Spain - Andalucia and Catalanya

Lagos - Seville - Granada - Valencia - Barcelona - Monserrat

Hola amigos!

Example of people I can’t stand:
American girl to hostel receptionist in Lagos: "Do your sheets pill*? Because I can’t sleep here otherwise!"
*Pill = when clothes or sheets bunch up and get those little cotton balls in them.

Anyway, now I am in Spain!

Ah, Seville. Words to describe Seville are "Wow!", "Wow!", and "Ole!" You can't get any more Spanish than in Seville, and I’m surprised there aren’t many tourists or English-speaking people in the place!

Saw the very very big cathedral of baroque, gothic and Moorish design, the tower of gold, the alcazar and its gardens, and the picturesque Jewish quarter which is nice to wander around the small narrow streets and get lost in, discovering little cafes and plazas within. The architecture of Seville is exquisite, you would find different styles of architecture, from Romanesque and Moorish Mudejar**, to gothic, renaissance, baroque, neoclassical and combinations!

**Mudejar is Moorish square design architecture with Aculejo tiles on the bottom half of the walls and extremely intricate and detailed carved decorations in the top half of the walls. Unreal.

Spanish food = Yum! I had to have some tapas, tortillas de patatas (Spanish omelette with potato and other things), jamon serrano and other assorted style hams, paella of course, and bocadillos (white bread rolls filled with stuff) of various kinds! And of course Seville oranges, which I had fun picking from the trees outside the alcazar with some people I met at the hostel when people weren’t looking...

Despite what people keep telling me, there are no free tapas in Seville. Only in Granada, and I think random places in the north of Spain…

There are horse drawn carriages everywhere in Seville with the brightly coloured red or yellow wheel spokes and the horses with decorated bells dangling off their reins.

Seville nightlife is a little wild, students throng the streets by the riverside and certain areas of the centre, carrying shopping bags of soft drinks and spirits which they mix and drink on the streets. The following morning you would see broken glass and plastic bags everywhere.

There are some annoying hagglers in Seville and other parts of Andalucia. For example one guy kept grabbing some guys foot and scrubbing it with a brush despite repeated "no gracias!" - he was very persistent, complaining that his "bambinos" need food etc. There are also women who give you a rosemary leaf, and then demand money in return. No idea what that’s all about.

It was extraordinary good timing to be in Seville when I got there, as it was the start of the Feria de Abril, (April Festival)! But then Spain/Seville is always having festivals! Actually, I found myself in several festivals by mistake! One was walking into the "Caja Rural del Sur" which was a parade of 50+ decorated horse drawn carriages with men and women in a traditional Spanish dress, their horses strutting proudly down the streets. Another was the day after when I was sitting in the park about to have a picnic lunch on my own when I heard the sound of drums banging, people singing, and then a procession of exotic and traditional dressed and costumed dancers and singers waving flags came down past me and onto the front of the Archaeological museum, there they performed some frenzied, some funny, some promiscuous and some graceful dance routines for the next two hours. It was for some 20 years for Columbia anniversary thing, not quite sure, but it was spectacular!

Anyway, the Feria de Abril was essentially a huge carnival of rides, and tents with eating, drinking and flamenco dancing! They also built this huge arch of wood multiple stories high and covered with lights, just for the Feria! All the women and gorgeous girls are dressed in traditional frilled Spanish dress with polka dots and bright colours, scarves/shawls, flowers in their hair, lots of makeup, and big earrings. Flamenco dancing was everywhere, even in the streets people would spontaneously start clapping a rhythm and do flamenco. It was pretty cool! Saw the lights get switched on at midnight at the start of the festival, waited for imaginary fireworks, got on Spanish TV by climbing a lamp post with a Canadian friend and waving at the camera in the background during an interview, nearly got in a fight, saw the biggest fight between two girls ever which resulted in overturned tables/chairs, clumps of hair on the ground, people running in and out, and the tent almost collapsing! All over some guy apparently. Remind me never to make a Spanish girl jealous!

