Don't make us go back!

For the last four days of our epic journey I booked us a fantastic AirBnB room in Holland Park (Notting Hill neighborhood). Our host was the fascinating Jaana and her home was pristine in a gorgeous wedding cake of a townhome. While we had an open invitation to stay with Lizzie and family again, we knew we were much less fresh-faced than when we'd first been there. Basically we were animals, used to eating torn scraps of baguette and somewhat warm beers, speaking almost exclusively to one another in grunts and gestures, bathing infrequently, and hanging our underpants just everywhere to dry after an old fashioned sink wash. (Future employers: We are totally responsible adults in real life, we swear)

Four days sounded like so much time, and we tentatively planned a day trip to Brighton for Victorian beach amusement, and birthday celebrations that would empty the UK of its alcohol inventory. As you can imagine, we woke up on July 8, our first morning back in London and realized there was so much to do we could only cling to this time with our filthy fingernails. We walked through Kensington park to the Victoria and Albert Museum where we focused on the truly important exhibits: Fashion and Jewelry. We probably could have accomplished much more that day if I hadn't known about the Jewelry exhibit. The gallery didn't allow photos, but that didn't stop me from spending a full two hours there, much to Sally's horror, taking notes on jewelry styles and designers of different eras. I'm not even exaggerating (I kind of wish I were). We also visited the Wallace Collection, a townhome/cubic-city-block-mansion of art collected by five generations of Wallace men. I was inexplicably enchanted by the home's varied marble fireplace mantles, again, I am not kidding here when I tell you that I walked through this house taking photographs of the fireplaces and loudly praising them as Sally sat with head in hands waiting for the sweet release of death. Here's the proof:

 

I should also mention at this point we were at about 463 miles walked according to my absolutely imperfect pedometer. So now we were on a mission to reach 500 miles, we just had to. So we walked. One morning we got up and walked from our AirBnB to Camden Market, a six-and-a-half mile walk that we were about halfway into when the strap on one of Sally's hearty travel sandals tore free. She valiantly trudged on, not only to Camden but back into the center of London.

 

 

Another good reason for all the walking was that London's underground staff had decided to strike on July 9. After visiting Camden we had planned to make our way to the East End for a Sandeman tour, but could only get as far Euston Station, where we encounter a queue for the bus that was approximately 200 people deep at 2pm. Not good prospect for getting to Liverpool Station by 2:30pm. Sally wisely pointed out that it was not worth trying to run there, so could we just stop walking for a minute? That's how we ended up at the British Museum, ostensibly to use the toilets but since we were there, we took a gander at the Rosetta Stone.

The good thing about London is that where there's a will, there's a pub. So that's how we killed time before meeting Lizzie for drinks and Indian food. And after a perfect summer evening telling Lizzie about Francis and other adventures, Sally and I spent three hours trying to get home. It was a damn nightmare. 

Our last day in London was also my birthday. We ate breakfast with Jaana on her rooftop patio, walked to Westminster Pier where we caught the Thames River Service boat to Greenwich. The day was beautiful, the town was really cute in a touristy way, and it was an adventure of train rides back to London.

 

We finally made it to the East End for the Sandeman Real East End Tour. The itinerary looked so fun, a great afternoon adventure, but what the website didn't say at the time was that the tour started on July 31. So we trekked over to Liverpool Street Station, walked from clock tower to clock tower looking for a red umbrella, but 2pm came and went and we were just standing there, totally disappointed. It turned out okay though! We walked through the East End on our own and I pointed out to Sally streets that looked familiar from Call the Midwife. Thank goodness I watch so much British TV. 




We went back to the AirBnB for a bit before heading over to Lizzie's, so I took the opportunity to walk down Portobello Road, admiring the colorful homes and varied market stalls. 

 

 

The rest of the night wasn't captured in photographs, so I'll romanticize it a fair bit. Lizzie & Co had prepared for the big night by setting up a saber-ing station of 20oz beers. Three and a half years ago  when we traveled through India, I taught the Brits how to quickly and effectively remove the cap and lip of a beer using only a dinner knife. Sure it's sexier when a sommelier pops the top off a champagne bottle, but let's be serious: when you have to get to the alcohol, you have to get to the alcohol. This is the endgame of my wine career. Get the good stuff into your mouth. 

I lied, here is the sole photo from the night. Credit: Elizabeth W.

