Spain - "I think dis is de best"

 

El toro.  They have these huge bulls on the side of the highway all over Spain.  I was impressed.  

As you all know, we went to Spain on a last - minute honeymoon.  We have since returned to America and are stressed and pressed for time moving into our new apartment.  I was just going to skip blogging about Spain, but after repeated requests for info and pictures, I realized I just couldn't let it slide.  We here at "She's Gone Rogue" strive to keep our fans happy, yet we really are exceedingly busy and don't have Internet at home now, so we will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible.  And now, courtesy of the free wifi at Atlanta Bread Company all the way in Fayetteville, AR, I present to you:  Spain:  

Day 1 - Madrid

Flew into Madrid.  Got there around 9:00 am.  Were exhausted, but knew we had to fight the jetlag.  Did the only thing we knew how to do:  hit the streets with our guidebook and toured the city until we literally fell over.  Took an impromptu nap on a park bench for about an hour after we decided to sit for "just a minute."  Woke up with all our belongings still intact.  Close call.  Ate some delicious Spanish food (ie, jamon).  Went to bed around 11pm.  

 

Jamon at the jamon store.  Affectionately known as "Matt's Paradise."

 

Metropolis building in Madrid's city center.  Possibly the most beloved building by Madrilenos.  Modeled after a French building.  Oooh, burn.  

Day 2 - Madrid

Awoke refreshed and ready to kick the day's ass.  Went to the Prado (famous art museum).  Got in for free because it was a holiday.  Saved 18 euros.  Score.  Spent far too long at the Prado, but saw interesting art (mostly religious).  Bought a magnet of Goya's depiction of Saturn devouring his son.  (Said magnet is now located on refrigerator at home to discourage overeating.)  Went to park to drink wine.  Went to tapas area at Alberto's suggestion (he thought dis was de best place), and had the first of a long list of the very best tapas in the world.  Drank more wine.  Went in search of chocolate con churros place.  Found it, but the line was far too long.  Saw a huge demonstration in the plaza.  Didn't know what was going on because didn't speak enough Spanish.  Resolved to learn more Spanish.  Went to bed.  

 

Delicious pintxos (tapas from the Basque region - arguably the best region for tapas).  

 

Huge demonstration.  Maybe political?  Who can know?

Day 3 - Segovia

Took the high speed train to the medieval city of Segovia from Madrid.  Walked with our two rolling suitcases 30 minutes across cobblestone streets to our hotel.  Bad idea.  Tooled around.  It was cool.  Ate the local delicacy, roast suckling pig.  Surprisingly good.  Went to a castle.  Walked up a hill to take pictures.  Read on a park bench.  Fell asleep on said park bench.  Had delicious homemade ravioli dinner.  Stayed the night.  

 

Cathedral in Segovia.  Muy cool.  

 

Aquaduct left over from Roman times.  Very big.  Very cool.  

 

Castle on which the "Sleeping Beauty" castle was modeled.  

 

View of Segovia from the park on the hill.  Worth the walk.  

Day 4 - Granada

Took train back to Madrid from Segovia.  Rented a car at the train station.  Matt drove, obviously.  Drove to Granada, approximately four hours.  Incredible drive.  Amazing countryside.  Couldn't find a fast place to stop for lunch, so we skipped it.  Went hungry.  Arrived in Granada.  Checked into beautiful  hotel.  Walked around the city.  Ate Jamon in the room.  

 

View of countryside on the way to Grenada.  Those are olive trees.  

Day 5 - Granada

Woke early and drove to     , an hour outside of the city.  Went on a seven mile hike through the mountains to another city.  Would have gone further, but we were completely spent.  Hike was amazing - possibly best part of the trip.  Possibly.  

 

View of a lake from up in the mountains.  

 

Town we hiked to.  Don't know the name of it, but it was really pretty.

Day 6 - Granada

Walked around sightseeing, then went and had an unanticipated two hour lunch at a cafe in the shadow of the Alhambra, a Muslim fortress and palace built in the 14th century.  Matt freaked out about the time because we had tickets to see the Alhambra's palace at 7, and had to see the rest of the grounds before that.  Ran/walked up the hill to the fortress, and sped through the gardens, museums and fortress.  Took lots of pictures.  Finished in plenty of time to see the palace.  Saw palace.  Impressive.  Took even more pictures.  Went down the hill to dinner at a middle eastern restaurant.  Had lamb and rice dish.  Delicious.  

