While I was travelling in Spain and France the past couple weeks, I wrote home the first day and then just sort of made a habit of e-mailing home to describe what I did each day. Rather than try to describe my travels all over again, I figure I’ll just post the notes I wrote. They are, as is typical of me, wordy, so for those of you who prefer the Cliff Notes version, I saw a lot of things and had a great time. ;)
Day 1 – Barcelona
I am having a great time here, it really is a beautiful city. It´s not as
decorated for Christmas as I might have thought, but they do have lights up and
a fairly big Christmas market near the cathedral. Yesterday, I just sort of
wandered about from the hostel (which is in a very good spot at Carrer Arragó y
Passeig de Gracía) down to the shore and then up the ramblas. For lunch, I had
sort of small sandwich of perchutto (spelling?) and brie at a cafe. After that,
I met an Australian girl staying in the hostel and we visited the Parc de Güell
together, which was quite beautiful, especially the view. We went to dinner
together last night as well, since we both wanted some paella, and had it at a
small restaurant down a side alley somewhere in the Barri Gotic. After that, I
went out for a bit with a couple Americans from the hostel who are
telecommuting from Barcelona for three months. We went to a bar in another
hostel, which was alright, and then visited a club we´d been handed a flyer
for, but it was small and kind of empty.
Today I travelled with the Australian again, this time to Montjuïc. First,
though, we visited one of the markets (the one near the cathedral, can´t
remember the name) and got some food for lunch. I got a baguette, olives, brie,
and fuet (a thin stick of sausage, like sopressata). We took the cable car up to
Montjuïc and from there wandered around, admired the view, and ended up in the
Jardí Botaníc, where we stopped at one of the benches for lunch. The botanical
gardens are quite an enjoyable stroll and there´s a nice view from the top,
just as there are at many other places around Montjuic. I saw a lot of stadiums
left over from the olympics, the Palau Nacional, and the Fundación Joan Miró. It
was quite a full day today, about nine hours of walking around. For dinner, I
ate in at the hostel with what I had leftover from lunch and some almendras I
bought at a supermercat. I forgot to get lemon, though, so it didn´t taste as
good. Is there anything else you use on them? There´s a single small dinner
table, so everyone in the hostel tends to eat together. It kinds of reminds of
Tia Rosa´s in terms of the general layout. Oh, and I think I did have something
with nata for breakfast this morning, it was one of those sort of small sweet
rolls split down the middle, with cream in it.
I´m not sure exactly what I´ll do tomorrow, but I do want to go to the top of la
Família Sagrada, I´m thinking of possibly trying to visit Tibidabo, and Sunday I
might try to go see an Espanyol v. Zaragoza match (because I´m leaving the day
before the next Barcelona match!). The Australian girl is leaving tomorrow, so
I´ll be travelling alone again, which is ok, because even though it was nice to
travel with someone else for a bit it´s nice to travel alone for a while too.
Oh, there´s something I wanted to ask about because it was just brought to my
attention by pure chance, by one of the women working at the hostel. It turns
out that anyone born of a Spanish mother or father is Spanish by means of
origin, which means that I might be eligible for citizenship if I wanted it. It
would be terrific if I could manage to get a dual citizenship, because that way
I could have an EU passport and could visit whenever and for however long I
wanted, as well as work here and such. There are several things I´m not sure
of, though, and dual citizenship is potentially problematic. In particular, I´m
not sure whether the parent has to still be a citizen of Spain at the time the
child is born (were you?), and Spain does not recognize dual citizenship and
its citizenship oath includes renouncing any other citizenships. In the past,
the U.S. was very antagonistic towards dual citizenship as well, but apparently
now it is not really a problem. It seems that countries generally ignore each
other´s citizenship laws, which means that if I were to become a Spanish
citizen, Spain would regard me as being only Spanish, while the U.S. would
regard me as being only American. Problems would arise, however, if some legal
matter regarding citizenship should crop up, and my U.S. citizenship could
become endangered if I was shown to have any intent to renounce my citizenship,
I think. This is all based off some quick Internet research though, so I guess
it would all be a matter for a lawyer to look at if I really wanted to be a
dual citizen. I´m also wondering about problems like paying taxes for two
countries and such. All the same, though, it´s something I would like to look
into, because the idea of having an EU passport sounds like a really nice one!
Anyway, I´m pretty tired, so I´m going to head to sleep. Hope everyone is well,
love you all! Let me know if there´s anything you or anyone would like me to
get for them while I´m here.
