There’s no way I’m forgetting this.

What I did not like about Portugal:

We ate out more often than I have throughout my travels so far. This was not a problem, since it was really quite cheap. The problem was that it is apparently very rare to have vegetables accompany your dinner in Portugal. They love fish, they love meat, and they love potatoes. But when it comes to salad – if you get a salad – they literally mean lettuce, and maybe a tomato. When I inquired about wanting to add some sort of vegetables – Broccoli? Peppers? Green beans? – The general reaction was puzzled: Why would you want vegetables? (kudos to Andrea, who lived there for an entire year as a vegetarian!)

The sidewalks in Lisbon are made of some sort of white, mosaic tile cobblestone. It’s beautiful, keeping the city very bright on sunny days, and light even on cloudy days – much like snow will brighten a city during winter. However, any rain makes for a very treacherous walk. Particularly the downhill walks home at the end of the night when you’d rather be warm in bed, than getting wet as you try to grip the sidewalk through your boots. On the bright side, the tile does look nice, and it is mild enough that you’re not too cold.

What I did like about Portugal:

Pretty much everything else.

The city of Lisbon is beautiful. It is vibrant with buildings painted every colour, or covered in multihued ceramic tiles. It is full of character with wall paintings, projects to renew older neighbourhoods, mournful sounding Fado music drifting from restaurants, bars and street vendors, and narrow, tangled streets.

Belem district

The Discovery Monument and the 25th of April Bridge.

Alfama district

Alfama district

The Bairro Alto district is full of bars of all sorts, but the part of the atmosphere I loved the most was the way people spilled onto the streets drifting from place to place. Of course, it rained both days we went out. So I imagine it is even more amazing on a dry/summer day, but it was really cool to see the mix of people. One night we bought half litre mojitos and enjoyed them from a lookout point over the city. The mojitos were delicious, the view was good, the rain stopped, the company was excellent, and there was absolutely no risk of a fine for public drinking.

Andrea and I with our new friend Eugene - who happens to hail from Melbourne.

We stayed with friends of Andrea’s throughout our visit, and all our hosts were so wonderful – welcoming in every sense of the word. We were joined by a group of friends – some of Andrea’s old friends, and some new friends – almost every evening for dinner, drinks, or partying. I was amazed and pleased to attend a party in a ground floor flat that was allowed to carry on with loud music, and people in the streets or playing the guitar and drums until all hours of the night. And amongst all the Portuguese and Italian guests, there were plenty of (friendly) queries as to how a solitary Canadian ended up in the mix.

The food (aside from the lack of veggies) was delish. There was, of course, an abundance of fresh fish to eat. Though my first time eating a whole fish from the bone was not exactly something I was excited about, I took it as part of the experience. And luckily, there were plenty of practiced Portuguese around to help me out. There were also plenty of delicious pastries to satisfy my ever-sweet tooth.  

Delicious pasteis de nata.

Andrea and I day-tripped to Sintra where we walked around the beautiful, green Quinta de Regaleira estate, exploring steep paths, caves, towers and a couple of wells. It rained steadily the entire time we were there, and yet it was the kind of place that took my breath away all the same. 

Sintra

The Well of Initiation

Exploring the Quinta de Regaleira Estate

All in all, I had an amazing time in Portugal. It was not originally a country I had on my “must-see” list, but I would definitely visit again. And now I’ve switched locales to snowy Germany where I’m visiting Stefan - so far having a fantastic time.

Sending love from Germany!

Gracias

Where in Barcelona I fell in love at first site, Madrid grew on me the more time I spent there. Sometimes it’s harder to enjoy a new city after leaving a place that I really liked, so I had to remind myself to keep an open mind. Madrid was colder (still speaking in relative terms, of course), rainier, and less obviously stunning. It was more of a city. However, though I never grew to love it, I really did like it a bit more each day.

I visited the squares Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol. They were filled with tons of people shopping, eating, taking photos, or simply hurrying from point A to point B. They were also home to many knock-off Disney mascots sculpting balloon animals (personally, I found the characters pretty creepy, as they were smaller and less chubby than normal, and the women inside kept lifting off their heads to make their balloon animals). I visited Almudena Cathedral and Palacio Real. I also learned that Palacio Real is the largest palace in Western Europe. So, though up until now each palace seems to have been more and more massive, apparently from here on they’ll only get “smaller”. I visited the sprawling and crowded el Rastro flea market while keeping my hands firmly planted in my front pockets to guard my money. I watched the sun set at the Gardens of the Egyptian Templo de Debod. I went out and drank my share of sangria, and danced my share of salsa. I tried churros and was disappointed to find that I found the look of them far more appealing than the taste (much too greasy). I watched a few good movies and a few bad movies with my hostel friends. And I saw my first snow of the year. In Madrid. In Spain! Or at least, it was snow from my second floor window. By the time it reached the ground, I’m fairly certain it was just rain. However, I never expected to see snow in Spain at all.

