I first flew from Geneva to Barcelona on a Friday night, just checking into the hostel (in a street full of prostitutes), having dinner (in a bar on the street full of prostitutes), and talking with a strange drunk old man from Romania. The next day, I woke up early to start my sightseeing, and I knew I had to hurry because well, people would think that I'm crazy to do all of Barcelona in 2 days. At first, I headed towards the...of course, La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's still unfinished masterpiece of a church with 18 soaring towers (like 6 of them are done so far?). It's apparently set to finish by 2050.
Other points of interest on the first day were La Rambla, the famous street with crazy street performers, tiny little shops selling everything, and of course, pickpocketers. I also went to 2 of Gaudi's apartment buildings, La Pedrera and Casa Batllo.
At night, my whole dorm room and I (8 of us) joined the hostel pub crawl without paying, which turned out to be a great way to get a glimpse of Barcelona's supposedly bumping nightlife. This may have been the first time in which everybody in a dorm room went out together and became friends. Fantastic! But I also didin't want to go out for too long because I knew that the next day was when I was going to see the last bit of Barcelona and take the train to Madrid to see my girlfriend!
Buuuuuuut, before that I need to give a shout out to the Free Tour of Barcelona for making this city so wonderful to me. We went through the tiny streets around La Rambla, where history and interesting facts were waiting around every corner. I don't want to ruin anything, but here's one great story: In the picture underneath is the art school where young Picasso used to attend, but also true was that he used to frequent the brothel that was just across the street. Now, fast forward a few years in Paris when he drew his first cubism painting - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. From the title, it sounds like this is a painting of women from the French city of Avignon. However, as the tour guide told us, and as you can see in the picture, the street on which the art school and brothel was located, was called Carrer D'Avinyo. And not surprisingly, the original title for the painting was The Brothel of Avignon. Bizarre.
After the fantastic tour, I headed over to the train station to take a nice long ride to Madrid, and believe me, the anticipation was killing me. By this point, I hadn't seen Caro for about 3 weeks so it was getting rough to say the least. If Barcelona was the city of design, then Madrid was the city of grandiosity. Everything just seemed big and grand. The street of Gran Via and adjacent roads (seemed like this city only had roads as opposed to little street and alleyways of other Spanish cities) contained huge government buildings and intimidating statue fountains.
Caro and I also visited the city of Toledo, a few km out of the city. What makes this city particularly interesting is the mixture of Roman, Visigoth, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian cultures and architecture (although much of the city has been overtaken by McDonalds, H&M, and souvenir shops by now). It is also a city famous for sword making as well as being home for many famous Spanish artists like El Greco.
At night, I followed Caro like a puppy being shown off to her family and girl friends most of the time. But of course, I did my part, and I think I held my own. They were all great people, and that's exactly what made Madrid special for me. I may have enjoyed the city of Barcelona or Granada more than Madrid, but streets and history don't make a city come alive, the people do.
The next stop on my itinerary was the fabled Granada and its La Alhambra! The last Muslim city in Spain to be conquered as well as the Muslim capital for hundreds of years, this Andalucian city has everything a city needs - history, a UNESCO heritage site, a diverse student population, a great nightlife, and of course, free food! Yep, if you buy a drink in Granada, you get free tapas, and some student bars give out heaps of food for every drink so you come out of the bar drunk and full. In Granada, I stayed with my Lausanne roommate, who is from Granada, and his girlfriend. Although I didn't get to enjoy the nightlife as much, I wholly enjoyed La Alhambra, the Muslim fortress from the 11th century. The details on every wall were absolutely breathtaking.
And although I understand that this was a very touristy thing to do, I went to a Flamenco show (Caro insisted that Flamenco is something that just spontaneously happens at a bar). And trust me, it was worth every penny. I am obviously not sure, but I have a feeling that these professional Flamenco dancers put on a show with more skill than anything that's spontaneous. And here's a reason why people absolutely ADORE Japanese tourists. There was a Flamenco clapper seller going around the room selling them for 3 euros each. Some people buy one, maybe two, most of us, none. And obviously the old Japanese couple buys 20 pairs. I guess we like to receive nothing better than Flamenco clappers in Japan.
My last stop in Spain was Cordoba, another Andalucian city, and also where my friend, Dan, from University was living. I made sure to go to Cordoba on a weekend because I desperately wanted to go out with Dan. Like Granada, Cordoba is a city drenched with sunlight, streets lined with *fake* orange trees, and THE one historic site in Mezquita, a gigantic Muslim mosque from the 8th century with a gigantic cathedral build in the middle of it (which I think makes the Mezquita that much more interesting).
As intended, I enjoyed the bar scene of Cordoba, as well as the day drinking on the restaurant patios - a stark difference from Switzerland in January. Dan's friends/cousin joined us the next day for a wonderful time in the sun.
Now, the originial plan was to take another 8 days off and cross over to Morocco. I had already bought the ticket from Marrakesh to Geneva, but when I was in Granada, I started pondering. If I use 2 holiday weeks back to back, then I will only get 16 days off as opposed to 2 nine day holidays (5 days + 2 weekends on both ends). I had really wanted to see Morocco, but I thought it would be much better spent in Greece and Turkey for example (which I already bought tickets for in late May) or 9 days in Italy (which I already have tickets for as well). .....And I missed my girlfriend :)
Oh yeah, and my research is going very well too.
Soon, I'll update on my trip to Paris, Koln Karneval, and Dublin St. Patty's. Oh and skiing every other weekend. Jealous yet?
- Ryoji