Love,
Michael
Day 2 – Barcelona
A daily report, eh? Well, I wound up staying out a little late last night rather
than going to bed. I went out with the Americans again, this time in search of
any good bars, and we wound up at a bar near the universitat, the Bar
Estudiantil. It had a really great atmosphere because it was filled with people
our age, had cheap drinks, and a live three-piece jazz band that was quite good.
The result of staying out late, though, was that I woke up late, so I didn´t get
out until about noon. I still had a pretty full day, however; I did a lot of
walking. I went to la Familia Sagrada, climbed the 300+ steps to the top,
enjoyed the view along the way, went back down, viewed the museum, strolled
through the parks nearby, watched the old men play bocce, and found an F.C.
Barcelona shop nearby and got myself a shirt. After that, I took the metro to
the Arc de Triomf and walked through the big park nearby. What is that
classical-looking structure with the fountains and pools with ducks that says
“acquarium” at the top? I climbed the stairs of it, but it was closed at the
top. I saw the Mammoth in the park, as well. Finally, I wandered past the
parliament, the zoology museum, the modern art museum, and the zoo, through the
streets nearby, and finally walked back up Passeig de Grácia to my hostel.
The woman that works at the hostel during the day, Aleesya, cooked dinner for us
because it´s the last night the two American guys are staying, since they´re
moving into an apartment. After that, we hung around for a bit and had some
drinks with both on-duty and off-duty hostel personnel, met some new arrivals,
and then headed out to find a club. We finally did go into one after wandering
around for a while, and it was alright, but clubbing isn´t really my thing. We
just got back a little while ago, at 5am, so now I´m going to close my note and
get to sleep.
Tomorrow I intend to just relax, look at some of the shops around and see if
there´s anything interesting, and maybe go to the zoo if it is open. Sunday I´m
going to go to the Liceu opera house in the morning to go on a guided tour, then
maybe go to the monastery that´s at the end of line 6 on the metro (can´t
remember it´s name right now), and then go see the Espanyol v. Zaragoza match
at the Olympic stadium with a Canadian girl that just came in today.
Unfortunately the next Barca match isn´t until Tuesday, so I´ll just miss it,
but I´d like to see a game before I go. Monday I´m going to go to Girona in the
morning and walk around until my flight to Paris in the evening.
Is there anything else you´d suggest that I see while I´m here? Also, is any of
Tio Paco´s art on display in the city, that you know of?
Okay, I´m off to sleep now!
Love,
Michael
Day 3 & 4 – Barcelona
In addition to what I talk about in Friday´s e-mail, Saturday I woke up late and
wandered around the Barri Gotic. The sheer number of people on the streets that
day was stunning; they were quite packed. In the barri, there are shops
everywhere, but I ran across a couple old churches as well. In the evening I
got a bit lost in the winding streets and happened upon a band of about twenty
men wearing red santa hats and playing Christmas songs on brass instruments
(trumpets, trombones, etc.) and drums. They were marching along and stopped in
front of a place labelled Coro social humoristico (or something similar). At
one of the churches I ran across, they had a stage set up and were bringing
kids up to sing the tio song and get presents. Later I went to the cathedral
and went inside while they were performing a mass — it´s quite an impressive
place. For dinner, Aleesya (Italian woman working the desk at the hostel)
cooked again, this time a bigger meal with the help of Bruno (Argentinian
working at the hostel) and Hazel (Scottish woman working here). Bruno brought a
few guests from another hostel and quite a few people staying at this one came
to dinner, so it was a full table. After that, most of us went out to a really
funky bar at the contemporary art museum and relaxed for a little while until
some of us left to go to bed.
Today, Sunday, I went back to the Arc de Triomf and walked down to the zoo. On
the way, there was a stage set up with a band and a large group of people
dancing in a circle; traditional Catalan dancing, right? I spent a couple hours
in the zoo, which is fairly big and had some interesting animals. I even ran
across a macaw (parrot) that said “hola!” After the zoo, I met up with a
Canadian girl from the hostel in front of the Palau Nacional and went to the
estadi olímpic to see the Espanyol v Zaragoza game. It was nice to finally be
able to see a match, even if it wasn’t the best teams, but it was also actually
quite exciting in the second half. Espanyol made the first goal of the match a
little ways into the second half, to which Zaragoza immediately responded and
equalized. Shortly after that, Zaragoza went on to score a second goal on a
breakaway (they had some fast strikers!) and this disheartened the Espanyol
crowd for a while. Towards the end, though, Espanyol came back to score a goal
by a terrific header off of a free kick just outside the box. This really made
the crowd go wild (almost all Espanyol fans, I didn´t see any Zaragoza colors)
and both teams played quite strongly for the rest of the match. After that I
had dinner at a pub/restaurant and had a “Catalan salad,” which was lettuce,
tomato, red peppers, onions, and several types of sausage (like fuet). Tonight
I finished writing out a few postcards, worked out some last details of my
travels tomorrow, finally got my phone working here (it wasn’t working due to a
Virgin error, but they resolved it fairly quickly and credit me 10 pounds), and
got phone numbers from a few people who either live in England or will be in
Paris this week.