Anyway, after Seville I went to Granada to see the Alhambra, which has a world-renowned fortress and Mudejar palace and gardens. Met up with some American friends I made at Lagos and they showed/told me some cool places in Granada (like free tapas bars, Sacramento’s mountain caves homeless people live in) that I would never have discovered on my own in the two days I was there.

Caught an overnight bus to Valencia from Granada in the hope of saving money and sleeping on the bus. Not very comfortable and I didn’t get much sleep, so I don’t think I’ll be trying that again any time soon. Anyway I did wake up to a really surreal sight. All around me was a huge flat desert plain with really blue clear sky, but behind me was a big bluish tall mountain with vertical slopes that almost made it look rectangle, standing in the middle of nowhere! To the front of me rising out of the desert plain was a series of narrow flat red and white high-rise buildings. I felt like I was in another planet! And I’m not even sure where that was in Spain. It was somewhere between Murcia and Alicante, but that’s all I know. I don’t think I’ll ever find it again if I come back which is a shame cause it was eerily beautiful and mysteriously alien.

Anyway, reached Valencia to be greeted by bad weather. So no Valencian beaches for me. The hostel I stayed at that weekend was located right in front of the red light district, so it was quite scary walking to and from the hostel even in broad daylight due to the number of drunk Spanish men and unattractive prostitutes trying to talk to you etc. Apart from that though, Valencia is nice, has some nice towers, churches and the cathedral with 1 Romanesque, 1 gothic and 1 baroque side each which was quite interesting (What, couldn’t they decide on a style they liked or something? ) Anyway also saw some cool modern buildings near the port where they have these white curved structures sitting in a pool of water, architecturally more interesting than the museums etc they have inside it.

Now I am in Barcelona. I am staying at Johnny Depp - I mean Erik’s place (the Johnny Depp look-alike friend I made in Lisbon) for a few days which is nice of him because I am saving some money as a result. (Well would have if my phone battery didn’t die, so the money I saved has gone to buying a new battery. Easy come easy go I guess.) Anyway, his place isn’t actually in Barcelona, but in a nice town a easy train ride away called Sant Cugat, which is a nice town with a historical monetary, clean wide streets and apparently "the best looking Spanish girls in Spain" which I am inclined to agree. I wonder if they speak English... That’s the thing about Spanish girls, they are very attractive, but none of them speak English, even in touristy Barcelona! Sort of a catch 22 really. Or more motivation to learn Catalan or Castellan Espanol.

Barcelona seems a lot cleaner and friendlier than when I was last here in last September. And I got to see a lot more things I didn’t have time to see. Like all the Gaudi architecture, which is surreal, colourful, inspired by natural things and in my opinion, "freakishly cool". Park Guell is amazing, Casa Batillo is a colourful almost fairytale surreal house, Sagrada Familiar is a huge temple still under construction and held up with columns "inspired by trees" you’d have to see to believe. Barcelona is full of Gaudi buildings, you typically would walk down the street and think "normal building, normal building, WHAT THE..?!, normal building..." Barcelona is full of sights, and Barcelona knows it, and Barcelona likes to make the most of it by charging an outrageous amount of money to see them (for example, 18 euros to go inside Casa Batillo is ridiculous! Obviously I didn’t go in.)

Saw someone take a photo of a postcard stand. Now that is the meaning of being "cheap"!

Eric took me to some places and bars in the Barri Gothic area of Barcelona. His grandfather owns a little sandwich shop called "Conesa" (his surname) which is reputed to have the best sandwiches in Catalanya. Anyway got some free food from there, and I agree, absolutely delicious! If you ever go to Barcelona, look for this little sandwich shop which is south of the Cathedral.

Went to Monserrat for the day, which is basically a monetary teetering off a cliff face 700m up this huge mountain, which used to be an island millions of years ago. This is why you can find seashells up on the mountains of Monserrat (if you’re lucky that is - I couldn’t find any )

Anyway, next stop is Zaragoza, Madrid, followed by some places in central Spain, Salamanca etc...

Adieu! (Catalan for "bye" - Catalan being a completely different language to Spanish, and has lots of similarities to Portuguese and French)