Sav´s travels

...time´s up!

Have had a great last 2 days in the little town of Barcelona...I think the best thing is that with just wandering around you are absolutely going to run into the most incredible things in Barcelona which is what happened to Shiloh and myself, and today, just me...yesterday, we went for a walk and came upon the Park Guell...a utopian development by Gaudi built near the beginning of the 20th century...you can visit it on the Internet and although I had heard of it before, we just sort of happened upon it on a day when we had no real plans...I wish it was something that I could have seen when I was 12...but still amazing at 28...the whole area that it is in, sort of makes you feel like Oliver Twist...like you will always only look in on the grandeur...but I was very okay with this too...we wandered around some trendy, but side streets, Shiloh had some wine and we just walked and walked where we came upon another amazing Gaudi creation, El Pedrera, an apartment block...we also went and saw a movie...the beginning was Vietnamese with Spanish subtitles...now that was a challenge! After this went home for another movie with our host and stayed up till 4 in the morning laughing at the disaster on the TV screen...

Today, got up muy late, had a lunch of dress-it-yourself falafel and then walked down to the water for the first time. It was about 15 or 16 degrees we figured, with sun and not a cloud in the sky...of course, we forgot our cameras, so have no proof for our Canadian friends.. After this, Shiloh and I went our separate ways and I spent a few hours walking along the beach after being enticed by the sound of crashing waves from some of the side-streest I was on...I watched the surfers make a go of it for awhile, and got kicked off some "dangerous" rocks by the police...which was a shame because it was the point that you could sit out on almost over top of the water and feel the splash of the waves...oh well...after this, just continued to wander and eventually made my way to the Las Ramblas where I met some Calgarians ( I know that neutral Canadian accent anywhere) and a Moraccan and we shared a pitcher of Sangria...perfect way to end a warm, sunny day...

A Gaudi link to some images...I think that he is the perfect meld of a child´s imagination that most of us lose and the math side that I was always missing...

http://images.google.es/images?hl=es&q=Gaudi&sa=N&tab=wi

Adios everyone...

Well, after two days of being the sickest I think I have been in years with the flu, I feel like a million dollars today and am happy to be alive again! This means my sister and I are taking on Barcelona today, me with a renewed energy.

We´re staying in Barcelona until about the 17th and then heading down to my favorite city, Granada, for some Christmas celebrations with family. My sister´s friend is flying into Barcelona on the 11th and then my friend will be here on the 14th...Alex just left and it will be non-stop from here! When I was in Orgiva, we had put out an email to friends saying that, wow, you should come to Spain and see all this, and amazingly we had 4 friends take it up! So it will be hectic but it´s always fun to see things through fresh eyes...also, I have to admit, that while Alex knows more Spanish than either of us, I am looking forward to testing my use of the language as a "translator" with our friends coming that don´t speak it all...kind of like where we were 2 months ago!

Nick, Alex´s cousin has been great...he has let us stay at his apartment longer than planned and this has taken mucho stress off my shoulders as far as $$ is concerned! He has introduced us to some great people and we´ve been invited to a party at a co-op artists gallery on the 16th...I guess anyone who has travelled knows that these sorts of invites are gems as it allows you to hang out with people in their regular environments giving you a much stronger flavor of a culture and people than just the (still amazing) tourist stops...we have had a lot of opportunities like this on our trip and I feel extremely lucky for it!

Today, I think we´re going to try to find some more Gaudi and gawk at it from the street...how amazing it is to be able to touch something that was created by someone like him...this is how I felt at the Picasso museum too...I have taken a number of art history courses, but didn´t realize how much more impacting it is to see the works up close...it´s like live music versus recorded...it´s alive when you´re right there! Also, as we haven´t quite made it to the water yet, I think it might be a nice day to head down to the beach for a juice (no wine...still a bit fragile!)...also a good day to check out the very enticing markets downtown...uh oh....

I am at the point in my travels where I am torn about what my future plans are...I know it´s worked out the best so far to take things as they come, but right now, it´s not as simple as that because of finances...I either make an honest go of it here so that I can stay longer, or I go home and work...but I had a dream that I left and had returned home and I think I must have had my face in my pillow because it felf so suffocating...I take it, that as much as I miss home, I´m not quite ready to return yet...