Tomorrow, I’m taking the train to Girona to spend the day there, then getting my
flight to Paris. I don’t know what sort of internet access they have there, so I
may or may not e-mail again before I get back to England on Friday. Hope
everyone’s well and tell everyone I love them!
Michael
Day 5 & 6 – Girona and Paris
Hi Dad, just wanted to let you know that I arrived in Paris last night without a
problem. Yesterday I checked out of the Barcelona hostel first thing in the
morning, bought some food to take back with me to England, and hopped a train
to Girona. Girona was quite pretty, but it was also quite empty and most of the
museums were closed because it was a Monday. It was still very nice to walk
around, but behind the cathedral and outside the wall, near the dried-up river
it seemed a little seedy; some kids offered me marijuana, some people were just
hanging out looking suspicious, and a dirty-looking couple were making out (it
means heavy kissing, remember!) in a corner. Add to that the fact that I felt
like a walking bullseye with my big backpack, and you can imagine I felt a
little nervous. After that, I caught the bus to the airport, the flight to
Paris-Beauvais, the bus downtown to Porte Maillot, and the Metro to my hostel
in Monmartre. The hostel is alright, but it’s not nearly as friendly as the
last one, unfortunately.
Today, I went downtown to the Louvre, but found that it’s closed on Tuesdays.
It’s quite cold (around freezing) and foggy, so it was a bit of a dismal day. I
walked from the Louvre to the Eiffel tower and back, and then called it an early
day because of the cold and the fact that my knee is hurting. I don’t know what
I did to it, but on my first day in Barcelona I hurt my right knee and
experienced some sharp pain when walking. The right one is pretty much all
better now, but this morning when I got up the left one started hurting in the
same way. I feel as if I’ve pulled a tendon or something, but I don’t know how
it could have happened or why it’s happened in each knee almost a week apart.
Anyway, I’ve been hogging the computer long enough, so I had best go. The
internet is free here too, fortunately, but the computer is in a kiosk-like
mode and they have a timer that cuts it off after 15 minutes, so if you want to
stay on longer you have to start over again. I’ll write again tomorrow if I have
time, bye!
Michael
Day 7 – Paris
For my day today in Paris, I made it a light one and just went to the
Louvre. I got lucky in that there was only one other person in my
(six-person) room last night and he was gone by the time I woke up in
the morning, so I got up about 9:30, had the complimentary breakfast
(pretty decent actually, croissants, toast, little baguettes, orange
juice, and cereals), took a leisurely shower, relaxed and wrote for a
little while, and then headed downtown around lunch time. I got a map
from the tourist office, had an awfully nice sandwich at a cafe-type
place (but it cost €4.10) and then went to the Louvre. I spent about
three and a half hours there and saw most of the big sights, but the
amount of art in one place is just staggering and totally
overwhelming; it tires you out very fast. I saw the Mona Lisa, Venus
de Milo, Gladiator, and Winged Victory of Samothrace, among others. I
really wanted to see Hammurabi’s code, but for some reason that
section of the museum closes early on certain days and of course it
doesn’t say so anywhere obvious except on the doors to that area when
they are closed, so I missed it by about 15 minutes. I was also
disappointed that the information placards are entirely in French, so
I couldn’t read anything about the artwork really. Anyway, it was an
interesting experience, but I don’t generally feel powerfully affected
by art so the main thing that made an impression was the sheer
quantity of artwork.
My knee is feeling a bit better today and hopefully tomorrow it will
be much better, so I’m planning to do a bunch of walking and see some
big things that I haven’t seen, like Notre Dame, the Jewish deportee
monument, the Latin Quarter, Saint Chappelle, the Arc de Triomph, and
Napoleon’s Tomb. That should take up a while in walking and bring me
from the Latin Quarter in the east to the Arc de Triomph in the west.
