And we´re off!
In about two hours, we´re going to be on a train heading for Italy. Right now we´re enjoying our last look at Barcelona at night.
I think this is a good time for my top ten of Spain...
1. Getting to know Oscar´s family, who have all been wonderful. Plus Oscar´s uncle is so much like Oscar´s father that it´s hilarious
2. Discovering that we can speak Spanish quite well! I can´t pass for a native speaker by anyone´s standards, but I can certainly say everything I went without problems. I even completed reading my first book entirely in Castellano (standard Spanish) yesterday
3. Wandering the streets of Barcelona by day and night, especially la Barceloneta, Passeig de Gracia (a gorgeous avenue filled with trees, plazas, interesting shops including the best bookshop in Barcelona, beautiful Modernista streetlaps and incredible buildings) and Barri Gótic (the old quarter, full of tall buildings, narrow lanes, beautiful buildings and talented buskers playing classical music)
4. Everything Gaudí- we loved the Sagrada Familia, Park Güell and Casa Batlló
5. Our trip to Andorra- the city of Andorra la Vella itself wasn´t that great, but taking the bus through the green, mountainous countryside past lots of shallow rocky rapids was great
6. Mastering the mysteries of the metro. Oscar is now an expert. It´s great being able to get around without relying on other people.
7. Scuba diving on the rugged Costa Brava
8. Arco Iris, a fantastic restaurant we found near the Sagrada Familia and visited several times
9. Drinking cava (Catalan champagne) and eating tapas in a variety of tiny bars, many of which had bits of wall up to a thousand years old
10. All of the interesting places we visited, like the Cordoniu winery (where champagne is made in underground tunnels in the traditional method), the Picasso Museum and the Museum of the History of Barcelona (where you can go underground and wander through the ruins of Roman Barcelona
However, there are some things that haven´t been fantastic too. Here´s the bottom ten...
1. Our camera being stolen on the metro
2. Getting sick and being stuck at home because of it
3. People smoking... everywhere... for someone from a country where smoking in public is restricted like Australia, eating dinner in a restaurant whilst the fumes from the next table waft past (not to mention the eye-watering bars) is pretty awful
4. Playing ¨dodge the dog poop¨ while walking anywhere outside the house
5. The traffic. There have been times where I thought I was going to die. Really
6. Being vegetarian in a country that considers fish to be a vegetable and where a toasted cheese sandwich without the ham or a salad without tuna is considered too strange to be made on request (althought I guess that´s my fault for being vegetarian in the first place)
7. The showers. How are you supposed to get the shampoo out of the bottle and hold the shower hose at the same time without freezing or spraying water everywhere? And since when is ¨45 degrees¨ barely luke-warm?
8. Spanish tv. So many talk shows. And ad breaks that go for a full ten minutes. ¨The Return of the King¨ (standard edition) was on tv. It took five and a half hours due to the ads. Normally it´s a bit over three hours. Fortunately we didn´t watch too much of it
9. Being accosted by people selling flowers. I don´t want any damn flowers! Go away!
10. (For me anyway) the lack of variety in food. I´m used to eating a different country´s cuisine every day of the week. Here it´s Spanish food every day! (who´d have thought?)
On the whole, we´ve had a fantastic time here, and are looking forward to coming back in a few more years so that we can see more of the country. Due to budgetary constraints (the camera set us back a bit) and floods in Andalucia, we´ve just been in Catalunya (north-east Spain). We´ll have to wait till next time to go travelling.
So, now it´s time to get everything together and head off to the station to catch that train. We´ll be seeing my dear friend Satu, who we haven´t seen for seven years, tomorrow evening. Plus I´ll be drinking real Italian espresso by the bucketload for a week! Yay!
I think this is a good time for my top ten of Spain...
1. Getting to know Oscar´s family, who have all been wonderful. Plus Oscar´s uncle is so much like Oscar´s father that it´s hilarious
2. Discovering that we can speak Spanish quite well! I can´t pass for a native speaker by anyone´s standards, but I can certainly say everything I went without problems. I even completed reading my first book entirely in Castellano (standard Spanish) yesterday
3. Wandering the streets of Barcelona by day and night, especially la Barceloneta, Passeig de Gracia (a gorgeous avenue filled with trees, plazas, interesting shops including the best bookshop in Barcelona, beautiful Modernista streetlaps and incredible buildings) and Barri Gótic (the old quarter, full of tall buildings, narrow lanes, beautiful buildings and talented buskers playing classical music)
4. Everything Gaudí- we loved the Sagrada Familia, Park Güell and Casa Batlló
5. Our trip to Andorra- the city of Andorra la Vella itself wasn´t that great, but taking the bus through the green, mountainous countryside past lots of shallow rocky rapids was great
6. Mastering the mysteries of the metro. Oscar is now an expert. It´s great being able to get around without relying on other people.
7. Scuba diving on the rugged Costa Brava
8. Arco Iris, a fantastic restaurant we found near the Sagrada Familia and visited several times
9. Drinking cava (Catalan champagne) and eating tapas in a variety of tiny bars, many of which had bits of wall up to a thousand years old
10. All of the interesting places we visited, like the Cordoniu winery (where champagne is made in underground tunnels in the traditional method), the Picasso Museum and the Museum of the History of Barcelona (where you can go underground and wander through the ruins of Roman Barcelona
However, there are some things that haven´t been fantastic too. Here´s the bottom ten...
1. Our camera being stolen on the metro
2. Getting sick and being stuck at home because of it
3. People smoking... everywhere... for someone from a country where smoking in public is restricted like Australia, eating dinner in a restaurant whilst the fumes from the next table waft past (not to mention the eye-watering bars) is pretty awful
4. Playing ¨dodge the dog poop¨ while walking anywhere outside the house
5. The traffic. There have been times where I thought I was going to die. Really
6. Being vegetarian in a country that considers fish to be a vegetable and where a toasted cheese sandwich without the ham or a salad without tuna is considered too strange to be made on request (althought I guess that´s my fault for being vegetarian in the first place)
7. The showers. How are you supposed to get the shampoo out of the bottle and hold the shower hose at the same time without freezing or spraying water everywhere? And since when is ¨45 degrees¨ barely luke-warm?
8. Spanish tv. So many talk shows. And ad breaks that go for a full ten minutes. ¨The Return of the King¨ (standard edition) was on tv. It took five and a half hours due to the ads. Normally it´s a bit over three hours. Fortunately we didn´t watch too much of it
9. Being accosted by people selling flowers. I don´t want any damn flowers! Go away!
10. (For me anyway) the lack of variety in food. I´m used to eating a different country´s cuisine every day of the week. Here it´s Spanish food every day! (who´d have thought?)
On the whole, we´ve had a fantastic time here, and are looking forward to coming back in a few more years so that we can see more of the country. Due to budgetary constraints (the camera set us back a bit) and floods in Andalucia, we´ve just been in Catalunya (north-east Spain). We´ll have to wait till next time to go travelling.
So, now it´s time to get everything together and head off to the station to catch that train. We´ll be seeing my dear friend Satu, who we haven´t seen for seven years, tomorrow evening. Plus I´ll be drinking real Italian espresso by the bucketload for a week! Yay!