Spaaaain!

The train in Spain travels mainly on the plane. Not like the buses – they’re mad and zig-zag all crazy-like around the mountains. Fun stuff! Trex and I have spent that last coupla weeks in the sunshine of Spain. We’ve had our fare share of tapas, sangria and sunburn and it’s been pretty awesome. T even has a tan (not me, I’m just red as usual). So all the way from the Montpellier train, here’re a few things about the last two weeks.

Madrid was the first stop post Ireland – a busy yet apt introduction to the country. Here we freshened up on our Spanish history (or at least got the basics for the first time) and quickly discovered that Spain’s history is very much an insular one (especially more recent stuff), unlike other European countries that have tended to show how their neighbours have impacted on them. A lot of it’s pretty nasty stuff (learning about the Spanish Inquisition in detail) and the sort of traditions in Spain that have stemmed from such horrible moments in its history (the massive love of ham, for instance) can be pretty strange and intriguing. (Still, aside from the fact it may be a kind of legacy, the Museum of Ham is really cool, cheap and tasty; unless you’re buying the ham that costs 140 euros a kilo...



Call us “Un-Spanish” (Why does that only sound right with some nationalities... I’d say it’s a racist prefix), but no, we did not go see a bull fight even though the season had just started. Amusingly, one girl in our dorm seemed to be telling us we were missing out on the Spanish experience... “I left after they killed the first one. I know it’s horrible and all that, but I had to go because it’s the Spanish thing to do, right?” Moron. Also bringing into question our Spanish experience was our reaction to Patatas Bravas... Are they meant to be any more than chips with chilli sauce? Am I missing something? For the record, we did have these more than once in different cities just to see if we “got it”... we didn’t. And speaking of not having a clue about things, hows about that Modern Art Museum in Madrid, ey..? We call this one, a mole wearing a swimming cap at the beach:



How awesome are churros, though? Many people can answer that one. What about: How awesome are churros following a plate full of Spanish cheeses? I’m at least hoping that many people can answer that one. If you can’t, the correct answer is AMAZINGLY SO! Did you know that churros are typical breakfast fare for the Spaniards? I find that to be quite spectacular.


You go to this station and you find...


...TURTLES! Hundreds of them. I’m not kidding. Amazing!

Granada was next on the list, and I will say from the outset that we did not get to see the eighth wonder of the world... Yes, we’re mad and all that, but we had no idea a huge money-making tourist attraction would actually limit the tickets to presale only in peak season. Grrr. At any rate, Granada filled us in on a few things – namely sangria and tapas.

Now, here’s a nerdy analogy for how the “tapas with drinks” things work. It’s like a video game you cannot save. You order your drink and it comes with a tapa. You conquer the first level and move onto the next, more exciting one. You get a better tapa! And so on it goes on; an upgrade with every additional drink. That is, until you’re done or change venue – there are no save games. Next time you start you have to begin with the level one tapas all over again!! So this leads me to wonder: Just how many tapas levels are there in this Spanish quest?

As for tapas restaurants, we just went with the age old “go where it’s busy” thing, and this seemed to pay off. I may have had the best calamari of my life in Granada. They know what they’re doing with that stuff.


Reassurance for when you get lost in the windy streets of Granada


Outside Baeza, the smell of olive oil factories is like a hefty waft of dirty nappies

The home of our buddy Antonio Banderas was next, aka Malaga. We hung out with the man whilst there, or at least pretended we did, given he was in Cannes plugging some movie (he’s changed since becoming famous, sheesh). Malaga was really nice because the warm weather had brought out the life, but the peak of party-time had not yet completely overrun the city. We visited Alcazaba to get our Moorish influence fix and try to make up for at least a tiny bit of missing Alhambra in Granada (we’re really bent up over this); and, on a less Spanish note, we also visited the Interactive Music Museum, which may well be one of the oddest placed museums we’ve seen (still a league away from Nuremberg’s Pigeon Museum, however). A big tapas dinner was to be our last for Spain, as it was off to Barcelona where we’d be watching our monies (for more reasons than one).


A treat from Malaga’s main food market: A gold star for guessing what deliciousness this is...