I don't know if British butter knives are weaker than Indian cutlery, or British bottles are thicker than their Indian counterparts, but we had a fairly difficult go of it. I think the men were finally successful, but I was woefully unable to make myself an amber glass ring. The good news was that we did have a bottle opener, so we were able to enjoy a few drinks before heading out to a wonderful South Chinese restaurant specializing in roasted meats and hand-pulled noodles. The entire experience was unique (a delightful departure from Americanized Chinese take-out) and provided deeply entertaining conversation. I am so lucky to have such accomplished and witty friends! On our way back to Southwark we stopped in for more drinks and a pile of chips/crisps to enjoy into the wee hours of the morning. We did precisely that, and on July 11 Sally made our way home. 

A few hours later we were up and out, wishing Jaana well, and met Lizzie again for brunch at Kensington Square Kitchen. It was as hard to believe that we were leaving as it was to anticipate actually taking the trip seven weeks ago. Sally and I didn't have much to say on the tube ride to the airport, or making our way through security. When we got into the terminal, I saw a sign and joked to Sally that it read "Breakfast Pizza" to which she responded, "I could eat." 

And so, the perfect end to our trip together was this: Sally eating a plain cheese pizza while I ate a plate of fish and chips with mushy peas. I couldn't have asked for a more amiable travel partner, nor a better counterpoint to my rather heavily sarcastic outlook.  As Sally finished her last European pizza, I turned to her and said, "Our plane is boarding in ten minutes. Now we have to run."

The French celebrate US Independence Day, right?

Arriving in Paris was the only time this trip that felt absolutely monumental. Paris is a big deal. I'd never been to Paris before. People were going to be rude to us. There was cheese. And wine. And the Eiffel Tower.  This probably sounds bizarre considering we'd just spent six weeks traveling to places we'd never been before, but Paris felt like significant. It was also our last new city/country, as we would return to London (we're practically natives there after the first go round).  Between these last few cities I had booked us flights on Vueling: oh the luxury! No more German train a-holes, no more confused bus drivers, just clear and concise plane rides.
 
We flew in to Charles De Gaulle, which was supposedly better than Ryan Air's flight arriving in Tille, France, a city nearly two hours away from Paris itself. CDG didn't feel so much closer, because we had to walk nearly three miles between terminals just to find the train to get to the terminal which could connect us to the train which took us into the city where we could take the metro to our Le Marais neighborhood and from there walk to our second AirBnB apartment. I go through that whole description to really convey to you how charming I looked, dripping with sweat (temps in Paris at 9:30PM were still above 88F), and dry heaving from running the last few blocks, when we arrived at the apartment to meet our host, and found the door code he'd given us wasn't working. We stood there at these 15 foot tall doors, probably carved and hung in the 18th century, staring at one another as twilight darkened into a deeper night, and I thought to myself, 'well, I have absolutely no idea what to do now,' while I'm sure Sally looked at me thinking, 'ten more minutes in that Scottish mobile phone store and this wouldn't be a problem you impatient idiot!' As we had no cell phone to call our host, we rather sheepishly hovered around the doors until a very kind French woman entered the building and we scampered in after her.

Up in the apartment, David was very genial and we chatted a bit, as tears of sweat course visibly down my visage, all of us pretending I was not the most unappealing character on the face of the earth. It was all I could do not to shout "Get out of here David! You have only one fan and I'm taking off my pants immediately!" Eventually he left and after a quick dinner around the corner, I was pants-less and contemplating why on earth there would be a down comforter on the bed. Sally was there too, much less sweaty and much more concerned about my immodesty.

Our apartment was très française and by française I mean tiny, but adorable. Unfortunately we did not have a map of Paris, so even though we woke up early and I had written down instructions for getting to the Paris Sandeman city tour, we ended up in deep in the 5th arrondissement before I bumbled us back to Place St. Michel, an hour late for the first tour, but right on time for the 11am! The tour was lovely as always. Our first stop was Notre Dame, of course, where we learned that during the French Revolution the citoyen were quick to tear down the stone figures carved above the entrance to the cathedral, which they assumed were statues of kings, so they beheaded them, piled them up in front of the church doors, and used them as a toilet. Vive la resistance! Errr, or maybe not. Because actually they were statues of saints, and even the most fervent citoyen knew that was probably a revolutionary misstep. Who doesn't love a good urinating-on-saint-statues story? How absolutely French!

