Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
I've been a negligent blogger lately but I thought, finally, two weeks before I leave Lyon, it was time for an update.
I'm going to go back in time quite a long way. After I got back from Belgium, France decided to be its charming self and celebrate my birthday by going on strike. I always admired the French and their ability to demonstrate their passion towards any cause by making as much noise as possible. I've changed my mind since living in France. The majority of protesters were acting like a bunch of kids throwing a tantrum at something they don't like and don't understand (something become an expert in this year). If perhaps they had decided to smash the shops, crowd the streets, and shut down the public transport over say, the expulsion of the Roma or the banning of the burqa maybe I would have had some sympathy. But of course it was about the right to retire being increased from 60 to 62 and the right to receive the pension from 65 to 67. The funniest thing was the 15 year olds who barricaded their schools or skipped class to march down the street screaming and smashing things. France's economic state is truly dire, if they don't raise the retirement age these kids are not going to be able to retire at all, or at least not receive a pension for it.
All of this did give me a grudging respect for Sarkozy (who the French unaffectionately refer to as "Bling-bling"). He may be a pompous and short and racist but to everyone's surprise he's actually got some backbone to push through the reforms (braver men than he would have been feeling a bit stressed by the state of the streets of France during that week) and at the same time deal with the European commission accusing him of being a neo-nazi. I'm sure Carla Bruni is doing overtime singing him lullabyes to calm him down each evening.
I had a weird, but pretty good birthday. I had a test to get to but when the metro was shut down by the strikes I had to run then bikeride across Lyon with Jen and Ruben to try and get there on time. After dodging manifestants and traffic, including two police cars that unapoligetically nearly drove into us, we got to university, but there were only places at the velo dock (it's a bike rental system) so Ruben chivalrously let me and Jen put ours there, while he tried to find another one. We ran up to the classroom 20 minutes late and Jen tried to explain to the man supervising our test in French that Ruben was coming. Flustered I looked at the entire class staring at us as through we were maniacs and saw Ruben at the back of the class with the same expression on his face.
Along with speeding around Lyon, the highlight was Carla, Ceri and Lias who were in Lyon for the weekend. Lias, in particular decided to celebrate in style, drawing "happy birthday" in the sand at Bellecour, dancing a birthday dance and announcing "Charlotte I love you" very loudly at Brasserie Georges for dinner.
But once they left, with the strikes and the cold everyone was feeling it was time to escape Lyon. So we took advantage of our week off and went to Spain and Morocco. First we went to Barcelona. It was an adventure getting there. It was freezing and very early in the morning. The tram worked and then the metro worked but the third time was unlucky and the train to the airport inexpicitly was not working. But luckily Brittany was already in a taxi so pick me and Adna and Tajreena and Jeri up from the train station. We then started left when Jen and Ruben rang and were also there so we had to circle back and find them. We got to the airport and Tajreena couldn't find her passport. We stressed, we searched everywhere and in the end she had to go back home and look for it so missed the flight.
But the rest of us went on to Barcelona and she flew in the next day. Barcelona, I thought, was a like a city out of a fairytale. Las Ramblas is the big street through the middle of town where all the tourist stuff is. There's street performer's, stalls (a lot of them selling for some reason rabbits and birds) and tourist-y cafés everywhere.
At the bottom is the column of Columbus which looks out over the marina and the sea. We wandered up and down Las Ramblas, passed headless men and floating women, through the bueatifully bright market (called a 'mercat' in Catalunyan, which gave me and Brittany much amusement - "there's another super-meercat!"). We wandered down to the sea, scaring small children with our posing at the Columbus column and then down near the sea, stopping to listen to a busker who as soon as he sang "Here Comes the Sun" the sun started shining right on cue. Then we walked down to the beach where Adna managed to accidentally go for a swim and where I managed to find a sand sculptor who spoke Swahili! Who was as surprised as I was when I asked him "sasa?" We drank very strong iced margarita's by the sea which was beautiful, but cold but I'm guessing worse for the stark naked man who was strutting up and down the boardwalk.
That evening we went to a restaurant recommended by Brittany's and Tajreena's hostel reception. It was perfect, not a tourist in sight (except us), off in a little alleyway but with the décor of a beautiful slightly alternative house and cheap food and even cheaper sangria (which Brittany and I have renamed 'happy juice'). It was so good that we ended up returning the following two nights, despite having earned the eternal begrudgement of our lovely waitress when we paid completely in a huge pile of change. Round two we got desert which was true to form, delicious, but the other's surprise of sparklers on me and Adna's cakes to belatedly celebrate our birthdays backfired a bit when Adna burnt her arm on them.
