Granada

Granada, the city of the Alhambra. Interestingly enough Granada was ruled by the Moors until 1492, the same year Columbus went in search of a western route to China, but instead got twarted by a pesky landmass. Silly Chris.

This is a view of the hills from the Alhambra.

This is some of the ornamentation in the buildings. You can still see the paint, which is pretty cool.

This is in the courtyard of the main Palace of the Alhambra. The Alhambra as a whole is a, well, I'd go with small fortified city. Kinda. It's a Palace and gardens and a collection of other buildings. If you look carefully the water surface belies the fact that everything looks warm and beautiful and sunny.

This is me in the gardens in front of a giant wisteria. Although it is not the largest wisteria that I saw whilst in Spain.

This is a view of the Jarden de Machuca. Part of the Alhambra Palace proper. Those are orange trees in there.

This is a few from the Alhambra towards the coast. I don't think you can actually see the water though, it's a long way off. But all the gardens look so lush and green and the sky looks so lazy. It just makes me want to take a nap.

This is a garden path in the Architect's Garden at the Alhambra.

Doesn't that look like a postcard. But I was actually there. Yup, took that shot myself. All of these actually. Jealous yet?

I apologize for the gloating. It would have been nice to have company. This is a shot of a tower in the Alhambra, from another tower.

Ooooh, these are cool. No, it's not a maze. But its aMAZing. hehheeee. No, it's the bases of walls that were once a ghetto inside the Alhambra fortifications. The rooms are sooo small. But each of these buildings potentially had two more floors made of rickety wood. There's also a well at the other end, which still has green stuff growing from it, so it probably still has water. I'm actually surprised to see that these people had stone floors.

More Alhambra.

This is NOT the Alhambra. This is one side of the Cathedral in Granada. I like the shape of the street lamps (the square-y glowing things). The cathedral was cool inside too, but I went in right as they were closing and actually got locked in, which kinda scared me. But I wasn't alone and the person locking up shook his head at us and then let us out. Thank goodness. I don't want to get locked in a cold stone cathedral all alone all night.

Next stop: Valencia.

Tarifa

Tarifa, the next stop on my journey through Spain, is the Southern most point of land in Europe. Now many of you might have thought that it's Gibralter, but it's not, it's Tarifa. Tarifa apparently means tarif in English, my Spanish speaking friend pointed out to me one day before I actually visited the place. In situations like this I do what I call 'intellectual vamping', other people call it making shit up. I prefer my term because usually the made up bits are based on actual facts. So after learning about the meaning of Tarifa, which is really rather obvious, I went on vamping about how it makes complete sense, because Tarifa is the closest point between Europe and Africa and therefore a HUGE trading port with lots of goods moving back and forth. These goods where probably taxed. Hence, Tarifa, the place where shit gets taxed. The better part about this is that I'm actually pretty close to correct. Since I'm not stating any actual facts, I'm as good as golden. The port is still very active and does still host business interactions between Europe and Africa.

Enough, intellectual vamping. PICTURES!

This is me (duh) in Tarifa (double duh). That mass of dark blue and green behind me is the Mediterranean. The light blue and white mass is the sky.
I hit Tarifa on 6 April, which was the monday after Palm sunday and the monday before Easter sunday. Smack dab at the beginning of Semana Santa. So of course they have a procession. When I just caught sight of them it actually freaked me out because they were dressed in the same thing the KKK wear, except in purple and green. It took me a minute to realize they were Catholics not racists, but I was scared there for a minute, because I think racists are scarier than Catholics. I caught more of the precession a little farther down the road. In the above picture you can see the people of Tarifa carrying their giant statue of Jesus and a donkey (I think) through the street. They were also playing instruments, some were carrying a giant cross and others were carrying palm fronds (now weren't they lucky, palm fronds don't weight nearly as much as that statue).

This is another shot of the Mediterranean. Off in the distance, through all the clouds, you can see Africa. No, seriously, you can see Africa. It's like right there. If I was a major league baseball player I could have thrown stones at it. Well, maybe not that close. It's about a 35 minute ferry ride from Tarifa to Tanger. Just like the picture of the boat below says. Also just off the bow of the boat, that brownish mountain looking thing, that's Africa. I'm really proud of this shot. It packs in a lot of information. The only thing that would make it better is something making it very obvious that the photographer is standing in Tarifa. I guess if you look closely the car plates have the EU stars on them.