 

We walked through the city seeing a small portion city's major hot spots: the Palais de Justice, Pont Neuf, Musee du Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries, and the Place de la Concorde. The heat of the day was unrelenting, and after three hours strolling around, I found myself drifting to sleep in a garden chair while the guide talked about the historical significance of the Place de la Concorde. So I can tell you nothing about that. After the tour, Sally wanted to see the "circle thing, with all the traffic" which most people refer to as Arc de Triomphe. From there we walked back to the Seine, and across to the Eiffel Tower, which was just spectacular to see, I mean you can't really anticipate how cool it is to see it in person. The tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair, and Eiffel himself had secured a permit to keep it standing for 20 years, so he actually lived in it. To make sure it wasn't torn down (which the city planned to do), Eiffel attached a powerful radio antenna to the top, which made the tower a utilitarian necessity in the era of telegraphy. I must have learned that whilst napping.

 

 

That evening we made our way to Montmarte for another walking tour. The hill used to be well outside the city of Paris, and is the infamous location of the decapitation of Saint Denis in the early 200s. It's infamous because after being decapitated, Saint Denis picked up his head and walked six miles before finally dying on a spot that would become a church in his honor. Can you imagine what a horror show it was to live in that time period? Not only do you have to eke out a terrible existence of despairing poverty under the iron fist of a vicious ruler, subjugated to his every whim, you're watching bloody zombies march through the countryside, head in hand. Don't even get me started on Jesus.  The more contemporary inhabitants of Montmarte were much less religious zealots and much more bon vivants of the Belle Epoque. We saw the apartment owned by Theo Van Gogh, who lived in Montmarte with his brother Vinnie for a number of the artist's prodigious years. We saw the cabaret where a young penniless charmer ate countless dinners and paid for them by offering the waitress a sketch drawn on his napkin. That is, until the owner served him, refused his napkin, and produced the previous napkin drawings and demanded payment in full. It was at that point that Pablo Picasso offered to give the owner an oil painting to cover all the bills, which worked! The cabaret itself is across the street from Montmarte's last vineyard, which makes atrocious wine. The tour finished at Sacre Coeur, which was gorgeous and glowing inside, and still very much a functioning parish. Sally and I wandered home after the tour, stopping along the way for multiple bottles of wine and a baguette. We sat on the couch in our oven of a flat that evening, buttering bread, pouring glasses of cold white wine, and listening to music on the iPad. Ideal.

 

The next morning we dawdled around the apartment, doing a good amount of tourist research due to my wine-addled brain having spurted out the fact that Jim Morrison lived in and was buried in Paris, much to the delight of Doors-loving 22 year old Sally Grace. I'd also found a highly rated hipster coffee shop that had bagels, so Sally prioritized our day accordingly: bagels, coffee, Jim's home. Boot Café was the five-seat coffee shop where we breakfast-ed/broke fast. While sipping our coffee, which was excellent, we read quietly and watched an American college student walk in with her mother and speak French to the presumably French barista who responded with, "I have no idea what you're saying, can you speak English?" They guffawed and tried again in French, and received a wide-eyed blank stare. Finally he was able to guess what they wanted (Cafe au Lait, I'm sure) and allowed them to pay. We spent the rest of the day walking excessively, past Jim's house and down to the Seine where we stumbled on an orchestra rehearsing al fresco, buying tins of loose tea at Mariage Fréres and Malongo, and watching a bagpiper lead dancing teenagers around Luxembourg Gardens. A musical day to say the least. Just before sunset Sally and I made our way to the Bateaux Parisiens dock for an hour-long river cruise. Rays of bright bronze sliced across Haussman's stately grey buildings along the river and Parisians enjoyed the quickly cooling evening by sitting on the river's edge with friends and picnics. We passed under 26 bridges of Paris and listened to the boat's guide tell us that Paris was the most romantic city in the world, which is lost entirely on Sally and I on this trip. Paris is a mega metropolis with museums and political buildings, a lot of bridges, and plenty of churches. But why is it romantic? Is it the huge iron phallus of a tower? Maybe I'm just not romantic enough to be sufficiently impressed.

 

 

 

On our last night in Paris we joined the masses sipping wine on the Seine, and on our last morning, I went to the Musee d'Orsay which absolutely impressed me. My god, I literally cannot imagine what people are paying €15 to see in the Louvre when the most incredible masterpieces in the world are collected in this museum. Truly, I wandered from room to room slack-jawed at the Maurin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bernard, Signac, Seurat, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Renoir, Monet, Degas, Bouguereau, Cassatt, Manet, Pissarro, Tissot and so many others! I took so many photos of paintings my camera shut down out of nerd shame. But here are some of them!

