The final days in Spain

Hello people - Vanessa today.

Yesterday we went to the giant cathedral in Seville. It was massive, and it was free, thanks to World Tourism Day.

Inside, it´s much like a normal cathedral only a scale bigger. The organ is bigger, the doors are bigger, and the side chapels are bigger. As with every church here, it´s built on older structures - in this case a mosque.

Columbus is buried at the cathedral; Mandy was close enough to an english-speaking tour to listen in, and could tell us that the four men holding the casket represent the 4 kingdoms of Spain, and the cross being held by one of the kings represents the Christian victory over the Moslem's.

Cameron wants to know if the segrada familar in Barcelona would be bigger than the Seville Cathedral. I vote for the Seville monument, but there´s a postcard on offer for the first person to find an answer ... :)

We had lunch at a great tapas place, El patio de san eloy, where Tom and I had anchovy sandwiches (delicious!), and Cameron had what he suspects is the best potato salad ever. Ordering reminded Cameron of the stock market floor, with lots of yelling and pointing.

Afterwards, we wandered around for a while before heading back to our little house in Antequera.

Last night we tried, for the second time, to go to a recommended place for dinner, and ended up in another restaurant, which ended up being connected to the original. Tom and I had the menu tipical, which was porra antequerana, oxtail soup and the traditional dessert. Amanda had rabbit, and Cameron had pollo, both followed by flan.

Today we are resting, and picking up Ben (if his train gets here). We also plan to take him to tapas for lunch ... should be fun for us at least.

In other amusing news, on Wednesday night Cameron went out to use the ´net, and buy wine. 2 hours later I was worried about him, but he made it home with the wine having blogged. The difficult part came when we drank the wine, and went to get another bottle. We thought we were getting a nice red but the shopkeeper, being helpful, told Cameron that this one was the one he wanted - which turned out to be sherry. We all tried to drink it, but failed. At least it´s a donation to the house.

Anyway, we have to now book a few things and move on, but I´m sure there will be more blogging from the airports tomorrow, or Venice soon enough.

Vanessa and Cameron.

Europe 2007 - Granada

Today we ventured off to Granada to see the Alhambra. The city of Granada was nothing special (I think Ronda still takes the cake as my favourite little town in Andalucia) but the Alhambra was amazing. The trip there wasn´t much except for a wind farm perched high on the mountains and a bizarre redinition of a French Nursery rhyme ¨Allouette¨ which popped onto one of the Spanish radio stations.

We had a great day looking around the gardens and eventually through the Nasrid Palaces with incredibly detailed carvings throughout. (In a very geeky moment Mandy and I made the others wait while we had a guide of the park bluetoothed to our phone). Although we were limited to only 30mins in the Palace, I managed to get stuck behind a tour group and spent nearly an hour taking photos inside.

Unfortunately this left our run for lunch a little late and after negotiating the narrow city streets and finding a park. We tried a few cafes but all had already closed their kitchens so we resorted to Háagen Dazs for lunch. Vanessa managed to find her new favourite coffee variety, ¨Cafe Bombon¨which is basically a shot of coffee over a shot of condensed milk and the rest of us attempted hypoglycemia on the drinks and sundaes that followed.

We had a bit of traffic chaos on the way home. Mandy´s lack of details on directions do make for interesting voyages at times, choosing to tell you the route not to take rather than the one to take so it becomes a process of elimination on round abouts. This was slightly compounded by the wrong turn into roadworks and the ¨mush¨of cars trying to squeeze past.

Great day in the end with some fantastic photos. I´m off in search of some wine to enjoy with our gluten free goodies!

Tomorrow we´re off to Seville for the day and Friday is a day of rest (and picking up Ben)

Europe 2007 - Things I´ve forgotten to blog

Ok so here´s a few more things that I´d forgotten to blog;

• Pedestrian Crossings in Barcelona: Most pedestrian crossings in Barcelona have lights and specially illumiated flashing yellow ones to tell cars to be aware of pedestrians which obviously translates to ¨kill as many as you can before the light stops flashing¨
• Gluten Free: Gluten free is proving much easier in Spain (even Antequera) where we´ve managed to find a few health food stores and the magic words ¨Sin Gluten¨. I´ve been pigging out on these fantastic tiny teddy like chocolate biscuits for the last few days.
• We saw a Hyundai like my old one in the exact colour the other day
• Salads at fast food chains come with little bottles of vinegar and olive oil.
• The Spanish love two things above everything else in their food. 1. Meat 2. Sugar, if it doesn´t have these two things it may as well not be on the menu. If you try and order a salad with your meal not as an entrée they look at you as if you´re from another planet.

