Home Again Home Again or: More photo updates...

Hi everyone,
I know you will excuse me for not expounding all my wonderful tales of travel in far off lands as I am still jet lagged, overwhelmed and settling in. Suffice to say, there are ample photos to peruse, so do so at your leisure and know that I got home safely and am free for tea most days of the week! A proper update, I know it has been ages, is due shortly.

Photos:
Krakow, Poland: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=117038&l=84b29&id=596070001

Budapest, Hungary: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=117045&l=5908e&id=596070001

Vienna, Austria: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=117052&l=465cc&id=596070001

Prague, Czech Republic: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127949&l=3518b&id=596070001

Amsterdam, the Netherlands: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127950&l=c45f0&id=596070001

Berlin, Germany: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127951&l=01067&id=596070001

Istanbul, Turkey: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127953&l=c1803&id=596070001

Athens, Greece: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127962&l=b6fff&id=596070001

Crete and Santorini, Greece: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127965&l=321b4&id=596070001

London and coming home:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127969&l=28484&id=596070001

That's all for now folks! Thanks for reading all year long!

Paris or Good Morning Heartache...

Well, it’s been an expensive and very warm weekend here in Paris. I hate to disappoint any of you, who thought that it might overtake London’s spot as my favourite European city so far, but there’s definitely something to be said for seeing the wonders of Paris close up and personal with pretty tight pocketbook but let me tell you what I’ve been up to…

Friday, after a 5am wake up and finally arriving at the hotel by about noon, I went to sleep and didn’t awake until sometime a lot later at which point I ventured out for kebab and came back and watched French dubbed American TV shows and caught most of the jokes (I think).

Saturday, I got an early start and headed to Versailles. What an ordeal, but worthwhile of course. After lines for the museum pass and after budging (the benefits of being a one person traveler, no one minds much when you budge) and cutting a few hours off my wait time, I made the journey in. Listen to this doozie, 25Euro to see the Palace and the Gardens. I bought the four day museum pass for 45E and in two days it has already paid itself off and then a bit. I stayed until about 5pm at Versailles, walked around the Estate (Marie Antoinette’s portion was worth the 25Euro alone and her house wasn’t even open yet). Because I wasn’t feeling TOO beat on the way back I thought, Why not swing by the Eiffel Tower? I was sure the lines couldn’t be that back, here on the May 1^st Labour Day long weekend… Idiot. However, by the time I was in the line, it wasn’t worth getting back out. There’s another few hours in the waiting line and they cram us up to the 2^nd floor as the top was closed temporarily for a wedding (probably the worst place for a wedding, so any of you planning it, don’t! It’s a bitch for the guests!!). Once we got up there the views were incredible! They don’t lie! I waited another half hour in line to make it up to the very top and then some more to get down. The highlight of the trip down was that the elevator man was play sudoku and I took a photo. He probably wasn’t too impressed but I thought, with a job like that, there must be some way to pass the time. By the time I got down they had turned on the lights and it truly was as beautiful as all the movies, snowglobes, TV shows, etc.

Sunday, I got another early start (Breakfast: Tea and two crepes= 8 Euro) and made my way first to the Sacre-Coeur that everyone told me was a must see. Well, it was. It was probably my favourite site so far. I went inside and managed to stay for mass (so no entry fee required, SWEET!). Then I headed to the Dali museum which is probably the best one I’ve seen so far or on-par with his works in the Guggenheim in Bilbao. This was a collection of paintings, sketches, sculptures and furniture (my favourite) that I have not seen anywhere else. Now I feel I am a bit of a Dali snob and can poopoo the Reina Sofia’s collection in Madrid (and to think he was a Spaniard, tisk tisk!). I walked down to the Moulin Rouge and then I headed down to Notre Dame which was not as great as the Sacre-Coeur but it had to be done. Again, the line ups were nuts and some girl begging for money kicked me as I walked by and I just about kicked her back but then figured why bother? I got some lunch and sat on the ramparts of the Seine and got some rays. I thought of you all and wondered how you were spending your Sundays, but I figured that mine was one of the best ways to pass a sunny afternoon. Lastly, after Notre Dame, I headed to the Orsay Museum whose collection of Van Gogh, Monet and Cezanne (among others) is excellent as well as some of the sculptures. My one complaint (my God I sound like a snob) is free museum Sunday because everyone and their dog are in there taking videos and talking really loudly and generally acting uncultured. I don’t want to hear about your menopause symptoms or how you’re going to get hairplugs while I’m looking at some of the greats, or even some of the mediocres. Charge admission, taser people when they act out, I don’t care but rein in the free Sunday phenomena (I had already paid for my ticket for my pass so I may have felt differently if I had not had to pay, but that is beside the point).