  Panorama of the Alhambra from a touristy hill where everyone goes to take pictures.  It probably won't show up fully in the blog, so click the picture to see the whole view.  Please.  I worked hard on it in photoshop.

 

View of the city from the fortress.  

 

Inside the palace.  This is all carved marble that looks like...

 

this up close.  Someone should learn this skill and come to my house and do it on my walls.  Please.  I'll pay you handsomely in mediocre home-cooked meals.  

Day 7 - Sevilla/Seville

Drove from Granada a couple hours to Sevilla.  Ate our first and only paella, which was fantastic and very expensive.  Saw a beautiful gothic (maybe?) cathedral.  Skipped almost all of the other recommended sights in favor of just wandering around.  Ate the BEST tapas and drank beer at an outdoor restaurant just underneath our hotel.  Went to bed.  

 

Might not look like much, but that's just because of my photography skills.  It was incredible.  

 

Seville Cathedral.  It is the largest Gothic cathedral and third largest church in the world.  You can't tell, but again, that's because of my limited photography skills.  

Days 8 through 10 - Costa Brava 

Flew from Seville to Barcelona, then skipped out on all the sights and took a bus to the city of Palafrugell, on the Mediterranean Costa Brava.  Checked into a wonderful hotel with a gorgeous beach right under our balcony.  Went to said beach.  Walked all over town and into neighboring towns to visit different beaches, each possibly more impressive than the last.  Saw lots of topless women, and one naked man. On the last day, taxi-ed to Aiguablava, a different but no less amazing costal town.  Stayed in a Parador situated on a rock that juts out into the Mediterranean.  Learned the meaning of Parador (a hotel located in a historic place such as a castle, palace, convent, monastery, fortresse, etc.  I don't know what ours used to be.  Not a palace or castle, but it was acceptable anyway).   Weather was not up to par on that last day, but what can you do?  I'll tell you.  You can be persistent, take a walk around the beaches, lay out in the freezing windy conditions by the pool pretending that it is 90 degrees and sunny, and finally give up and go drink wine and play cards in your hotel room.  

 

View of the beach and restaurant from our balcony in Palafrugell.

 

Beach where we saw the naked man.  I don't think he's in this picture, but maybe he is. Feel free to look for him.  

 

Third beach.  

 

A rope seen from afar can look like a dead body.  Like this one.  I was convinced it was a dead body so I had to go investigate.  I was wrong.  Still, cool rope.  

Day 11 - Barcelona/Madrid

Took a bus back to Barcelona.  Didn't learn our lesson from Segovia and took our rolling suitcase around the city sightseeing.  Went to La Sagrada Familia, or as I call it, Gaudi's church.  Walked around it taking pictures and marveling at all the people who were willing to pay 12 euros a piece to go inside.  (Note, probably would have forked it over if it hadn't been our last day... my pockets get a little tighter toward the end of a long vacation.) Took bus to airport to fly back to Madrid.  Nicest airport I've been to.  Good thing, because our flight was delayed two hours.  Flew back to Madrid, stayed the night, left early next morning for Amurca. Boom.  Spain.  

It appears I don't have any pictures downloaded yet from our Parador on the rocks or Barcelona, so I'll have to get those later.  Or not at all.  Anyway, that was our honeymoon.  Now we're back in Amurca, living in the real world, setting up our new apartment, and reeling from the prices of everything.  

Fake It Till you Make It

I'm in a pretty bad way today mentally, so instead of posting some negative Nancy blog post in which I say something awful that I end up regretting later (mostly because my family will bring it up repeatedly at some later date), I decided to fake a cheerful post in the hopes it will put me in a better place - spiritually and mentally, if not physically.

Last weekend we went to Udaipur (in Rajasthan), and while it wasn't the most magical place I've ever been, it definitely beats the pants off Baroda (that's assuming, of course, that Baroda would wear pants, and if I had to hypothesize, I'd say it definitely wouldn't).  Udaipur is 350 kilometers away (about 217 miles), but of course it takes six hours by car to get there.  We hired a refinery driver, who brought his friend along for the ride in his tiny hatchback, which made for a very cramped ride.  The only really notable thing that happened on the way was when we stopped to pay the "border tax".  The two guys got out of the car and proceeded to lock us in.  Strange, we thought, but nothing too alarming about that - until a group of Rajasthani men came up and started banging on the windows and lifting up the door handles asking for money.  Still, we weren't too worried, until another man came up and showed me his photo album full of naked men dancing and worshipping.  Apparently this is in relation to some Rajasthani festival, but it is still a little off-putting to look at naked men in a photo album at a truck stop on the side of the road in India.  That said, I've seen worse.