I´m sure there will be more that I remember.

Europe 2007 - Barcelona, Antequera, Cordoba and Ronda (and sweet, sweet internet)

Hi All,

First of all Vanessa says sorry for all the birthday wishes! (and thanks for all the comments)

Also I only just discovered that those other posts were missing the body so here´s a bit of an update.

Barcelona;
Our flight from Prague was the fantastic flying over snow capped alps. We got in late in the afternoon but still managed some sight seeing as it was still light until about 8. After wandering through the La Rambla down to the ¨beach¨we found a little cafe (Taxidermista Restaurant Barcelona *best Patatas Bravas we´ve had) in a square and I stumbled through my first order in Spanish.
The next two days we got some bus tickets and managed our way around all the big sights in Barcelona (hightlights being La Sagrada Familia, the MNAC, the Park Guell). I continued to murder the Spanish language with food orders but I haven´t ended up with anything I didn´t order. We had some great Paella at Antic Olimpic.
Barcelona was fun (I would have been happy with another day or so), but Vanessa didn´t enjoy it as much as I did. Still, we saw the standard stuff - the Gaudi fun in particular was interesting. We took a Bus Touristic to save having to do too much thinking, which paid off in terms of stress levels, especially with a tour around at night highlighting all the monuments.

Antequera
Our day to Antequera was a little eventful, Vanessa had failed to mention that she didn´t know where we were staying, didn´t have any transport organised, didn´t have a map and we´d managed to loose our phrase book. She also choose tell me this as we at Malaga bus station from the airport. My favourite quote was ¨It´s not like things aren´t planned out there just not tied down. I knew we had to catch a bus¨. I said we probably need some firmer details next time. Fortunately we managed to stumble through the Spanish and pointing to get us the tickets and arranged to meet Amanda and Tom at the bus station so we managed to get there without too much hassle. There were a few stressful moments after 4 or 5 local people came up to ask us questions in Spanish (A couple I answered with the time and the others I brushed off with I don´t understands... Also there was a decidedly ¨over the hedge¨moment after arriving at the bus station (which is in the middle of no where) and trying to get some snacks :)

Our next two days we spent exploring Antequera, which is very picturesqe but quiet. Nice after the hussle of Barcelona. Yesterday we have explored Cordoba, specifically visiting the Mezquita, which has a Christian church inside it. Very interesting.

The Restaurante El Churrasco is famous for their meat dishes and they showed it with the acres of meat we had for lunch. The best meat I´ve ever had and by far the most! I even managed to try some Black Pudding. We did eat so much that I had to skip dinner though.

Today was off to Ronda to see the bull ring and the gorge. A nice relaxed day and the afternoon will be spent looking for churros. It´s currently 36 degrees here - and siesta time, but we don´t have a bed here :(

The rest of the week will be spent touring other town, which for Mandy and my sake had better have token internet access. It´s been a hard few days ...

I´m down from Murder of Spanish to just mutilate so ordering is no longer scary.

Talk soon

Cameron and Vanessa

Other things that have missed posts;

• Lada spotting in Prague (the only place I´ve seen a lada and a Porsche parked next to each other)
• Worst terrain is still Wet Cobble Stones
• Tech is still going well I´m up to 8 rolls on the Ipod
  
• Vanessa hasn´t bought any shoes yet
• Cameron hasn´t bought any tech yet
• There are more but they will have to wait.
  

Europe 2007 - Got there

Europe 2007 - Details..

Europe 2007 - Happy Birthday Vanessa

Europe 2007 - Barcelona airport..

Europe 2007 (another quick post)

Europe 2007 - Barcelona (Quick post)

Europe - Day 6 - Prague -> Barcelona

Today is our last day (and only until 11:00) in Prague.

We had a great day yesterday wandering through the Old Town. We did manage to get lost a few times (even with map in hand) but we managed to find our way back on track each time (even if there were a few cases of "haven't we been here already")

I discovered the hard way that the files on my camera are huge and take forever to upload (hence the few photos yesterday). We started taking other photos on my phone so they will be the ones (if any) that we upload.