Barcelona gets a bad rap for being Europe’s leading pickpocket city, and it seems to be true. Pretty much everyone you hear when talking about the place has a theft story either personally or within a couple of degrees of themself. The trick we were most wary of was on the metro, where a pair or trio will cause a blockage getting on the train and rifle through pockets in the process, and then try and get off. This happened on a train and we could see it, but the guys didn’t get off (admittedly, we could tell what they were up to so I wanted to keep an eye on them on the train anyway). Sure enough, one of them produced a passport moments later, ever so casually (“oh, look what I found” sort of a thing), and handed it back... Kinda weird that they were so selective in what they pinched really.

BUT, Barcelona is a marvellous city! There is SO much to see, it’s really quite hard work to get around to it all. The city has a thing for Gaudi, seriously great produce markets, and mammoths. They also have this fountain... I’m not sure if Art Vs Science based their track on the Magic Fountain in Barcelona, but it’s almost as cringe-worthy as that song! We went and were expecting some Spanish music to accompany the light/water show; but no, we instead got the theme to Flashdance, video killed the radio star, and Freddy Mercury singing Barcelona in its six minutes of glory! Tacky, but kinda fun.


Magic, magic, magic, magic...


T with Gaudi’s lizard

The highlight of Barcelona for us was getting into Sagrada Familia. (The lowlight was battling against tour groups in the museum of Sagrada Familia :P) The church was unlike anything I’ve ever seen – a unique and incomparable design. A guy had gone to great lengths describing the place as this big marble forest, and we were quite amused when we later read the same thing he’d previously said to us (he borrowed a few phrases a little too similar to the books) elsewhere. But really, that’s a decent enough description, if you ignore how bright the place is. The windows along the sides aren’t stained, which means the place floods with light – a dazzling, bright, marble forest if ever there was one. The interior was finished in January and according to their sight, the exterior should be finished around 2030 – so not long to go now :P. The construction work makes for some challenging photo ops, and fun games looking at postcards and picking where the cranes have been airbrushed out. I’ve put up a gallery of the place on facebook if anyone’s interested, including the cranes in all their glory (Around Europe, cranes are my second favourite sigh, following scaffold).


Sagrada’s less appealing exterior (in my opinion)


The amazing interior


Postcard perfect crane action


For this, balance your head on your left shoulder...

Of course two weeks in Spain wasn’t gonna be enough, but we had to start our journey back across to Italy sooner or later, and France in between doesn’t exactly sound too bad. So it’s time for us to replace tapas with patisseries and baguettes.

Adios!

About the UK and Ireland

What’s been happening since heading back to the other side?? This, I will attempt to answer in roughly 25 words. Tess and I have been in England, Scotland and Ireland (not Wales... I didn’t even know where on the rock it was until the other week) to make up a healthy month of travel, and it’s been pretty swell!

Here’s a rundown of each of the places we’ve hit, or at the very least an idea of something we did in each place.

LONDON

Our stay in London was our longest yet for this crazy trip of ours – a whopping two weeks (perhaps that’s sarcasm, perhaps it’s not)! We managed to get lucky with the opening of Fars & Fan and an oh so timely vacancy on the floor there. We never got to post a review of F&F as they were too cheap to have a guest book, so taking the criteria from an appropriate source, here it is:

Character: 100% - really, they had a London themed pillow!!! How much more character could you ask for??
Security: 100% except for when the keys turn by themselves.
Location: 100% ideal for all you hipsters and ya faybans.
Staff: 100% free tours around Camden and Primrose Hill were pretty tops. They’ll even introduce you to Primark, and take you to super embarrassing trivia if you ask nicely.
Fun: 100% all the Crabbies you can handle.

Other comments: Whilst F&F ticked all the boxes above, this criteria leaves little room for criticism regarding the surcharges... Don’t be fooled into a comfortable stay unless you can afford hefty surcharges on each square of toilet paper, and every drop of water that comes from the filter jug (even though the water comes from the tap!) They’ll charge you for sneezing if you’re not careful! Outrageous! Crabbies, however... delicious!

What’d we get up to in London? Well after the gig drought that has been 2011 thus far (oh, the pain!), we landed in town and headed to the O2 on our very first night for Elbow. The O2 claims to be the world’s number one music venue (it’s where Michael Jackson would have killed himself through exhaustion if he didn’t die first), but to be frank it seems only as impressive as the next arena. Elbow, on the other hand, are world class. There’s nothing about this band you can’t like; and impressively, live they can actually sound spot on in a 20,000 capacity venue. Irish band, Villagers, played beforehand, and I can highly recommend them as well. We’ve been listening to their album a lot since the night.