And another shot of the Mediterranean from Tarifa with Africa in the background.
And a shot looking about 90 degrees to the right.

The actual most southern point of Europe is out on that piece of land in the upper right of the photo. However, as typical of governments, that small bit is a military base and closed to the public. But I did walk out along the wee strip of land as far as public people are permitted to pass.

The thing about Tarifa, aside from being really close to Africa, is that it's also on the Atlantic Ocean. That's right, two oceans for the price of one.

This is the beach that is washed with the waves of the Atlantic ocean. On the water are two sail boats and three kite surfers. Although it was sunny in Tarifa the day I was there, it wasn't really warm enough to sit out on the beach due to the wind. There is sooooo much wind. But this makes it a kite surfers paradise. At another popular beach, farther up the Atlantic coast (so to the right of this photo) is where more of the kite surfing is done.

I took a hot bus from Seville to Tarifa and as she finally came out of the low mountains that sweep along the coast the ocean stretched out in front of us and the air was filled with kites of all colors. Flitting and dashing and fighting for space above the waves. The sun was low in the sky, reflecting off the water and illuminating the undersides of the kites so they glowed in rainbow strips of nylon. There must have been five hunderd kites in a stretch of beach a mile long. I can't even imagine anyone trying to navigate through those kite strings. But it was beautiful, like a hundred million butterflies skimming along tree tops. And then the image was gone as we rounded a corner behind another hill.

Seville

The next stop on the Spain trip was Seville. It was also the city Kenna left me in. She had to get on a plane and fly all the way back to Rome, how tragic.
I thoroughly enjoyed Seville. The weather was beautiful, the architecture was beautiful, the people were beautiful. The whole city was done up for Semana Santa, chairs for the upcoming processions lined every street. The whole city seemed to be in a vacation mood, or maybe it was just me projecting my happiness on everyone else. Either way, it was great.

The funny thing I noticed about the people in Seville is that, I assume the Mother's, dress up their pod of children (generally not more than 3) in matching outfits. It was adorable when the kids were all under the age of 5. Cute little blouses with matching embroidery on all their kids, both the girls and the boys matching each other. And these outfits seemed like something from 1914. The little girls had matching bows in their long dark curly hair and the boys were also in tights. No seriously. Although it all started to get strange when you saw an 11 year old boy in an outfit that matched his 3 year old sister and 2 year old brother. The matchingness had no age limits. I felt sorry for these boys, they looked rather silly, because they were obviously old enough to dress themselves and they very obviously didn't. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of this because it's creepy taking pictures of other people's kids.

This is the outside of the large cathedral in Seville. Originally on this spot was a Moorish Temple, but they did away with that when they did away with the Moors in Seville and built this huge cathedral. What they didn't do away with were all the orange trees, which were original to the yard of the Moorish mosque. There were orange trees every where and they were all filled with fruit and the air smelled like orange blossoms. It was absolutely incredible.

This dark picture is actual the dark interior of the above cathedral. These two statues hold up one end of Chris Columbus' giant tomb/memorial thingy. Chris was actually buried in the New World - don't remember which part. But I have heard that he was broke, sick and nobody liked him when he died. So they weren't really sure where he was buried. But someone decided that he should be dug up and moved to Seville. So they dug up a skeleton and hauled it on a boat across the Atlantic ocean. Now they still weren't really sure if it was him, so they didn't tell anyone this and continued on like nothing was wrong. Flash forward to the age of genetic testing and someone who remembers - or read in a book or something - that people were a little uncertain about these bones in Chris' tomb. So some scientists pop open the tomb and extract some DNA. Now you're thinking, they can't just read the DNA and it will say 'Chris Columbus was here'. No. What they do know for sure is where is brother is buried, which if I recall correctly is somewhere else in the New World. So they dig up Brother Columbus - he was not of a religious order to my knowledge, nor was he anyone's "soul brother", just little old Chris' bio-bro. So they test the DNA against each other and apparently the two sets of bones are brothers. So the people, who are probably all dead now, who dug up Chris are all celebrating that they got the right dead guy. YIPPEE!!! However, I'm wondering how many of the bones in the tomb they actually tested. It could be possible they only tested one bone, and that one bone matches. But that's almost too much good luck.