Worst Terrain Update :  Wet Cobblestones... any direction

We spent a most of the morning in the Jewish Quarter going to the Spanish Synagog, some of the Jewish museums and the Cemetery.  We braved Charles Bridge again but with the rain it was not very crowded. My only disappointment was the fact you couldn't take any photos in any of the beautiful Jewish buildings.

We even managed to find a non tourist place to eat lunch at the Country Life Cafe. We had to "Bus our own tray" but at least the food was good and cheap.

Our highlight for the day was the Czech Cubism Museum, with afternoon tea in the Grand Orient Cafe. The weather didn't do much to dampen the day and it was a wonderful end to our Prague stay with a trip to the castle to overlook the city at night one last time.

Prague Summary
Accommodation: The Castle Steps
Would we here again stay again? YES!
Cameron's Favourite: The Cathedral at Prague Castle
Vanessa's Favourite: Czech Cubism Museum

Next Stop: Barcelona

PS. more photos up today

Europe 2007 - Day 5 - (A Wet) Prague

Hello again from Prague,

It's raining today - a nice change from the heat but harder to walk around in. This morning we've had a later start, due to nearly killing ourselves yesterday with stairs.

We estimate that we did around 1000 stairs up and down yesterday. Apart from the walking generally, we climbed stairs around the castle (toy museum, powder tower were the worst), up Prague tower (399 stairs), through Petrin Hill (a hundred or so) and of course, up of our room (3 times). Consequently, we were tired and sore and napped :) We saw some nice things but right now all I can think of are my calves.

We also went to Strahov Monastery, and saw the library there - which was probably the highlight of the day. It was spectacular; everything a monastery library should be, complete with tomes of books, globes from the 1600s etc and a set of books bound with the bark of the trees that they described. Very cool. The rooms themselves were incredibly ornate, with ceiling fresco's and lots of gold :). I didn't take any photos as it was on a pay only basis and I didn't have my tripod with me.

Speaking of charging, yesterday it felt like we were bleeding 50Kc every door we walked through! Every place we went to yesterday charged for entry and then again for photos. In the end though it was worth ever minute!

I discovered my least favourite terrain while walking. Downhill cobblestones are horrible to walk down (especially after the 1000 steps of the day)!
Last night we wandered the bridge - very pretty - and had cheese and chocolate for dinner.

I've put a few photos up here from the last few days.

Europe 2007

Prague

From Vanessa:
Chantel - I had mexican with chocolate sauce yesterday, and will show you the photo when I get back :)
Ange - I've been having coffee and toast and thinking of you - can't wait to see the new pad ;)

Tech Update:
Universal Charging off the Ipod adapter is working well and the transfer to the ipod is also working a treat.

Europe 2007 - Day 4 - Prague

Vanessa's turn to blog today :)

We had a great day wondering around the city in Prague yesterday. We took Lonely Planet in hand and set out for Charles bridge and some of the Old Town. We found a tour that was leaving after lunch so we thought we'd try our own exploration for a few hours.

In classic Freke style, we got semi-lost trying to get from our accommodation to the bridge. However, we saw lots of great stuff on the way, and got to the Charles Bridge from the next bridge down. We then wandered along the river bank to the bridge; and then obviously across the bridge itself. We were there early, meaning fewer crowds - which was nice.

We then hit Old Town proper. It's easy to see how it gets crowded - the buildings are close and the streets narrow. Again, I applied the Robert method of navigation (i.e. based on what looks interesting), which worked well about 50% of the time - we accidentally stumbled on the church in the wall, but then couldn't find Wenceslas and didn't realise we'd passed Municiple House. There was some stunning amber and garnet jewellery - I'm resisting it though.

The tour we took was 4 hours of walking (after already walking for 3 hours ... ) but worth the price to learn the direct ways through the Old Town (sorry Cameron) and to learn more about some of the monuments. For example, the cobblestones are mostly new (last 20 years or so), replacing bitumen. Lots of the Jewish Quarter is also turn-of-the-20th century, as it was demolished in the late 1800s and rebuilt. A restriction on new buildings keeps them in a traditional style - even if they are concrete underneath. The tour finished with a quick jaunt around the Castle - and some breathtaking reflections through the St Vitterus Cathedral stained glass windows.