I’ll be near the Musee de L’homme then, so I’ll probably go there for
a couple hours to take a break from the cold. After that, I’ll head
back to Monmartre, walk around a bit, see Sacre Couer, and then make
myself some dinner at the hostel and rest for a little while. Finally,
I’ll head back downtown one more time, to see Paris lit up for the
night. Today was a clearer day than yesterday, so I did see the Eiffel
tower lit up from a distance, but I’ll take a look again tomorrow and
see some others as well. Actually, I think I forgot to mention to you
in my first Paris e-mail that when I got off the bus from the airport
at Porte Maillot, I was quite impressed by the lights on the Palais de
Congress and the street next to it, so I’m eager to see some more of
Paris at night, since it’s supposed to be the “city of light” and all.
I’m debating whether to spend the money to go up the Eiffel tower, as
the weather’s still rather gloomy, but it still might be a good view
of the city by day and of the lights by night. It’s annoying that
everything here costs money to see, from the museums to the churches
and monuments.
Anyway, that’s my plan for tomorrow. On Friday, I get up early, catch
my flight to London, my bus to Leeds, and I’m back to my
home-away-from-home. Talk to you then!
Michael
Day 8 – Paris
Well, I doubt I’ll forget Paris either, it’s definitely unique. This
morning I went to Notre Dame first thing and was thorougly impressed.
Firstly, I thought it was neat that they had a nice Christmas tree out
front, decorated with red balls and those sort of fluffy/tinsely
ropes. As for the cathedral itself, from the outside the size is quite
something and there is plenty of detail in the decoration, but the
inside was the best part. They have, like both the cathedral in
Barcelona and the one in Girona, alcoves (called chappelles) running
down each side of the building dedicated to various saints. In the
center, the ceiling over the pews and altar area is incredibly high,
because it is open all the way to the top of the building. There was
actually a mass or some sort of service going on while I was there,
like when I visited the Barcelona cathedral, so it was nice to see the
church alive and in use in that way. I also got to see one of their
big chandeliers up close because they had brought it down for
refurbishment, and they had a “Christmas crib” as well, which was a
sort of extended nativity scene. The bit that I liked the best,
though, was the stunning stained glass; the detail, color, and
fragility of stained glass is always something that impresses me with
its beauty, and there was quite a lot of it there.
Anyway, I’ve sort of written in excruciating detail about Notre Dame,
but the point is that it impressed me a lot. After that, I had lunch
in this little park directly behind the Notre Dame, which I thought
was a better view than the front because I could see the flying
buttresses and lots of gargoyles. After that, I took a walk down the
streets of the small island across the Pont St. Louis, then briefly
down some streets in the Latin Quarter, and returned to the rear of
Notre Dame to see the Deportation Memorial. Next, I walked through the
Place Saint Michel, went into the Palais de Justice to see the Sante
Chappelle church, across Pont Neuf (the oldest bridge), and took the
metro to the Arc de Triomph.
After seeing that, I headed over to the Musee de l’Homme, but it was
45 minutes to close, so I decided there wasn’t enough time. You were
right about the view from between the Musee de l’Homme and the Theatre
National de Chaillot, it’s the best view of the Eiffel Tower that I’ve
seen. It’s sort of a medium distance, not too far away, but far enough
to see the whole thing, and you’re at an elevated angle. It’s probably
the quintessential view, because you can see the fountains below you
leading up to the park around the Tower and then the Tower directly in
front of you.
Finally, after going back to the hostel to rest for a couple hours, I
came back at night to see some of Paris lit up. I came back to that
view of the Eiffel Tower first, and it was terrific. The day had been
pretty clear and at night only the tip was veiled by a bit of fog.
Next, I walked down the avenue to the Arc de Triumph, which doesn’t
look very special lit up, but as soon as I turned the corner to the
Champs-Elysées, I was struck by the light of the avenue. The entire
length of it, from the Arc to the carrousel wheel in front of the
Jardins Toullieres is flanked by trees which are lit up, bathing the
whole avenue in bright light. That, to me, made Paris seem like the
city of light.
So, that was my day, in a bit more detail than usual for some reason
– I’m not sure why. I’m going to get off to bed now, because I need
to get up around 6:30 to give myself enough time to get my flight.
Unfortunately there are people in my room again (had completely it to
myself last night!), but this is my last night and I’ll be the one
getting up and making noise, so I don’t mind, heh. Talk to you all
tomorrow!
Michael