Anyway, so while the Catholics were pulling down the Moors' mosque, probably a long time before Chris sailed the ocean blue, they decided that the minaret that the Moors built was pretty nifty, and they didn't tear it down. Good choice! It is pretty nifty too. It was built with a ramp instead of stairs all the way to the top so that the soldiers could ride their horses all the way to the top. Or for future annoying tourists to push their baby carriages up, thus blocking everyone from going in the other direction.

Despite annoying tourists, the view from the top is pretty stunning.

These are some other building that I didn't go inside, but the evening light was so pretty I took a whole bunch of pictures of it and here's a decent one. The light in the evenings was so beautiful, low and golden.

This is another building in Seville whose name I can't remember, real helpful right? Anyway, it's obviously left over from the Moors. Oh wait, I remember, it was a Moorish section of a palace that each monarch since like forever (probably actually only 1200ish) has added their own section to. So every part of the entire compound is different. It's pretty cool. And the gardens were amazing. And so many orange trees. So if you go to southern Spain drink the orange juice. It's fresh squeezed and the most amazing orange juice in the world. And I actually don't like orange juice. Also, they call it zumo naranja. For anyone whose taken Spanish, they DON'T use that other word for juice. The one that just slid out of my brain.

Ok, so next stop Tarifa.

revolting

my blog has revolted against me in vicious rebellion and is refusing to show me any of the buttons of the fancy things you can do on this blog, including posting pictures. So, folks, I'm going to have to take a pause in posting pictures from my Spain trip, until this blog gets its act together and lets me post pictures again. GR!!!!

on Homesickness

All experiences are veins of precious metals for writers to mine when they create. It is impossible to write about pain and sadness and joy when you have never experienced them.

I try to keep telling myself this is true, willing myself to believe that one day this frustration will lead to something useful. But the thoughts fall flat from my lips and the tears fall thick from my eyes into my stomach.

I thought the surest cure to homesickness, or at least something to relieve the symptoms for a while, was to see at least one person I am homesick for. And in theory this makes perfect sense. And while I'm seeing this person, enjoying their company, stunned into silence by the shock, like before I learned to talk. The shock of actually standing next to them, fingers interleaved between us. And momentarily it does work, the long ache in the pit of my stomach subsides, even vanishes. I feel as if, perhaps, my soul is sparkling and I can see the glow just on the edges of my vision. I want everyone around me to see it and experience their own. When I'm happy I want the whole world to be happy with me, but I would never wish my unhappiness on anyone else.

Then its time to say good bye. And you think even though you will once again be 100 thousand miles away from every thing that your heart yearns for, it will be easier to miss them for a while, because you just held it, however momentarily in the palm of your hand. You were happy for more consecutive hours than you can count on your fingers and toes, that hasn't happened recently. But the feathers left on your palm from the bird you held so close are not a happy consolation prize. You don't want to look at them for the pain of it all. You want to forget that you knew happiness. You want to return to the world where longing is the norm, and all you remember are the brief shadows that you long for. Then sharp pain of tangible happiness stolen away, hurts more than all the burns from a 100 thousand droplets of hot wax on Icarus' skin as he flew towards the sun. At least if he cried as he climbed towards his desires his tears would soothe his burning flesh.

Madrid

Kenna and I took the night train from Lisbon to Madrid.I was really excited about a sleep train, because let's be honest its totally a novelty, especially for us silly Americans who seem to have forgotten that train travel exists, AND for the rest of us who have experienced the sheer stupidity and incompetence that is AMTRAK.(flowers in Madrid)

So despite how brilliant the idea of taking a sleep train who, both Kenna and I woke up feeling sick the next morning. And not like motion sick or anything, like actually genuinely ill. I had a sore throat and I can't remember Kenna's symptoms. So we arrive Monday morning in Madrid feeling sick. We get breakfast, check into our hostal and decide to head over to the Museum of Archeology, to learn a little about Madrid.