 

 

I made it back to the apartment by 1pm, Sally and I said adieu to France and boarded a Eurostar back to St. Pancras International, London.

Welcome home to Sevilla

This might be a very short post because what is there to say about Sevilla? Photos are better:

 

Doesn't that look wonderful? Okay well I've come up with a few things to say. From autumn 2002 to May 17, 2003 I lived in Sevilla, studying culture, language, and international business. I lived with a "Spanish Family" which pretty exclusively means a divorced and/or retired Spanish woman who needs extra income, so she lets rooms. But that's fine, my Señora was fine, and her home was a backdrop to just the most delightful year of my life. I met people with whom I bonded instantly, and count as friends to this day.  I (we) traveled extensively through Spain, though to be fair, once one lives in Andalucía, the idea of going elsewhere is absurd. 

Beaches? Go to Cádiz. 

Alcohol? Welcome to Jerez de la Frontera, have some sherry. 

Delicious seafood? Málaga can get it. 

Home of flamenco? La Triana in Sevilla. 

Love to ski? Head for Granada. 

Site of the world's first bull-fighting ring? Grab a seat in Ronda. 

Most amazing mosque you'll ever see? In Córdoba, obvs. 

Spookiest religious festival? Semana Santa in Sevilla hands down. 

Oldest city in all of Europe? Cádiz again. 

Only place in the world you can walk into the UK? La Línea de la Concepción (to Gibraltar). 

Ice cream so good it makes Italian gelato look like garbage? Rayas in Sevilla.  

Boom. You're welcome world.

Sally and I got to Sevilla at the tail end of June, when Venus and Jupiter in conjunction lit up the night sky after the sun finally set around 10pm. That's also when we sat for tapas and tinto verano at night, and marveled at parents walking their toddlers through the streets until 1am. The first night we arrived around 10pm and threw our bags down and ran out into the streets. Sally had been listening to me and a few other travelers wax romantic about Sevilla, so she was nearly as giddy about seeing it as I was. We wandered through the maze of Santa Cruz, randomly turning right and left and being totally alone but never creeped out (like the time the guy followed us in Berlin). Locals say that even a map won't help you through Santa Cruz, and that everyone gets lost, so I was pretty chuffed to always get us where we needed to go. 

It's so beautiful!

Rather surprisingly, Sandeman doesn't offer city tours here, but luckily for us, our amazing, fantastic, delightful, and very last hostel of the trip, La Banda Rooftop Hostel (with view of La Giralda) works with a tour company that does a few different tours, the first of which we did the afternoon of our first day in town. Before that we spent the morning in the Alcázar and then the Catedral de Sevilla, climbing La Giralda for a view of the city and marveling at the completely unique design aesthetic for which the city is famous. But let's get to it: the tour.  You've gotten a fair bit of European history from my posts so far, most notably of Barcelona, so I'll keep it as brief as the 2,000 years of city history allows.

Phoenicians were probably the first settlers of the area, though mythologically speaking, Hercules is the city's founder. The Romans developed the area extensively around 45 BC, and in fact the hills of Sevilla (now the town Italica) was the birthplace of two important Roman emperors: Trajan and Hadrian. Hadrian rather famously directed construction of a rather famous defensive wall...in 122 AD in Britannia. And preceding Hadrian, Trajan was famous for expanding the Roman empire as large as it would ever get in only 21 years (that's why they needed a wall later). When the Roman empire fell, the area was overtaken a number of times throughout the fifth and sixth centuries, finally by the Visigoths whose capital was Toledo at the time, but saw the utility of a walled city on the Guadalquivir river. They ruled in Sevilla for a few hundred years before the Moors (Berbers from North Africa) conquered the region (and up to the Pyrenees!) in the eighth century. 

I didn't realize that Berbers were not necessarily Muslim, and that it was the Arab conquering of North Africa at the same time the Berbers were conquering Andalucía that ultimately brought Islam to Spain. A series of Caliphates presided over the province until the mid-1200s when Ferdinand III began reconquering the region for the Catholic cause, and while Sevilla fell under Ferdinand, Granada remained an Islamic seat of power in Spain until 1492. We all know what happened in 1492. 

What a tool.