I finally got batteries for my digital recorder, which i haven´t used for about 3 weeks or so...I put them in and pressed play yesterday and am so happy that I was using it so much at the beginning of my trip...talk about baby steps! We were recording our sister Pam saying "hasta luego" so that we could say it the way Andalucians do!! I also captured my friend Ali, from Granada, talking about some of his work with the International Red Cross at 3 in the morning, which I am so glad for, because that entire night stands out to me as one of those "gems" we´ve had here. Also recorded was some amazing flamenco I captured in an alleyway by an old man and a younger man playing together, some crazy bird singing in a Plaza and about 18 other files I have yet to listen to...might make a good soundtrack to slides at home!

Today, just for fun, I am going to look for work as an English teacher (surprise!) but also the possibility of working with artists´ as a model which I have done a lot of at home...it´s a well-known fact that finding work in Spain is not easy for a foreigner but it´s no excuse for not trying I guess...

So this is enough rambling for today...at this point, I feel like, if anyone is reading and had questions about travelling in Spain, or some of the places we have been to, that I could answer some related questions...so feel free to ask!

Hasta luego,
Savannah

Thanks very much Peter..I´ll take a look at that thread you recommended and I am definitely going to try out your advice for framing the shot and waiting...I´m sure it wouldn´t take long to get something great!

Yes, Barcelona has been wonderful...a very exciting mixture of cultures...compared with Sevilla, Malaga and Granada, it has had the tendency to make one feel like they are in a city that could be in Spain or in another country altogether...but it also has the tendency to make one feel very at home because of this...

Take care!

Savannah

Hola everyone,

I am sitting in the best/worst Internet cafe in Barcelona I think...I don´t know the name of it, but I will find out and recommend it anyway...it´s 50 centimos for a half hour which is pretty cheap for this city as far as I can tell, but in a dungenous basement with no air circulation and smoking a la the 70´s in N.American Dairy Queen´s...so I decided that even though I wrote yesterday, it´s too good of an op. to not take up at 50 cents.

First of all, I am going to put out there to anyone reading this that might have some advice for me....I would like to get more random shots of people that I see all around me...I find that I am just not brave enough to either ask, or to photograph them outright without their permission... the other night in Sevilla, we made asses of ourselves, trying to photograph this woman sitting at a table two down from us...we would focus my Minolta SLR at the very non-exciting balcony above her head and then at the last minute bring the camera down and try to get her without her noticing...she was either very flattered or very unobservant as we had to take about 3 pictures using our "method"...how do any travellers out there get pictures of the people that make up the landscape without offending or ruining the spontanaiety that makes those pics so great to begin with??

I feel like I´ve been in Barcelona for a week instead of just under 2 days...yesterday we got in and with Alex´s cousin we headed down to Las Ramblas and went to a great restaurant that serves Galician food...we walked and walked and then gave into siesta to come back to the excellent apartment we have for a couple of days to sleep off the memories of the train ride...I can´t get over how we lucked out with this place to stay...we were told that it would be uncomfortable and I had visions of 5 pot-smoking guys walking over us sleeping on floors in a tiny room and 1 unusable washroom...this apartment is luxury though!..I have counted 5 bedrooms so far and a lot of unmarked, closed doors unexplored...huge kitchen and the best thing of all is the front enclosed sun terrace that we get as our room that spans about 24 ft across with a view of the Mediterranean, a partial view of Gaudi´s Sagrada Familia and a super deluxe 60´s couch to sleep on...today all of us ventured out in search of the ultimate "tourist" day in Barcelona...I realize our ambition when 7 hours later we had managed to see "only" the Sagrada Familia which is beyond amazing in person and the Museu Picasso...I will write a little more on these as it was very worth it to spend almost 3 hours in each...we had originally planned on doing a bus tour and seeing the Museum of Contemporary Arts, but these places deserve more attention than just visiting for the sake of visiting I think...

We will do our best to tackle more of it tommorrow before our friend leaves to head back to Canada but for now, it will be a relaxing night writing, reading and just enjoying being off our feet!

Must run, but would like to elaborate a little on the experience of being in the Sagrada Familia...here is a link for anyone who would like to see some of his amazing fantasy-like architecture...enjoy!

Adios,

Savannah