Monday, this is the day for the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees before I head back to Seville that evening. Worth mentioning was the excellent exhibit on the ancient city of Babylon at the Louvre, well worth the 10Euro entrance fee on top of the museum entrance fee.

It’s been a whirlwind but I guess that’s Par-is, non?

Photo links:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111493&l=310d4&id=596070001

May 17-June 25 Travel Plan...

Here it is, what you've all been waiting for...
May 17-June 25 Travel Plan. This is where I'll be, so if you're in the neighbourhood, feel free to meet me anywhere you'd like...

May 17: Leave Sevilla

May 17-20: London

May 20-22: Krakow

May 23-25: Budapest

May 25-27: Vienna

May 28-31: Prague

June1-4: Amsterdam

June 4-6: Berlin:

June 7-12: Istanbul

June 13-16: Athens

June 17-19: Crete

June 20-22: Santorini

June 23-25: London

June 25: Home to Vernon

I'm off to Paris this weekend and then it's the last week of classes and then exams start and then, holy cow, I'm finished...

Sort of scary, sort of exciting... Leaning more towards exciting!

Brief update...

Wow! I cannot believe how quickly the time has flown by here! Many of you are still in the brunt of winter back home with extra-late snowfalls that you hardly deserve and I'm sure are now taking personally...

Well, Sevilla is absolutely beautiful. Knock on wood that the rainy period that monsooned on and off during March and early April for both Semana Santa and Feria has stopped and the 30 degree days are here to stay (though I don't care much for 30 degree nights). Here is a list of my latest travels, since my last blog entry (there's quite a few) as well as a list of links to photos. I'm sorry I haven't been more in touch so that you weren't bombarded with photos to look at. Oh well, que sera sera.

Sintra, Portugal (March 11-14 with Clay, Tine and Annie):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=98959&l=a9e43&id=596070001

Lisbon, Portugal (March 11-14):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=98955&l=c9f66&id=596070001

Semana Santa (here in Sevilla, March 17-21, when Susan Horsewood Lee came to visit):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=98962&l=3f36d&id=596070001

Canary Islands (Gran Canaria, April 4-9, with Clay, Mariel, Hadya, Dana and Erin):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104312&l=31357&id=596070001

Feria (April Fair here in Seville, April 11-17, when Auntie Susan from England visited me):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=105915&l=df38e&id=596070001

San Sebastian and Bilbao (April 17-20, trip away for a weekend):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=107898&l=00967&id=596070001

Next stop: Paris May 2-5 and then its time to crack down for final exams before my big Eurotrip!

I hope you are all doing well and check out the photos when you get a chance!
Lots of love,
Lauren

Just another dictator...

I’m really getting sick of people saying that to me, “Oh that guy Franco? Wasn’t he just another dictator?” This is typical. This is a typical response of someone from a liberal democracy who has the right to own the comfy chair they’re sitting in, reading a paper not owned and controlled by the government, shaking their head at the uncivilized of this world who just can’t seem to stop killing one another. Why can’t they get it right, we ask. Maybe it’s us who can’t get it right.

After having visited the Benedictine Abbey of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen, just outside of Madrid, I feel I’ve come the closest I ever will to knowing what it feels like to be oppressed under ‘just another dictator’.

The Abbey boasts the tallest memorial cross in the world, 152.4 metres of granite at whose base rest giant, black, ominous angels who will not let the Spanish people forget. In 1960, Pole John XXIII declared the underground crypt a basilica. The dimensions of the underground basilica, as excavated, are larger than those of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. A long vaulted crypt was tunnelled out of solid granite by 12,000 political prisoners (so the story goes) working without pay, who were given the opportunity to “redeem” themselves and given two days of their sentence for each day of labour. During the 18 years it took to build, 14 people died in its construction. It pierces the mountain to the massive transept, which lies exactly below the cross.

The valley that contains the monument, preserved as a national park, beneath which lie the remains of 40,000, whose names are accounted for in the monument's register.

Although the valley contains Nationalist and Republican graves – several former Republicans' bodies were moved there from temporary graves at the end of the war – the tone of the monument is distinctly Nationalist and anti-Communist, containing the inscription "¡Caídos por Dios y por España!" ("Fallen for God and Spain"), that reflects the close ties of Franco's Nationalist regime to the Roman Catholic Church.