Elbow performing at the O2

The other major event for us in London was going to see The Lion King. This was simply spectacular and if you haven’t seen it then we can only recommend it a thousand times! The puppetry was superb: the elephant was awesome and the cheetah and giraffes so cleverly done, as were the lion’s headpieces. Such ingenuity!!


Pure Joy: The Lion King

When we weren’t sightseeing or at a show/gig, we were probably either drinking Crabbies or coffees about the place. Here’re our top four coffee spots in London in case you’re ever in town and interested:

1. Wild & Wood – New Oxford Street
2. Melrose & Morgan – Primrose Hill
3. Primrose Bakery – Tabistock Street/Avenue
4. Hamstead Heath – Kenwood House (more for the surroundings)

Finally, Colin did a massive sightseeing tour of the city. And he had a photographer following him all the way. How many sights can you pick?

EDINBURGH

We left London and headed to The Burg. Excitement over the Scottish accent was somewhat shot down upon our arrival with a big lack of Scottish accents – an English voiceover on the bus (What!?) and a hostel with Aussie staff and way too many Frenchies about.

The idea I got from Edinburgh was that the Scots worship a dog and a rock. Don’t worry, I have nothing against Greyfriar’s Bobby – he sounds pretty awesome to me – and a dog outranking JK Rowling in terms of love is certainly a good thing. The fountain outside the Churchyard, under which he’s buried (dog’s aren’t allowed to be buried in Catholic cemeteries), doubles as a drinking fountain for humans and dogs. How thoughtful!

On the note of Greyfriar’s, I’d also like to comment of how mean JK Rowling is. Apparently, a whole load of Harry Potter is based on stuff Rowling discovered in Edinburgh (Hogwarts on George Heriots School, for instance). In the churchyard/cemetery, Rowling went around pinching first and surnames from different graves to assemble some of her character names. One name, Tom Riddell, she took directly from the stone. So poor old Mr Riddell has just had his name taken and associated with a super evil wizard overlord (he’s an overlord of some sort, isn’t he?) How rude!


Greyfriar’s Bobby statue and fountain


You’re correct is realising that this is not Greyfriar’s Bobby. There are other famous dogs in the world too, you know, and this one comes from California. Why do I like him so much to include his photo here? Because his name is Bum!


STIRLING

We found ourselves visiting Mog in Stirling next; eating haggis, visiting Monty Python castles and, er, dressing in drag. A hike around Stirling Uni in search of a Hairy Coo proved (very disappointingly) unsuccessful, though a bus trip to St Andrews meant we saw a whole bunch of them on the roadside: Very important Scottish sight ticked off the list.


Typical Scottish fare, care of Mog

Colin also had himself a wonderful top hat made by Mog, to which he grew immediately attached.


Colin’s SMASHING new hat


GLASGOW

All I can think of is that Muph & Plutonic song, Beautiful Ugly, because that is just how I would describe Glasgow. Walking into town in the morning, the place was dead. We’d chosen the wrong streets to head in on, and the place basically looked dull and abandoned. The centre made things more visually appealing, though, but the amount of vacant and/or rundown structures certainly gave the place a lot of misses amongst its hits.

Whilst in Glasgow we went to see Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed at a place called The Arches. If anyone heads there and gets the chance to see a gig at this venue, it’s worth a look in. Whilst as a music venue, an old brick arch train platform doesn’t really prove acoustically perfect; the atmosphere of the place is pretty awesome. Eli’s damn fun, too! Glasgow certainly has a cool live music scene – I’d probably say it is to the UK what Melbourne is to Australia in terms of this. There’s good stuff on pretty much every night, and whilst Belfast is taking a good crack at the top music city, Glasgow’s still well ahead of them.


Eli Paperboy Reed performing at The Arches


DUBLIN

To be sure, to be sure, to be sure. The land of Guinness at last! We headed to Dublin in a roundabout fashion, basically via the wrong airport. We assumed that given we had a cheap flight, we’d be flying out of Prestwick. In fact, I didn’t even know Glasgow had an international airport. (It’s the biggest city in Scotland... Really?) This was fun, because Ryanair are the only airline to fly from here and they don’t fly on Good Friday! Had Prestwick been correct, we would have had a healthy two to three hours to bum about (and probably write this long post); however, we made it to check-in with a not-so-healthy 5-10 minutes to spare. Phew.