Despite Cameron's claims yesterday, we were not fully over our jet lag, as demonstrated when we fell asleep at 730 before dinner. Waking up at 1130, we decided to stay asleep ... but then breakfast isn't until 8, so it was a long morning. Cameron has discovered reading though (hope you are all sitting down), and I am onto my second book (the first having been finished before reaching Korea).

Today, we are going to stay on this side of the river and explore the Castle, Petrin Hill and the Monastery up the road. We are also going to find Cameron some food - it's been hard not knowing the language to find GF stuff. You try remembering these terms:

gluten free - bezlepkový
gluten - lepek
flour - mouka
wheat - pšenice

I struggle with please (prosim) and thank you (?? - see I really can't remember) !

Cameron is coping ok with the lack of tech - we are blogging every morning at breakfast though, and there's only been one rant on my behalf about the ipod / camera / ds / etc charging / use / being made to look at. Still, there's another 5 1/2 weeks to go ...

Cameron and Vanessa

PS - Mandy - 75 steps to our room, but 100 when you count the stairs from breakfast.
PS - Cameron will post photos when he remembers how to mount a drive in linux (Sam, Andrew - stop giggling).

Europe 2007 - Day 3 - Prague

Welcome to Prague!

After a delay in Seoul Airport we finally left for Prague about 1 hour late. It was a long flight but seemed to pass a bit quicker than the last (probably helped by the jPod book and the two decent inflight movies). Prague airport was a little lackluster after Incheon - much older and certainly not as shiny or full of as many shiny things. Immigration was no where near as scary as it was in Australia or Korea - less than 30 seconds which consisted of a look at the passport, a look at the person and a stamp. Customs was even easier - no cards, just a wander thru to the arrivals hall.

In a stroke of genius Ness had pre-booked a taxi for us so all we had to do was wait wander through the arrivals gate and look for our sign. The ride itself was our first lesson; Taxi drivers are the same everywhere, although this was probably the scariest taxi ride I've ever been in (behind the one falling asleep in Sydney). This driver took late braking, tailgating and speeding to a whole new level.  The best effort was the 120km/h in the 50 zone. Still the car was cool, and obviously had good brakes. To illustrate the situation, consider this hierarchy of braking :

Where Vanessa would brake
Where Cameron would brake
Where Ken (Cam's Dad) would brake
Where taxi drivers in Brisbane would brake
Where you crash / certain death
Where our "safe" Prague taxi driver braked.

Even though everyone has been telling us, the first thing I did notice is that Prague is a beautiful city. The buildings in Praha 1 where we are are staying are just like the movies. From our room we can see the park and the castle is just behind us.

We had a little wander through the streets last night in search of dinner and money, both of which were accomplished. Then (as in Seoul) we crashed. On the bright side though we seem to have missed Jet Lag and have settled into the new time zone (about 8 hours behind Brisbane).

Today we're off to explore (probably take some photos) and grab a tour around the city. Despite my fears it's been surprisingly easy to get around not knowing a word of the language.

Cameron and Vanessa

Europe 2007 Day 2 - Seoul Airport on route to Prague

Welcome to Korea!

 

We made it through our first flying leg yesterday, 9 hours to Seoul. We started with a Brisbane moment - the gate attendant has been taught by Vanessa at Griffith - unfortunately a first class upgrade didn't appear, so perhaps she wasn't his favourite ...

 

First of all the flight - We flew with Korean Air and the flight was excellent, the food was good and the service was great. And even though the weather wasn't great one of the smoothest landings I've had in a long time. The inflight entertainment wasn't fantastic but we had a few gadgets to make it through the 9 hours. We've had an over night stop in Seoul before the 2nd leg to Prague.

 

The flight included a hotel stay at the Hyatt Seoul and again I was impressed with the hotel. It included both dinner and a full breakfast.

We arrived in Seoul with every intention of heading out and seeing some sights but after getting to the hotel and some dinner we completely crashed. Ironically, I even managed to find the Live AFL match on the in room TV something I can't even watch at home, but I couldn't even last one quarter before I fell asleep.  

 

We went for a bit of a walk around the hotel but it's about an 1 and a half hours to Seoul so there wasn't much to see. The weather here also wasn't gereat for sight seeing as it's been raining off and on since we landed.

 

We are now making the most of the fabled Korean internet - but of course we are on airport lounge machines so we don't want to connect anything to them. The keyboards here have an english button - but if I want I could mangle korean - ㅁㄴ아ㅣㄹ묘후ㅡㅁㅊ며디ㅡㅜㅊ맨냐ㅐ (Vanessa made me do that).