Palacio Real

Churros looking good.

Plaza Mayor at night.

New Canadian friends.

El Rastro flea market

Almudena Cathedral

Sunset from Templo del Debod

And then Andrea arrived from Bologna. We stayed with his friend Juanjo for three more nights while we continued to explore the city together. We slept in and had Spanish lunch as late as 4:30. We drank cups of Spanish hot chocolate, which are truly just cups of melted chocolate. We visited the Reina Sofia Museum of Contemporary Art and saw Picasso’s Guernica. We drank beer and sagria and ate tapas while sitting on stage at a great hole-in-the-wall bar. And I attempted to eat the most massive half a ham and cheese sandwich I’ve ever seen. It was as big as my face and gave me very strange dreams even though I could not finish it. Andrea stuck with the vegetarian friendly plate of delicious cheese and bread.

Picasso's Guernica

Happy with a glass of Sangria.

The terrifying ham sandwich.

Then on Thursday, we flew to Lisbon: another city that I have quickly fallen for. But that is a blog post for another day.

Sending love from Portugal!

I'm Walking on Sunshine

Last Wednesday, I parted ways with Dirk and Rotterdam and hopped on a train to Amsterdam. I made it to my hostel with no trouble and then went out for a walk to get my bearings. The city centre is over the top – what a sensory overload. Every window has sex, drugs or food. There is so much to look at that I felt I had to slow my pace to take it all in. However, it was very interesting, and it certainly did not fall short of what I had imagined. I made my way to the Jordaan district for an excellent vegan meal. The Jordaan district is much calmer, and more scenic with canals and crooked old houses.

The majority of my time in Amsterdam was spent walking around with Benji – a guy from Switzerland I met in the hostel – and later, his 5 friends who all arrived later on Thursday for the weekend. The day before I left for Spain, we all went on a walking tour with an elderly Dutch man named Jan. His stories were usually long and anticlimactic, and his walking pace matched. However, he was very sweet and the weather was beautiful.

On Thursday, I hopped a plane to Barcelona, where I am currently. And I am completely enamoured by the city. It’s colourful, and beautiful, and lively. It is busy, but not in the same hectic way as cities like London or Sydney. As a bonus, the weather has been absolutely perfect – clear and 16 degree highs. The hostel where I’m staying (Central Garden Hostel One) is the best one I’ve ever stayed at. The staff is amazing, and the hostel itself feels more like being in someone’s apartment, so it’s been a great place to meet people.

I spent Sunday and Monday sightseeing with a couple of girls – Melissa and Venus – from New York. We visited La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell, Montjuic Castle and the Olympic Stadium, as well as a couple more of the Gaudi houses. Gaudi’s architecture is all over Barcelona, and I’m loving it. His designs are so functional, but very unusual and informal looking – like Dr. Suess buildings. On Sunday evening, the hostel hosted a pizza and sangria night, where I met a couple of guys who studied in Barcelona. Their grad was this past weekend, and they invited me out to “Nasty Mondays” at their favourite club. So after climbing into my bunk some time after the sun came up this morning, I had a lazier day today. I rounded out my sightseeing by visiting the Gothic Quarter, the Ports and La Rambla – where there are dozens of street performers of every shape, colour, and style.

Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia

Parc Guell

Barcelona Olympic Stadium

More Olympic Park

My personal favourite street performer on La Rambla

The rooftop terrace of Gaudi's Casa Batllo

Tomorrow is my last day in Barcelona. I plan to revisit La Sagrada Familia to look inside and hopefully go up Mount Tibidabo to see what I’ve been told is another excellent view. Then Thursday I move on to Madrid, where I will meet Andrea after the weekend.

Sending love from Spain! 

Life with the Dutch

I’ve now been in Holland for over a week, and I’ve been enjoying my stay thoroughly. It was great to meet Dirk’s family last weekend, and check out where he is from. Not surprisingly, his family is wonderful. They were so warm and welcoming to me that rather than make me miss my own family more, I just felt at home. PLUS, there is an old windmill practically in their front yard. I know Holland and windmills go together like Canada and maple syrup, but I really enjoyed all the colourful, old windmills spread out around the towns. The weather was beautiful on Saturday so Dirk gave me a tour of Zeeland. It was a nice change of pace to be out in the country after spending a week in London. Sunday was not such beautiful weather, so we spent the day lounging and eating, apart from taking the dogs on a walk.