Did you know it was basically Columbus's fault the Muslims and Jews were pushed out of Spain? Because when he came to Queen Isabella for the first time in 1485, she didn't have the funds to send him on his absurd adventure, but she was embarking on a religious reconquering of a very wealthy area of Spain. So instead of simply forcing conversions and having tests of faith and charging outrageous tax rates to any non-Christians, Isabella decided it would simply be easier to own all of the heathens property. "Go home," she said, to families who had lived in Spain for nearly 800 years. If they couldn't, well, they were murdered. Mama's got to make that paper. Seven years later, her coffers fat with the riches stolen from persecuted Muslims and Jews, she waved Columbus on his way. Seriously, can you believe we celebrate this douchebag in the US?!

Okay well that is as far as I'm going with the history lesson. The more important detail is that our tour guide Medi was hysterical and insane. When our large group assembled in Plaza Nueva at 5pm we had no idea what we were in for. With Medi's constant snapping fingers and running frantically around, we looked at each other cynically; could we really stand it all for 2.5 hours? But his pushing and pulling, specifically moving us to enact historic scenes for one another, and as visual aids for his scandalous stories, really made history come alive in a delightful way! 

Members of the tour literally chasing after our guide

We did stick with him...for more like 3.5 hours. We learned about the flags of Spain, Andalucía, and Sevilla, about the varied architectural styles that make up the Catedral and its Islamic foundation that can still be seen in La Giralda (a minaret) and the Patio de los Naranjos (the cleansing area for Muslims). We learned that perhaps it is Christopher Columbus in the fanciful tomb inside the cathedral, or at least one of his relatives. We learned that the beautiful Arabic designs in and around Sevilla are not from the Islamic period at all, but a Christian reinterpretation called Mudéjar. 

 

We learned about the Roman architectural elements that keep the streets of the Santa Cruz neighborhood 5-7 degrees cooler than the large modern boulevards, as well as the expulsion of the Jews, owed in some part to Sevilla's Sosana (played by Sally), a Jewish temptress who betrayed her family to a Christian lover, watched as they were all slaughtered, became a nun for a while, then realized she wanted to get married for real, and ultimately when she died, asked that her traitorous head be hung from the window of her family's house in Santa Cruz.

Where Sosana's head may have hung for 120 years

Whoops, got more history in there. Okay, tour over. We found a place with cheap tinto verano and yummy tapas, and enjoyed the late-night sunset before it dawned on me that we were right in my old neighborhood. So I took Sally along Avenida Eduardo Dato to see if we could find the big Sanyo sign atop my Nervión neighborhood apartment building. The sign had been replaced, and it was quite dark when we got there, but it was the old complex, and I reminisced aloud as we strolled.

The next morning we doubled down on Medi and took another of his epic walking tours, this one covering a totally different facet of Sevilla. I promise I won't bore you. More photos:

 

 

After the tour we were starving, so we took Medi's lunch suggestion and had a great cheap meal at Taberna Coloniales, followed by more delicious helado from Rayas. We took an afternoon breather back at La Banda before we headed out to see a show at the Museo de Baile Flamenco. It is considered a living museum, because while there are both permanent and rotating exhibits, the museum also teaches workshops of dance and music, and shows two nightly performances that change depending on the dancers and guitarists performing. The show we saw consisted of an opening dance, a guitar solo, a female solo dance to very sad, dramatic music, a vocalist solo, a male solo dance to very joyful music, and a big finale! Sally noted that the male performance seemed like a hybrid of Irish river dancing and tap dancing and wanted to start taking lessons. The hour-long performance was beautiful, but the dancing was too fast for my camera. Here's a shot of the dancers, singers, and guitarist taking a bow:

 After that I dragged Sally to La Carbonería, my local haunt a million years ago. It was shockingly empty, but we bought a pitcher of sangria and sat down to watch a smaller scale flamenco performance, for free! Around 11:30pm we realized our sangria intake exceeded our food intake and dashed into the streets in search of nourishment. Sally found homemade potato chips and I found a chicken kebab, so we wound our way back to the hostel for a nightcap on the roof. 

I feel as if I've not conveyed our experience in Sevilla to you, but maybe it's as easy as this: Sally and I walked and walked, ogling a beautiful city under the bright sun and midday heat, cooling off with ice cream and fizzy drinks and generally celebrating life. Our last day in Sevilla was lovely and slow, enjoying the morning at the hostel, walking out to the Plaza de España, meandering through Parque Maria Luisa, drinking coffee, eating lunch, and mentally preparing for a new country. 

 

Our next stop, France. 

But first, Sally and I reenacted one of the last photos I took the last time I was in Sevilla:

 

YES.