and is the former Hungarian national champion of Super Mario Brothers, and another guy who, after being pick-pocketed for his camera and unsuccessfully pleading for his almost full 1GB memory card, very philosophically forgave the thieves, explaining to them that it was okay, at least he still had his health. This sentiment was happily translated for the non-English speaking thieves by the previously mentioned Spanish-speaking Nintendo champ.
Finding tasty food was no problem either, though knowing what we were eating frequently was. From tried and tested tapas like spanish omelettes, chorizo, garlic mushrooms, patatas bravas, and croquettes, to paella, weird scrambled egg things with green beans, and cheese stuffed chilies, and fresh sardines cooked on a boat fire on the beach! Also churros con chocolate- deep fried donuts things dipped in heavenly hot melted chocolate. Delicious (with one or two definite exceptions!)! Also plenty of booze! Those Spaniards are certainly not stingy with their drink pouring and we learned quickly (and somewhat painfully) that a standard mixed drink contains 2 or 3 shots of alcohol! They bring your highball glass with ice and a bottle of whatever you've ordered to the table, and start pouring... and keep pouring until the glass is about half-full, then they look at it... and pour some more! Then they give you a mini bottle of soft drink mixer of which you can fit about a quarter into the glass. BYO Panadol the next morning!
Anyway, I'll finish off with some photos:
The first sangria in Madrid!
Sardines speared on a stick and cooked in front of hot coals! So good!
Churros con chocolate- yum!
Bottle in hand, like usual.
The famous Mezquita in Cordoba, once the second largest mosque in the world, reconsecrated into a christian cathedral after the reconquista in 1236. The moorish archetecture remains, including these amazingly intricate double arches.
The Madrid cathedral, showing the different sections of the roof and the dome.
Some of the stained glass in the Madrid cathedral.
# posted by Jenny @ 12:36 
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Damn I'm jealous!!!
looks and sounds fabulous...glad you're keeping up with your original assignment from the SRF ladies auxilliary!
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looks and sounds fabulous...glad you're keeping up with your original assignment from the SRF ladies auxilliary!
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