Friday, October 28, 2005

View of the Alhambra from hostel in Granada.

Inside Alhambra, hostel somewhere in the background no doubt.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Because I have been slack, and I am still slack, here are a few hasty photos.
This is a tapas bar in Seville. You order at the bar and they take the piece of chalk which is floating in the beer run off and write your bill on the bar in front of you, adding to it when you order more stuff. When you pay they rub it off with a dirty rag.

This was on our mega touristy night in Seville. We saw Flamenco (pictured below) and ate paella and drank sangria, quite an achievement, and only set us back about a million euros.

Mesquita in Cordoba. The catholics liked taking over moorish (muslim churches/palaces)buildings and wacking christ all over the shop.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Stumbled on some kind of Catholic procession tonight just as I was heading in here to finish of the emailing. Although I am scarily incompetant with the point and shoot camera I managed one where you can actually see something. There were about 20 people under this and they kept on stopping for little rests so it must have weighed a ton.

Another hilarious anecdote I forgot to relate before due to extreme grumpiness was my little overnight bus trip between Madrid and Seville. It took about 6 hours and they stopped in the middle of nowhere for a break. The driver said something fast in Spanish in which I recognised 15 minuntos. So I got off to use the bañas. On returning to carpark I saw my bus pulling away. I thought the driver was just moving it around or something, but then he pulled out of the parking lot and drove off. At this stage I was panicking a little so I ran after the bus (containing all my worldly possessions) waving my arms wildly. Yes it sounds hilarious now, but at four in the morning in some backwaters of Spain it wasn´t quite so grin worthy. Walking back deciding what the hell I would do now I ran into another woman I recognised from the bus. She also wasn´t very happy, although luckily for her, her friend was on the bus and texted her a little while later to say they had just gone to get petrol and were returning shortly. At least I was a littel warmer from all that running. Bastards.
We had one nice day in Salamanca, this was taken from the Roman bridge facing the town.

And this is a picture of my hostel in Toledo, yes the castle. Life is hard sometimes. Actually, it was a bit of a hike from the city so it wasn´t as convenient as it it could have been, but it was pretty.

Am in Seville at the moment, staying at a shitty hostel in the middle of whoop, whoop. Am planning on researching some other places today after I get my arse to the Cathedral. Am also trying to read Confessions of an English Opium Eater which I can only continue reading in the hope he meets a nasty end (I know he doesn´t, but maybe there is at least some pain involved?). I tried reading it when I first got to Berlin, but it reminded me too much of the person who gave it to me so I stopped. It still reminds me of them, all the parts I dearly wanted to punch in the face*. Only 50 pages left...

*It seems I am wanting to do a lot of punching at the moment, maybe that is the sum total of what I will take home from Europe, frustrated aggression.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Some relief sculpture from the new Cathedral in Salamanca. Note demon eating icecream.

And astronaut!
Salamanca is a university town and I think half of America has come here on exchange. Add that to the number of American tourists and you have a whole bunch of really fricking annoying people. If I hear another whiney american accent I will have to punch it in the face! I think this is steming from the horrible cow I wound up hanging out with in San Sebastian. She was actually from Canada, but to me they all sound the same. She was one of those blonde types, kind of like Cher from Clueless, but without anything nice about her. I swear to god it was like being back in high school. The problem was once you have started hanging out with someone and you are in the same room as them, you can´t really ditch them, esp as you don´t know anyone else in the town so you don´t have much excuse to bail. I wound up going to bed as early as was possible to escape her, but that was the best I could do.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Have just got into Salamanca, had fun 5 hour bus ride where the bus driver laughed at me for sitting in the seat allocated on my ticket. Had a big day looking at the Guggenheim Museum and taking about a million photos, maybe digital cameras aren´t such a good idea. The amount of crap I have taken photos of from everywhich angle is scary. When I arrived at the bus station I had no idea where to go, as my hostel (and hostel´s street more to the point!) was not marked on my map. Took a random bus to the centre and found an internet place to find the hostels address and some nice person searched on the internet for the address. Eventually found it, but lucky it is nice weather here.

This is ´Puppy´a sculpture by someone outside the Guggenheim. It is a steel frame with dirt and an irrigation system inside. All the flowers are real, it is nice now cos they´re flowering.




And here it is. I think I took over 20 photos, more restraint needed.
This one is only to prove I climbed the huge mountain, well when I say huge, most of the other people up there were over 60, but it was before miday, which makes everything huge for me.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

A couple from San Sebastian. It is totally beautiful, although today was perhaps a tad too cold for me to sunbake.

And a view from the top of the mountain.
Am finally getting around to posting my Barca photos although I am now in San Sebastian. Here are Paula and some of her friends. (For those of you who haven´t been following Paula is one of my friends who did an exchange in Berlin with me.)


Ok, be ready for a lot of Gaudi, I have tried to limit myself to just these few, but if you want about a million more mail me! This is one of the buildings in Parc Guell.

Top of La Pedrera. The tops of the sculptures are meant to be like knights helmets. I thought they reminded me of the guys you have to kill towards the end of Zelda, thanks James.

These are two of the spires of La Sagrada Familia, I seem to have neglected to take one of the whole building, will get onto it when I go back.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

These are my final ones from Berlin.

Fabulous me trying to take a photo so I could see my new haircut, nice to see how cheery I look.


Alex. The last day I had there was really nice. Barstards.

This is some law library geekery. Someone from the LRC better read this. Note holy trinity of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

And this is my bike on its final ride to the supermarket with me. Next to it is the bulging bag of bottles to be returned for Pfand. This lot was quite a haul, about 2EUR.
There´s not gonna be much commentary until I get my act together with blogging but here are a couple of my Krakow photos.

This is the main church which also doubled as a lookout in medieval times. Now they have a trumpeter on 24hours a day to toot out some ancient song that was meant to warn the town the Mongols were coming. It stops rather abruptly, apparently in honour of one incompetent lookout who got an arrow in the throat mid blast.


Oskar Schindler´s factory. Shamefully I was the only one on the tour that hadn´t seen the movie.

The entry to Auschwitz which we visited one of the days along with Birkenow.