Modern windmills

The windmill near the Hundersmarck home.

The week has been great as well. The weather has, admittedly, been miserable. Every morning I peak out my curtains and hope for sun, and almost every morning, it is gray. There are intermittent patches of blue sky, and even some sunshine from time to time, but it has been mostly gray and often rainy. However, the company makes up for the weather (Dirk’s housemates are great too, which has made my stay that much better). We’ve gone on a couple long bike rides, we’ve eaten Oliebollen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliebol) and Dutch pancakes (much like crepes) and bread with chocolate sprinkles, we’ve cooked dinners and drank wine, we’ve gone out for pizza and sushi and Belgian beer, and listened to live jazz. We’ve checked out the market and biked home with the goods, and we’ve sat on the (amazing) couch watching Dutch reality TV or Toy Story 3 or Two and a Half Men while catching up and cursing the rain. And we hunted the mouse that had been living in the apartment for the last few weeks. It was a long battle, but we recently came out victorious.

To top that all off, yesterday we went to see Sinterklaas on his way through Rotterdam. Sinterklaas is, of course, the Dutch version of Santa Claus. However, he visits on December 5, leaving candy and small gifts in the children’s shoes, and he rides a white horse and has a sidekick called Black Pete (who is black from chimney soot). Also, Sinterklaas looks a lot like the Pope to me – the Pope with a very long white beard. It was fun to see him in all his regal glory, surrounded by his sooty sidekicks.

Sinterklaas!

This week I’ll go to Amsterdam for a few days, and then on to Spain. I’ve yet to sort of all the details in the middle, but I’ll be meeting up with Andrea and Danielle in Madrid on the 29^th. Hopefully there will be a little bit more sunshine there. However, I still have several days left in Holland. Maybe tomorrow when I peak outside, I’ll see some sun.

Sending more love from Rotterdam!

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

My good friend Andrea was set to arrive in London from Bologna on Tuesday afternoon. He and I were going to stay at his friend Marco’s house for the night. I had planned to meet Andrea and Marco at a specific station, but hadn’t realized how much longer it takes to get to some of the districts. So when I missed them at the station, I asked around for directions and was aided by another hand of wonderful locals. Marco was quite surprised I was able to find his place on my own, but Andrea said he expected it from me. At any rate, I was very excited to find the house and collect an Italian hug, or three.

After some tea and dessert, the three of us made use of all available public transport – bus, tube and boat – to make our way to the Indigo Arena. There we met Daniel (“London”), Amy, and her friend Jo in time for a glass of wine before the Temper Trap show!

The concert was excellent – certainly even more so due to the company and the location. It was such a neat experience; seeing this band that I’d first loved in Melbourne, along with friends from Melbourne, but while in London. The Underground went on strike that night, so it was a bit of a hassle to get home, but we made it eventually. I detoured to London earlier than I’d expected specifically for that concert. Though I greatly enjoyed my whole week, the concert and company alone were worth the trip.

The Temper Trap!

Our little Deakin reunion.

The next day, Andrea, Marco and I ventured out to Camden Town to shop around at the markets. Later in the afternoon, Marco headed to class, and Andrea and I found a pub and enjoyed a London Pride beer with some standard, but tasty British pub grub.

I saw Andrea off on his way to the airport, headed back to Marco’s to collect my own bags, and then made my way out as well. Given the strike, it was not all that easy. However, yet another handful of lovely locals helped me navigate the bus system across the city where I could connect to Stansted Airport for the night. Yes. For the night. There’s a first for everything, and Wednesday night, I spent my first night ‘sleeping’ in an airport. And though I use the term ‘sleeping’ loosely, I did probably manage about 3 or 4 hours dozing off and on.

Now I am in Rotterdam, Holland with Dirk! We spent yesterday catching up on the couch with tea and wine and little Christmas biscuits (that makes the Danes, and apparently the Dutch very excited). Oh, and liver pâté, which seems to be following me around Europe, and slowly growing on me. Today we are going out to Dirk’s parents’ place in Dreischor and then to a nearby birthday party. The weather is fairly miserable right now, but we’re also hoping to go for a bit of a bike ride around the city (I missed biking in London!).

And if anyone is wondering, I made it into the Netherlands without a hitch. In fact, there were literally no questions asked. I got my passport stamped and walked straight in. A much better start.

Sending love from Rotterdam!