Carnaval!

Bonjour!

Yep I am back in France :) Before I tell you about my French adventures I better recap the last couple of weeks....

Granada was my next stop in the south of Spain. I had found a couch surfer to host me but had no idea that his english was not so good until I called him to arrange to get to his house. It did not help that the train station had no spare maps or any information in English! It took me some time, but eventually I made it! Oscar, my host was a really good guy and really made sure that I was comfortable.

The city of Granada is a beautiful city nestled in the hills under the great Siera Nevada mountain range. On the first day I decided to explore the old city. Situated just below the famous Alhambra fortress is a spread of white houses and apartments and lots of boutique restaurants and cafes mostly serving north african and arab dishes. There is still a strong connection in Granada with Islam, as it never really was extinguished here unlike in other parts of Spain during the inquisition.

Walking back down to the new part of the city I encountered a huge protest. I am not sure what they were shouting about, but I think it was something about freedom of expression.... bloody hippies!

The next morning I went up to the Alhambra. The complex is massive and contains a collection of mosques, palaces, churches, bath houses and gorgeous gardens. The Alhambra looks out over the entire city and was built there for strategic purposes. The Nazarite Palace is the highlight of the complex, with amazing stucco plaster work, fountains and tradittional muslim design blended with christian symbolism.

I didn't get a chance to see the whole complex because Oscar came and picked me up as he was taking his kids to the ski resort on the Siera Nevada. Hmmm a chance to go snow boarding in Spain... I was not going to turn that down! The Siera Nevada ski resort is huge with many chair lifts, gondala cable cars and amazing ski runs! At the base of the resort is a mini city with cafes, bars, ski hire and even a supermarket. After hiring my equipment, I went straight to the top and had a few greats runs... as well as a few bails! Good times!

That evening I was quite exhausted, as you can imagine, so I decided to meet up with a few couchsurfers in the area for a quiet drink (or two)! I ended up meeting four American girls who were studying in Granada and we went to a quirky Tapas bar in the new city. In Granada the tapas are free with ever drink and you can usually choose what you want. I had a great night (even though I had to walk home because the buses had stopped) and I even got to do a quick Haka to show the girls lol!

Next stop - Barcelona! Everytime I hear the name Barcelona that song by Queen comes into my head lol! Anyways it was great to be back in a port city - i really miss the sea! In Barcelona I was staying with a couch surfer called Juan. Juan is a great guy! He is orginally from Peru, and being South American he is naturally full or energy, outgoing and fun loving! Thanks to him I really had a great time in the party city of Barcelona!

Barcelona has a similar energy to Madrid, with excellent night life! Lots of funky bars fill the alley ways throughout the downtown area. The main boulevard is called La Rambla and stretches from the main port, port Vell, right into the heart of the city. Along La Rambla you can find everything including restaurants, bars, icecream vendors, pet shops.... but most interestingly are the many buskers including magicians, and people pretending to be statues. Some of the later are quite extraordinary - my favourite being the dude on the toilet who sits there reading his paper, sitting on the loo all day! If you give him so money you can score a photo and a he will fart as you walk away hahah!

The old part of the city is known as Barri Gothic and contains an impressive gothic catherdral. Also in the area is a history museum which contains an excavated roman city that lies below the gothic quarter. The museum tells the history of Barcelona over the last few thousand years and even has some gravestones written in Hebrew.

Going back along La Rambla I popped into the Mercat de la Boqueria, a funky food market. The market is a rainbow display of fresh fruit, veges, fish and most importantly: ham!

The next day it was time to explore the Eixample district. This was a suburb that is a prime example of town planning with criss-cross avenues and a main diagonal road cutting the district in two, creatively called Avenida Diagonal! The streets here are filled with high fashion stores but the thing I came to see are the Gaudi creations. Gaudi was a famous Spanish architect who used nature as inspiration to design really out-there, Doctor Suess style buildings! I visited two of the most famous - La Pedera and Sagrada Familia. La Pedera is an apartment building with really strange chimneys and balconies that look like vine leaves. The roof and one apartment are open to the public so I had a quick look around before heading to Gaudi's most impressive creation, the Sagrada Familia.

The Sagrada Familia is a huge catherdral which they started to build in the 1800s and they will not complete until at least 2020! It is truly inspiring, with its huge spike towers and amazing stone work. Inside is full of light pouring through ornate stain glass windows and bouncing off the white washed walls. Currenly only 4 towers are complete, but the final design will have 13 representing the Apostles and Jesus. I can only imagine how impressive this will be once complete!

That afternoon I popped down to Port Olympic near some of the main city beaches. Here scores of fancy bars line the port and the beaches ready to pump through the night (in the summer that is!) After that I met up with Juan and we both got haircuts together... mine was way overdue! It only cost 3 Euros!!! We then went out to have a few drinks including a 1 Litre Mohito - Yum! Later that night we went to go meet up with the couch surfing crew and I met all sorts of interesting people travelling the world just like me! Good times!

On Friday I went to visit Park Guell, another Gaudi creation. This park looks like a cartoon and is packed with children playing as well as buskers and street musicians. I sat and listened to a great south american band singing and pumping some Spanish beats! The park is up in the hills quite far from the ocean, so you get a truly amazing view of the whole of Barcelona city and the Mediterranian sea. There are also parrots flying overhead as you walk up through the park.

For Shabbat I went to the local Chabad shule (spelt Jabad in Spanish haha) where I experienced an interesting blend of typical Chabad style mixed with Spanish Sephardi tunes! There were other tourists there from Argentina, Brazil and the US and after the service we were all invited back to the Rabbis house for Shabbos dinner. There must have been at least 40 guests and we sang and drank L'chaims through the night! On Saturday there was a nice Kiddush after shule were I met all sorts of interesting people - good times!

Juan and his friends were going to Carnaval on saturday night and I was invited to join them. I am so glad that I agreed! The party runs for 4 days and is all over Spain, but we were going to a town called Sitges, known for its large gay community and is the second biggest Carnaval in Spain! We took the train and arrived to see hundreds of people dressed in all sorts of crazy costumes dancing the night away! We found ourselves a space outside a club and danced until the wee hours of the morning! Carnaval is something like the Rugby Sevens on steroids, with hundreds of crazy people drinking, dancing and living the hedonistic lifestyle!

We got back to Barcelona at 5am and I got the chance to have a quick nap before I had to head out to catch my train for Marseille at 9am! Hangover and tired ... great combination!

Thank you for the great times Spain! And now back to France...... Baguette!