Two hours after the naked-men picture book, we reached our destination.  Udaipur is billed as "the most romantic city in India", as well as "the Venice of the East", - both claims I find to be equal parts ridiculous and sad.  However, sometimes, if you are in just the right frame of mind, the way the sunlight glints off the scorpion chew wrappers, the smell of urine evaporating off the sidewalk, and the huge fudgey piles of steaming cow feces can make you feel quite enchanted indeed.

 

Incredible Udaipur.  

But I joke, I joke.  After you get past the fact that Udaipur is still India (and it is, very much so), it's actually a really nice city.  There is a lot of really great interesting architecture, some beautifully-carved Hindu temples, and who could forget the most famous sight of all - the Lake Palace Hotel.

 

Carvings on Jagdish Temple, the "most famous and most beautiful temple in Udaipur."

For those of you who aren't aware (but why wouldn't you be),  the 1983 James Bond classic Octopussy was filmed in Udaipur.  (On a side note, that is quite possibly the single worst movie title ever.)  Most notable are the scenes from the "floating" Lake Palace, which is actually built to cover the entirety of one of the islands in the middle of the Lake Pichola, making it look as though it floats.  While we didn't ferry over to the palace (you had to either have a room or pay $80 a pop to eat at the restaurant), we did have a marvelous view of it from our hotel room, and pretty much all the rooftop restaurants have a view of it as well.  It's that famous.

View of the Lake Palace from the City Palace museum. 

The highlight of the trip had to have been sitting out on the Sunset Terrace bar, which overlooks the Lake Palace.  It was a beautiful view, especially at sunset, but mostly we liked it because we got to drink beer.  In public.  Never mind that it was Kingfisher-hangover-in-a-bottle.  It was beer.

 

Never before has a bottle of Kingfisher looked so glorious.  

I think Morgan Freeman (as Red in The Shawshank Redemption) said it best: "We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men."  Of course the sunset view wasn't too shabby either:

Lake Palace just after sunset. 

 

The palace on Jagmandir Island.  We went there on Sunday... nothing much there, but nice views of the city.  

We also saw some traditional dance performances at one of the museums on Saturday night.  It was really entertaining, and we have some great videos, but I don't know how to upload them, so you'll have to be content with pictures.  Soooorrrry.

 

One of the traditional Rajasthani dances. Not to rub it in, but the videos are so much better.  

 

Ten pots.  Ten.  This woman was a monster.  

Because Udaipur is the "City of Lakes", its known for its multiple dhobi (clothes washing) ghats all along the lake.  We saw lots of people washing clothes (and themselves) in the lake, especially on Sunday.  Of course everyone knows Sunday is washing day.  While I'd probably get offended if I saw someone washing their clothes or bathing in a lake in the middle of a huge city in the states (or China... yes, I remember getting all bent out of shape about this in Dagang), in India it just seems smart.  The poverty here is so great that it seems natural for people to use this huge water source to keep clean.  It's much better than the alternative (bathing in the puddles of Baroda during monsoon season).

 

This ghat was just outside our hotel.  We didn't want to get too close for pictures for fear of being perverted, so we took this from a boat.  

I suppose that about does it for our Udaipur trip.  It was fun while it lasted, but after the six hour ride back to Baroda on Sunday, I think both Matt and I agreed it might have been just a little too far for a weekend trip.  I have literally hundreds of other pictures (each one better than the last, of course) from Udaipur, but I'm tired.  I'll leave you with just one more - the obligatory hand-held Matt and Cait shot.  

 

Us in a rooftop restaurant.  Soooo romantic.  Please note how long and bushy Matt's beard was.  He finally shaved it yesterday (because they finally put VGO in the unit.  It only took five weeks).

(Guilt) Trip to Jackson

 

Aura, Matt and me posing for the best picture ever.  Obviously I just figured out how to use the self-timer on my camera.  