Dublin was good fun. We met up with the Mole (of F&F fame above) and explored the Irish capital. We headed to the Guinness Storehouse, which was excellent in my opinion, and enjoyed the black stuff there (and elsewhere many times). My favourite part about the Storehouse was the advertising level. It’s amazing just how many great commercials and items of merchandise Guinness have created over the decades. It’s a shame the toucan isn’t around any longer.


Colin enjoyed a few pints, despite his pint size


Tayto: An absolute asset for Ireland

We also joined another free walking tour, which turned out to be the first of seven (I think) that we actually had problems with. It really came down to our guide, who was a little hungover, but mostly just an ass when it came to touring people who wanted to know about the city. This guy went into several rants about complete nonsense – the worst being his qualms over the film interpretation of Gulliver’s Travels and how he was making it his mission to end the career of Jack Black. He was basically an angry, angry man and a royal pain in the backside.

We also headed to Trinity College to check out the incredible Book of Kells and Long Room Library, which we learnt is the same place used in one of the Star Wars films (as the Jedi Library) without ever having been filmed on location. George Lucas’s crew apparently went in and photographed the place, then asked permission to film there – a request which was denied. Lucas went back and used the photographs instead to reproduce the place in CGI; and it’s supposedly bang on perfect. In the words of Pinky Beecroft: for once George Lucas got it right. The Long Room is one hell of a sight, though, and well worth the fee from travellers like us who try to avoid paying for anything.


BELFAST & STROKECITY

I’m calling [Derry/Londonderry] Strokecity from now on, because the murals around Belfast don’t exactly paint a positive picture for anyone making the wrong choice of words in Northern Ireland. Belfast was an interesting place; obviously not as threatening as it once was but appearing like it could be (ok, school holidays freeing the teenagers can do this to a place).


Actually our first sight upon departing the bus in Belfast


One of Belfast’s few finer features

Out of Belfast we headed out on a day trip with Paddy Wagon Tours, who I’d happily recommend. Our guide was Troy, who was one funny guy – happy to tell jokes and basically not stop taking for 90% of the 8 hour day. Our tour took us first to Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which isn’t nearly as high as we’d thought it might be, but certainly still quite cool. From there we went to the Giant’s Causeway, a trip with a story that only seemed to prove the Scottish are both smarter and stronger than the Irish. See, the Giant’s of the story include the key Irish protagonist who falls in love but is not strong enough to fight for it and not smart enough to figure out his own plan, and two Scottish ones: the lady interest to concocts the big idea to win, and the brute that would have kicked the crap out of the Irish had they ever actually come to conflict. Ah well, the Irish’ll still tell it.

The legend (taken from Wiki) goes something like this:
Legend has it that the Irish warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. One version of the legend tells that Fionn fell asleep before he got to Scotland. When he did not arrive, the much larger Benandonner crossed the bridge looking for him. To protect Fionn, his wife Oonagh laid a blanket over him so he could pretend that he was actually their baby son. In a variation, Fionn fled after seeing Benandonner's great bulk, and asked his wife to disguise him as the baby. In both versions, when Benandonner saw the size of the 'infant', he assumed the alleged father, Fionn, must be gigantic indeed. Therefore, Benandonner fled home in terror, ripping up the Causeway in case he was followed by Fionn.


Carrick-a-Rede: Spot Tess

From the Causeway we headed to Strokecity. It’s called this by some because Derry is offensive to the Protestants, and Londonderry is offensive to the Catholics. On signs it’s often written as “London/Derry”, hence the name Strokecity popping up and avoiding all offence entirely. Here we went on a very underwhelming tour of the city (Troy ditched us for this one), on which dates were blurted out and little info of any memorable substance was given. Our guide wasn’t interested on questions despite asking for them, and when asked about the “New IRA”, he denied, without a doubt, that they could ever possibly exist. If you go to Strokecity, do not bother with the tour office’s tour.


THE IRISH ROADTRIP

From Belfast, it was back to Dublin Airport, where we picked up our Reno and set off on our week-long road trip.