The next day was a Gaudi day. We went past the famous Gaudi house, which was the first thing I had seen in Barcelona and had thought all the architecture was going to be like that. Turns out it's one of themost famous tourist attractions in Spain. Then we went to Sagrada Familia and waited in epic queues among bulldozers to go up to the top. The view was good and the architecture even better. It is hard not to love Gaudi. "Whimsical" seem to be the word most often used to describe him and it's true, everything he designs seems to have been made by a child, but a genius child, who was somehow given permission and money to let his imagination run wild.
Next we went to the Gaudi park, which you think is a normal, but beautiful park until you stumble across a mosaiced underground caverns or gingerbread-like houses or a pair of operatic gothic buskers. Overlooking the main entrance with a view over all of Barcelona is a big sandy courtyard with vendors and street performers. I watched some kids run after bubbles bigger than them made by a bubble blower and imagined the faces of the Nairobi Children's Home kids if I bought them one of those bubble blowers.
We tried to see the famous fountain show but after waiting half an hour found out it was broken and went and wandered around the gothic quarter which in the dark was deserted and very, well, gothic.
We returned the next day on a walking tour when it was much less eerie, but more interesting learning the history of it. This was where the headquarters of the Inquisistion were based, where Columbus was sent to, and returned from, the Americas, where Gaudi used to go to church and where bombs were dropped during the Spanish Civil war. It is also the home of the architectural headquarters of Spain which is ironic considering it is a drab grey office building.
That afternoon I went to the Picasso museum and was so pleased I did. It was a bit hard to find, though I did make friends with a beautiful golden Labrador on the way, and the line to get in was long, but it was so interesting to see how Picasso's work developed, it was so much more diverse than all the cubist, abstract stuff (I don't know the exact art history term) that is usually associated with him. Some of it was incredibly naturalistic. Some of it half naturalistic but with crazy colours or deconstructed backgrounds.
That evening we all met back up for our last night at our new favourite restaurant and after lots of paella and happy juice attempted to find the legendary Barcelona nightlife. We failed, it was not luckily an 'epic fail' as Ruben likes to classify things, because after wandering around by the sea following the instructions guide books and hostels had given us to no avail we found some taxis and Jen chattered away to the taxi driver in Spanish while I smiledand nodded, my main role in Spain. He took us to a completely different part of town, saying the normal ones were to 'wild' which was nice but the clubs there were pretty generic and obviously aimed an older crowd than us. So at four in the morning we said goodbye to Brittany and Tajreena (Adna had flown to Sweden the day before) and snuck back into our hostel then slept for two hours before having to get up to get our flight to Madrid.
We had to go to Girona which is a town an hour away from Madrid by bus and on the way o the bus station realised we had forgotten our passports. The plane was then delayed and for some reason one of the flight attendants and the people in front of us decided to fill in time by being very interested in the three of us, what we were doing and how we were friends. For some reason everyone in Spain and Morocco seemed to be very confused as to how a white New Zealand girl, a Columbian and a Dominican Republican (is that what you're called Ruben) could be friends.
We eventually got to Madrid and the Ryanair flight didn't crash though it was turbulent the whole way and Ryanair planes are built very strangely, when you are at the back it feels like the whole plane is made of rubber and is bouncing around. We stayed that night at Jen's cousins and his wife, who are possibly going to top my list of most hospitable people I've met this year (which is no easy task). They took us to their tiny studio room in central Madrid where a very pregnant Liesly cooked us a huge meal, wouldn't let us do anything to help her and then let the three of us sleep on a blow up matress in their lounge, which is also their bedroom and their kitchen. The next morning we had to wake up at 4am to get our flight to Morocco. I felt guilty for waking them up and tried to sneak around in the dark. Liesly jumped out of bed, turned on all the lights and insisted on making me breakfast and coffee. We went outside and got in the taxi and later found out she had been worried we would get lost and came out after us willing to take us to the aiport but we had already gone! She then went and worked a 10 hour day.
We arrived in Morocco sleep deprived and dazed, but I think that's a story for another day.
- comments
Jennifer I absolutely love the blogs! We just talked about how we should have kept a journal! Reading over yours just reinds us how much we really went through and have already forgotten--at first thought! Now I see what and why you used few minutes of any opportunity in hostels, trains, etc. :) I'll miss you!!!!!! :S