 

We do think that a visit in the future is on the cards - of course the Tech Fund would require some serious investment before Vanessa will let that happen. I think now we will search for some food (and maybe some tech shopping), before boarding for Prague.

 

Stay tuned for a Prague update!

Europe 2007 - T minus 1 hour

Europe 2007 - T minus 10 hours

It's 10 hours (there abouts until our flight)

We've been double and triple checking everything we're taking (and by
we I mean Vanessa). I've been making sure all the technology is
updated and charged.

I'm so very excited... I've been jumping around since I got home.

I haven't been overseas for years!

Europe 2007 - T minus 23 hours

Today is my last day before we head off. It's so close it's getting to the "have I done everything" panic stage.

Last night we repacked both our bags ready to board the plane and made sure that we had time to buy anything we needed BEFORE we were at the airport.

Today (as far as work is concerned) I'm in wrap up mode and just cruising down to the time I have to go. The other guys here aren't quite as relaxed but I'm working on them....

I can't believe it's so close!!

I'll be keeping this up to date as we travel around on our trip. I'll also try and upload photos where I can (Either here or on my Flickr site)

Back in Brisbane.

A day early back home which is nice. It was looking a little shakey as our deadline got closer but of managed to push on and get the system in and make the airport. Virgin blue was on manual (as in paper) check in when I got there and as i'd changed my flight late in the day they didn't have a record of the change so the checkin process was just a little extended at 25 mins but i still made the flight, by the skin of my teeth.
The JOOVCE headphones got another work out on the plane and they really make the flight less draining without having to battle the plane noise all the time. It's nice just to have them on, even if you're not listening to anything.
The rest of the week is likely to be crazy as I try and get everything tidied up before we go. It's so close i'm almost counting in hours!

Trip T minus 3 sleeps and counting

Only 3 more sleeps until we head off on our trip getting very close now.

To continue on from yesterday. I also picked up some other gadgetry for the trip away before my flight down yesterday, as set of JVC HA-NC80 noise cancelling headphones. I was impressed at how well they work on the plane. In "Wide" mode (which is the mode best suited to plane flight) they do an excellent job of blocking out the din of the plane flight. Switching on the noise cancelling doesn't make you feel like your in a cave deep beneath the earth we a sound hasn't penetrated for thousands of years, but the effect is great. After having them on for a while you start to notice more of the noise that they aren't cancelling but as soon  as you pull one of the can's off your head to talk to the flight attendant the noise from the flight it hits you like the first chord of a Muse concert. The most impressive statistic is the cost RRP AUD$80 for this level of cancelling is great. The quality of the sound reproduction is also impressive for the price. An excellent buy for the price and gives you excellent cancelling so you don't have to have the volume at eardrum rupturing teenage Emo levels just to hear what's going on.

The other gadgets I picked up yesterday were an iPod Camera adapter to give me plenty of storage while we're away. Simple little plug for the bottom of your ipod lets you plug the usb cable from you camera into the iPod and transfer all the data in one foul swoop. Along with that I picked up a universal iPod charger so I can keep it charged while we're away for 6 weeks.

Only 4 more sleeps

There is less than a handful of sleeps left before we leave on holidays.
Of course i've got two more flights to get through before I spend 14 hours on our first leg of the trip. I'm off to Adelaide this week setting up the last stage of a project before I leave.
We had a much later night than planned and as a result i'm running on 4 hours sleep, I'm going to try and sneak a few extra hours on the plane but it's looking a little on the full side.
Unfortunately my laptop has decided that it no longer loves the interweb and flat out refuses to connect to any network through any interface. Combined with this is the fact that the virus and firewall package is chewing up almost every system resource. This should make this week challenging to say the least.
Continuing the frustrations with technology this week I attempted to transfer some of the dvd series we hadn't got around to watching as yet to the iPod to watch on our big trip. I managed to get caught out though. I did a bit of research finding one that would do both iPod and iTV formats. However after handing over my cash i discovered that although it would transfer from Dvd, the title couldn't have copy protection as all of mind do. I'd definately give Roxio cruncher a miss. Boarding now more to come

DVDs Finally Catalogued!

After a quite a few weeks of updating I've finally got all 328 DVDs and 52 Games catalogued in the Delcious Library. Next stop is to put all the CDs... *sigh*