(Kenna and I outside the wall garden of the Caixaforum bank building)

But the thing is, in Spain museums and stuff tend to be closed to the public on mondays. Go figure. By the time we realize that the museum is closed (we were standing in it and the guards told us) we were feeling more sick. So we went back to the hostal for a nap. And that my friends basically sums up the next four days in Madrid. We ate some spicy food to try to clear our systems, but we never did see the Museum of Archeology. In fact we didn't see much of anything. We were feeling really sick. I for one had a new symptom everyday. It truely sucked.

(Wisteria vine outside some fancy bank building)

Then to top it all off, the day we're leaving we head to the train station to get an 11 o'clock train to Seville. And we realize that our clocks are wrong, whether this was due to time change or time zone crossing I still can't figure it out. None-the-less, we had missed the train we wanted. So we bought tickets for the 2pm train. Luckily, we were really close to the Reina Sophia museum, which is apparently THE museum to see in Madrid. So after getting lunch we went in for 15 minutes. Later, much later, I discovered that Picasso's Guernica is housed in this museum and we could have spent those 15 minutes looking at that. BUT NO, we looked at some other stuff. Some other interesting stuff, but I would have liked to actually see the Guernica, especially because when I realized it was in Madrid, that means the I didn't see it 10 years ago at the UN building in NYC. I have been seriously confused about this painted for some time now.

To sum it up, from what I can tell Madrid is a lovely very metropolitain world city. But I feel I should make too many judgements as I didn't seem much other than the inside of my hostal and a hotel.

(Some royal palace)

Actually that's not true, we also saw this place, which is a Palace. It was pretty and had a huge collection of ceramic urns for medications. I think it housed what they called the Royal Pharmacy, but mostly it was a lot of ceramic urns, and some glass urns. It was cool seeing how they used to keep medications, and what they used to consider as medications. Some of the containers still actually had stuff in them, which was actually kinda gross, especially when I was liquid stuff - the cinnamon bark wasn't so bad.

Portugal

Now that I'm back from my 3 week trip to the Iberian pennisula I can share photos and stories and such.


LONDON
My trip started with a six hour layover in London. Which is good. I like London. I know London pretty well. So I did some shopping. I got exactly what I wanted and at a good price. People say shopping in London is expensive. I say it's only expensive when you don't know where to go or how to sale hunt or you're an idiot. No that's mean. Idiots could probably find bargins in London.


Being in a big city always makes me feel more like a real person. No offense to any Aberdeen people reading this, I'm just a big city girl.

LISBON, PORTUGAL
I got into Lisbon fairly late in the evening, about 8pm. But the weather was so nice and warm. walking out of the airport was like walking into the bathroom when the showers been running for a while as hot as possible, filling the whole room. Needless to say it was wonderful. I was so happy.

My hostel was actually on the other side of the river from Lisbon proper, but it was on top of a hill and offered great views of Lisbon. Like this one from the room I was staying in.

Lisbon is very pretty in a slightly run down magestic sort of way. I think I'd like to go back.

I was only there for 2 full days and a lot of that time I spent worry about meeting up with Kenna, who few in 24 hours after I did, and then trying to get Kenna's luggage. Kenna's luggage missed her plane and then didn't come in for 24 more hours. Just in time for us to make the train to Madrid. It was kind of a pain in the ass.

This is the monastary St. Jeronimo in Lisbon. It's really very pretty close up too. Intensely carved white stone. It almost looks like ivory.

This is me sitting in the courtyard of the monastary enjoying the sunshine, sheltered from the wind. As you can see I'm still wearing my jacket, so its not all that warm and it was windy, BUT the sun was shining which was absolutely fabulous. The whole trip was mostly sunny, except for the few days it rained. I even managed to get a tan, which hasn't happened since, I think, 2002.


This is me waiting to get on the train to Madrid. Kenna and I took a sleeper train. Which was kinda cool and totally saved on separate hostel and transport expenses. The downside? We both woke up the next morning sick. And yes, I'm totally blaming the train. However, I would recommend everyone to take a sleeper train once in their life. It's the most wonderful experience that you're supposed to sleep through.I'll talk about Madrid in the next post. Lisbon truely was lovely. I wished I had had more time to actually explore Lisbon rather than worry about sister and luggage and such.