franceses

Our hostel has free internet! So I´ve uploaded a bunch of photographs (about 5% of total maybe) to my flickr site and you should have a look!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/colllapse/

I can´t write much because we have to be back at our hostal in fifteen minutes to get ready to leave Granada and fly to Barcelona. Last time I wrote we were in Cordoba about to go and see the Mezquita which is absolutely mesmerising, the architecture is like living Escher. I have many more things to say about it but I don´t have time. After spending many hours there (and the Alcazaba) we left the next day on a bus for Granada. Granada has been very kind to us, although it´s a much grittier and slightly more epic city than Cordoba, covered in graffiti and very political. We keep hearing claims that there´s only 200,000 people living here, but it has the feel of a million plus city, and in fact I find that very hard to believe. The day after arriving we queued for four hours to get tickets to see the Alhambra. This was mostly a bad thing except that we met a Czech girl named Teresa who was very friendly and excited for us (she started talking to us because K was reading my copy of ¨Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia¨. The funny thing about all this was that after queueing for four hours Mum and I almost didn´t get to see the Nasrid Palaces (the Alhambra´s crowning glory) because you only get a half hour time window to get in, and it was very badly signposted. We originally thought another castle was it and when we finally realised our half hour time period was over. So then we had to feign, well actually not feign at all, the stupid and confused tourist syndrome. It was well worth the adrenalin rush. I will post about 1000 pictures when I get the chance.

The last two days we have been driving around Andalusia in a rented Fiat. The first day we went to cave country north east of Granada, and yesterday we went to Las Alpujarras, all little towns in the skirt of the Sierra Nevada. It has been spectacular, though cold. My favourite thing about Granada is the roof on top of our hostal, from which we can see the swallows circling over the rooftops of Granada with the Sierra Nevada shimmering behind.

We went into a burger king in Cordoba last night (they don´t have a vegeburger so it was no use to us) and there´s a burger called the Frances. I think that´s because it´s meant to be French style. My name means French in Spain.

We arrived in Spain the night before last, at midnight, in the rain. We´d spent the day in the Jardin de Tiuleries minding bags after we checked out of our hotel, and ate sugar crepes.

We finally got to sleep at 1.30am, in a big ugly hotel in Madrid near the airport. In the morning we were relieved to find it cold and rainy, because the heat in Paris had frankly been too much for us. We didn´t end up seeing much more of Madrid than the inside of railway stations and trains, but what wonderful railway stations and trains they were! So much for the stereotype of Spaniards being inefficient. We liked it in Spain. Everyone is beautiful and happy, the kids are cool, and it seems to be a very prosperous and happy place. The train journey to Cordoba was very beautiful, I got tears in my eyes looking out the window at all the rolling mountains and rolling clouds and little buildings that looked like castles and towns with statues looking over them. Kristian claimed it was just like California.

And so we got to Cordoba in the middle of the afternoon yesterday, and by the time we arrived it was sunshiney and hot again. Cordoba seems like a place that belongs in the sun, it is all the right colours for a bright day, all mosaic blues and grey white patterned cobblestones and yellows and red flowers. Even the pigeons/doves are white and grey and bright. People are very talkative here, which is wonderful except that we don´t understand them. At least French I could vaguely understand even if I couldn´t speak it very well. Spanish is a mystery to me.

I have been taking a lot of photographs of Cordoba, it´s the kind of place where you can´t put away your camera or you´ll just have to take it out again. It´s got a lot of very quaint little alleyways, but the bits that interest me the most are the broken bits, the crumbling walls and windows through which you can see the sky.

So we're in Paris, I'm writing this in hotel room in the Latin Quarter, on the fourth storey. It's cheap and clean and looks onto an intersection, so we sleep and wake up to a soundtrack of buzzing lawnmower scooters and motorbikes. Although every time I climb the stairs I feel like I may slip on the polished wood and fall to the bottom, I really like this hotel. It reminds me of the hotels that people like George Orwell (Down and Out in Paris and London) stayed in back in those days, scrounging for a meal and scribbling at tiny desks. We're kind of scrounging for meals, since Paris is kind of expensive and we're on a pretty tiny budget. We have a little faux balcony and big open window, which lets in heaps of light, and our view is lovely.

I love travel food, which always seems to end up being 1) bread, 2) cheese, 3) chocolate and 4) orange juice. Especially if you're a vegetarian. Although we just had awesome vegetarian kebabs for lunch.

The thing I like the most about Paris so far is that there are so many places to just sit and be. I'm not necessarily talking about cafes, but the parks and other public places that seem situated to provide the best vantage points of other people and buildings and things going on, and people don't seem at all concerned about being watched going about their business.

On our first day here we were feeling pretty awful from the flight (I had only about 2 or 3 hours sleep the whole time) but we stumbled across a street market and decided to go there and buy bread, cheese, (what did I say?) olives and strawberries. This was our first time trying out our limited French, with pretty mixed results. I was okay at reciting small phrases in heavily accented French, but the moment my conversant would try to confirm, I'd respond in English. Still, everyone was very friendly and happy. After making our purchases (I tried to talk the others into a 2 euro bottle of Cab Sauv' - how bad could it be - but this was vetoed due to lack of corkscrew). We went to the nearest park and ate our purchases.

Yesterday we went to the Eiffel Tower, took a boat ride on the Seine to Notre Dame, another boat ride to the Louvre and Champs Elysees/Arc de Triomphe. A lot of walking, great photos, much fun. It's really incredibly hot here right now. It's been 24 degrees or more every day we've been here, and the sun is pretty ferocious.

Today Mum went to Versailles and me and Kristian have been relaxing in the Jardin du Luxembourg. Before mum went off though we went to see the Catacombes of Paris, which is a vast underground ossuary. Nearly killed ourselves walking back up the spiral staircase to the real world again (87 steps, no landings), but it was really spooky and strange to be in a place that housed the bones of millions of people underground.

I dumbly only just realised that this blogging site doesn't allow comments for non-members. This is a bit crap and makes me unhappy. I considered shifting us to blogger.com but there are many more things I don't like about that site, so I'll keep my eyes out for other alternatives.

Meantime please email us at franceshaw@gmail.com or kristian.adamson@gmail.com if you have stuff to say and don't feel like signing up in a random "travel community".