Our Reno! I want one of these now – fuel efficiency is incredible!!

Our first stop was Kilkenny, a town that smelt entirely of beer thanks to its Smithwicks brewery. Here we easily toured the town in a day as it is quite small, and got to enjoy some great Irish music in Andrew Ryan’s Pub (highly recommended), as well as some hilarious antics from an old American dude: we now refer to him as “wiggle bum”.

From Kilkenny we spent a good day driving west to stop in Doolin. From here we travelled to the Cliffs of Moher, which were absolutely spectacular. The warnings were kind of funny, as everyone simply ignored the end barrier and climbed over to see the actual cliff edge. There were puffins about, PUFFINS, of which I did actually spot a couple!! (albeit wayyy off in the distance). Also from Doolin we explored The Burren; a vast national park made of rocky terrain that was quite a sight, as well as many towns that were hardly a sight at all. What I learnt from these latter mentioned towns is that Colin Farrell is a hypocrite. As an Irish man, how can he possibly call Bruges a “f_*ing hole” when there are SO MANY such places where he comes from. (It’s okay, this is not so serious... but seriously Ireland, up your game :P)


The sounds at Andrew Ryan’s


More Irish than a Guinness in the pub: Mr Tumnus (a Tracey family favourite) performing a jig at the Cliffs of Modor


The Burren National Park


Tess enjoying an Irish coffee at McDermitt’s Pub in Doolin

From the west coast we drove south to stay in Killarney, where we got to explore a little of the National Park there as well. This place is superb! I was really quite jealous of our roommate, who was heading out when we left to spend two whole weeks hiking in the mountains in the Ring of Kerry – his tent and fishing rod were all he needed.


Ross Castle in Killarney National Park

From Killarney we drove along the Dingle Peninsula, stopping to laugh at the surfing companies set up in the miserable cold on what we named “Jobbie Beach” (it really smelt quite bad). Twas a nice drive, even if there were no wild goats as falsely advertised, grrr.


Jobbie Beach: Beautiful, but oh so smelly

Our goat experience was made up for upon visiting Killorglin, where we found the King Puck statue. There’s no point writing any more than a mere copy of what the plaques at that statue say:


Puck Fair
The first day of the Puck Fair is known as “Gathering Day”. The Puck Goat is enthroned on a stand in the town square and the great horse fair is held. The middle day is known as “Fair Day”. This is the day of the cattle fair and general festivities. The last day is known as “Scattering Day,” when the brief reign of Ireland’s only King is ended and the Puck Goat is returned once more to his mountain home.

King Puck
For hundreds of years, a male mountain goat has been enthroned as King of Puck Fair in Killorglin town. The Puck Goat reigns over the fair held on August 10th, 11th, and 12th of each year. King Puck is a symbol of a vast tradition whose origins are lost in the mists of time.

This sculpture was unveiled on the 5th day of August, 2001 in commemoration of the enduring Killoglin tradition of “Puck Fair” and its central figure King Puck.
“Kings may come and Kings may go, But King Puck goes on forever.”

Says it all, doesn’t it.

It turns out it is a long way to Tipperary, which is where we headed next. Not only that, it’s a long way to go for another hole! Haha. Our stay wasn’t long enough to justify that comment, but still. We headed 40km north to a town called Borrisoleigh, where we somehow scored on a booking via hostelworld and ended up staying on a farmhouse with this awesome guy, Michael, and all his animals! If you are ever in the middle of Ireland and need a place to stay (or even just fancy saying hello to Britny the enormous pig and Indian Runner ducks that’ll follow you around), please go to the Fairy Fort Farm House. There’s a jumping castle, too!


These guys followed us around the farm – so funny!


Guess who this might be...

From Borrisoleigh, it was back to Dublin to give back our car and end our UK/Ireland jaunt. Amazingly, we’d managed to travel all the above places from 29 March to the 4 May with – get this – only two days of miserable weather: TWO of 37! That’s got to be some kind of freak event for this part of the world, doesn’t it?

Anyway, on to Spain... Yippee!!

Hope this read hasn’t been too painful for you. If you’ve made it to this last sentence then thanks for reading :)
Over and out for now
Li

P.S. I realise at the beginning of this I said about “25 words”... I may have omitted a couple of zeros from that figure.