Aura will surely not be pleased with this title, but it's true, and it's great.  After all the hustle and bustle of traveling from Chicago to Arkansas, back to Chicago, and then ALL the way to Jackson, we ended up having a pretty great time visiting Aura and Co.  The weather wasn't great, but it didn't rain as much as we'd expected, so we did get out some.  We only had dinner with Garland one night (he was feeling pretty sick the rest of the time), but it was a delicious dinner, and he was generous enough to share his appetizer with me, AND he picked up the check.  (Thanks, Garland!  Much appreciated.  I hope you're feeling much better at the moment.) Friday, Aura took us and her kids from work to the Granite Hot Springs, (it's a big man-made pool with water from the hot springs... kind of self-explanatory I guess) which was super hot and super fun.

 

                                                                           Aura with Jonah and Isabelle in the hot springs. 

The rest of our big plans for the weekend sort of got canceled out by weather, but I guess that just means it wasn't meant to be.  Probably we would have been blown off the mountain if we'd gone up in the tram, or popped our raft if we'd gone in the river.  Sometimes I just have a 6th sense about these things, you see.  The highlight of Matt's trip was the super competitive kickball game in which he showed off his dazzling kicking skills, and ALMOST carried our team to victory (we lost, 19 to 3), following which he hurt his knee and limped around for the remainder of the trip. (On a side note, I'm wondering if that wasn't just a ploy to lay around and watch soccer... he seems perfectly fine now.)  Anyway, It was great seeing the Jackson clan again, and I'm pretty thankful Aura guilted me into coming in the first place.

 

Our Greedy tournament.  Christian (far left) beat me (finally) and Aura was very pleased with herself for beating us all by something like 6,000 points.  She taped the score in the refrigerator.

No news coming in from India as of yet, which probably means we'll be delayed again.  I'm having a little trouble getting prepped for this trip because I feel like it's never going to happen.  I have yet to pack anything, although I still have one suitcase full of stuff I took to India last time... so I guess that means I'm halfway there.  I'm going to do my best to get really excited and make the most of this trip if I can.  I'll try to steer clear of the Debbie Downer remarks while I'm there... but remember, TRY would be the operative word in this scenario.  I have been reading a lot in the India guidebook trying to map out a rough plan for when (or if) Mom comes to visit, and it sounds like everyone who visits has a sort of love hate relationship with the whole country.  So see, I'm not alone!  It looks like there are some pretty amazing places to visit there, if only we have enough time, money and patience to navigate our way to them.  All of this is beside the point, however, if we never get to go back.

 

Christian and Aura.  I know what you're thinking, and yes, those are in fact matching sweaters.  

Anyway, that's about all my news.  I went shopping yesterday and spent the rest of my Forever 21 gift card (if I haven't told you that story, then you won't understand what a huge accomplishment this is), and I bought some pretty swanky (and cheap!) jeans at the Gap.  Also, Fayetteville, Arkansas made my latest installment of People Magazine, with a picture of Mariah Carrey singing at the Wal-Mart shareholders convention.  I knew I should have gone!   I have also just discovered the microwave in my room isn't working.  How will I re-heat my lunch?  Danielle is coming back through this area for the last time tonight before heading back to Thailand, which will probably take her through the end of the year.  Bummer!  I'm excited to see her tonight though, and we will meet again on the other side...(and by the other side, I mean Myanmar or elsewhere, not Heaven).  Anyway, that's the news of the day.  Probably nothing else of note will be happening, but if it does, you know I'll be on top of it.

Vacation

Well, we think we have our vacation situation just about figured out. We're leaving for Philadelphia tomorrow morning, and will stay in that area for about a week exploring and visiting Matt's family. Then we'll come back to Chicago for a day or two, and then head out to Colorado to go skiing! Matt's never been, so this could get interesting. I worry he'll be really good and surpass even my excellent skill level on the first day. I'm fairly sure this will be the case. We haven't really booked anything and are kind of appalled at how expensive lift tickets and ski rentals are, but I'm sure it will work out. As you all know, we're terribly cheap, so anything over a couple hundred bucks feels like a fortune.

On a side note, we watched the movie Paranormal Activity a couple nights ago, and consequently, we've had two sleepless nights. I didn't think the movie was that terrifying at the time, but it has really stuck in my head and all the horror comes creeping out at night and keeps me up. I've spent the last two nights watching sports center on ESPN and trying not to wake Matt up. Pretty soon I figure I'll have to just keel over with exhaustion and that will cure me. Hopefully. In the mean time, I'll continue to leave all the lights and TV on.

That about sums up my news for the week. I'm really excited about going out east. I've never been in that to Philadelphia or NYC before, so it should be really great. Probably really cold, but I figure India will be hot enough for us when we get there, so we might as well live it up!