Additionally, Franco's timing of his announcement of the decision to create the monument left no doubts: on 1 April 1940, the day of the victory parade to celebrate the first anniversary of his triumph over the Republic, Franco announced his personal decision to raise a splendid monument to those who had fallen in his cause.

Needless to say, I don’t want to overdramatize it but, this place felt like where you and the devil row in a boat that you know is taking your soul to hell. The black marble is shiny like water and the lone cruzifix deep in the basilica is very eerie. The fresh flowers on Franco’s tomb made me shudder. No one speaks and it is very cold.

A place like this makes it pretty hard to brush him, or any of them for that matter, off as ‘just another dictator’. Just do me a favour and don’t utter that phrase around the people who still remember what it was like not to be able to leave their country or get divorced or have an abortion or speak their native language or deny their heritage for fear of persecution for longer than I’ve been alive. Show a little respect, please.

Photo links...

Here are the latest photo links. I've been a bit overwhelmed and have abandoned the blog a little so here's all the visual assault you've been missing!

Cadiz Carnival:
http://ucalgary.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87790&l=53220&id=596070001

My Birthday Celebrations in both Norwich and Sevilla:
http://ucalgary.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87796&l=d7ca5&id=596070001

Sevilla:
http://ucalgary.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80649&l=99672&id=596070001

Madrid:
http://ucalgary.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80651&l=4201e&id=596070001

Athens:
http://ucalgary.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80652&l=a0f55&id=596070001

The Cadiz Carnival and Other Tales...

What can be said about Cadiz Carnival? Only that we’ve heard about it all year but never had any idea what we were in for. Yes we heard that it was a party all night long and that it was a complete “locura” (trans.: Craziness, like shave-your-head-Britney-Spears-style-crazy) but I don’t think we really quite got it…

So Saturday night we get on the 8pm train. We got to the station relatively early so we didn’t think there would be THAT many people on the train. Needless to say, when we got there, there was only sitting room on the ground left but everyone was in costume and was ready for a good time.

Now would be a good time to mention what our motley crew comprised. Rachel, whose costume came mostly from her host dad’s Guardia Sevilla uniform (when I say mostly I mean everything except for an enormous pair of fake tits that were a source of laughs all evening) was the perfect foil for my convict attire. We were joined by Superman, a boat captain, a Barbie, an Indian, a Priest, a cat, Zorro and a few others.

Back to the train… What should have been foreshadowing enough was that the only available seats on the train for us, since it had stopped several times before our station, was next to a guy dressed as a giant green marijuana leaf, another one dressed as a box of rolling papers and the girlfriend of one of them dressed as a Zippo lighter. Though we did not partake in that particular offer, this is the sort of thing we were up against in the mean streets of Cadiz.

So God help you if you need the toilets, they are on a client-only basis which means if you’re not a client you must use the street/parking lot/whatever you can find… We made it until 8am, at which point Burger King had seen us a few times; we’d eaten several orders of Churros and Chocolate and used the ‘street toilets’ more times that can be counted. We dragged ourselves back to the train station where while I slept I almost got thrown up on by a drunk/motion-sick Spaniard who made it just past my seat and on to the people behind me.

When we got back, I tried my luck and biked back to my house from the station. Once there it was two poached eggs and toast down the hatch and the eternal sleep until 6pm where I got up to pee, shower and then went back to bed.

That, my friends, is the Cadiz Carnival. The one time of the year where, so I’m told, social graces don’t exist and everyone dresses so that the members of the upper echelons can loiter in a drunken state with the lowlife riffraff and pee on the streets and no one can or would care to tell the difference.

I should also say that the Spanish get away with many costumes that just would not be acceptable in Canada due to our staunch standards of political correctness. For instance, imagine wandering the streets with the likes of Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, etc. complete with all the trimmings of the stereotypes accompanying the depictions of their various ethnic backgrounds (head cloths, hooka pipes, turbans, mustaches, etc.). Seeing the Pope, Osama and a variety of men-dressed-as-women-dressed-as-men pound back beers together, now that’s a different version of world peace altogether.

This weekend I also went to Seville’s neighbouring town of Italica to see the ancient Roman amphitheatre, which is very well preserved, as well as to Marchena to see the San Luis church and monastery with my old prof, Rafa. Both outings were lovely and much more low key than the monster that was CADIZ CARNIVAL! But all's fair in the name of an authentic cultural experience...

Up next... what led to Javier, the Stripper Roommate, moving out... Thank God.