First Impressions of London

On July 28th, my first full day in London, I met up with my friend Adam at 9am to get started on a full day of touring! This was my first time in London and I wanted to make sure I saw as much as possible! Adam volunteered to show me around and be a tourist with me, making my day much more enjoyable and fun, and definitely much more efficient, as he had planned out our route based on the key sites I wanted to see.
We started with the Tower of London, a large fortress built to guard the entrance of London. It has been used for many purposes over the years including a royal residence, an armory, a treasury and a prison.



My favourite place in the Tower of London was the Jewel House where the Crown Jewels were on display. It was just incredible to see all the diamonds and jewels in the crowns, the swords, and all the other Royal items.
From the Tower of London we walked across the Tower Bridge, which was completed in 1894.
  Me and Adam on the bridge:
We then stopped for a quick lunch, where I ate some very British food (¨Sausages and Mash¨) then continued on to see the London Eye, the world´s highest Ferris wheel. It reaches a height of 135 meters, and takes about 30 minutes to ride. Unfortunately the line was incredibly long, so we decided not to go for a ride.
From there we went to see the Houses of Parliament and the famous clock tower Big Ben.
Right behind Big Ben is Westminster Abbey, London´s oldest church. Since it cost equivalent to about $30 Canadian to enter, we decided to admire it only from the outside.
From there we walked through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace.
Me at the gates to the Palace:
We then made our way over to Piccadilly Circus. I was a little surprised when I arrived. I´m not sure what I was expecting, but Piccadilly is basically a square in London, with a fountain. Piccadilly also refers to the area around the square, which consists of lots of shops, restaurants, etc.
Our last stop of the day was Hyde Park, a huge and beautiful park in the city. It has a very large pond in the middle, where people can rent paddle boats and take a little boat ride.


It was a long but amazing day!! I love London!! It is such a great city, with lots to see! It has a very good vibe to it, and it helps, of course, that everyone speaks English!!

Spain Endings and Trip to London

We left Malaga July 24th and headed back to Madrid. Chad was flying back to Canada the following day and we wanted a bit of time in Madrid before he left. When we arrived in Madrid our first task was to find a luggage. Over my 5 weeks of traveling I had accumulated many things, and my backpack had grown to be extremely large and heavy. Chad agreed to take an extra luggage full of my belongings back home so I wouldn´t need to carry them around with me for the remainder of my trip. We found a nice duffel bag at El Corte Ingles (the trusty department store that saved me from my computer problems) and I loaded it up with some of my unnecessary belongings and almost all my purchases.
That evening we went for a nice dinner at a sushi restaurant close to our hotel.

The following morning Chad left for the airport. I was very sad to see him leave, as we had a wonderful 2 weeks together.
The rest of my time in Madrid was spent in a pretty low key manner. I went for a very nice exploratory walk through the city.
I walked down Gran Via street (one of the main streets in Madrid, full of shops,  restaurants, bars, cinemas, etc.) to the Plaza de Cibeles, where there is a fountain with a statue of the Roman goddess Cybele, as well as the Palacio de Comunicaciones.

I then walked over to the Plaza de la Independencia, where the large archway (La Puerta de Alcala) stands.

From there I went to the Parque del Retiro, a large park in the city where people go to relax and get away from the city atmosphere.

In the center of the park is the Monumento a Alfonso XII with a large pond in front, where people can rent boats for a relaxing boat ride.

I spent some time in the park, sitting on the grass, relaxing. It was nice to get away from the sounds of the city.
My last stop of my little walk was at Puerta del Sol, a large square in the middle of the city. It holds the Kilometer Zero mark, which is the origin of Spain´s road network.

Also in Puerta del Sol is a statue of a bear reaching for fruit in a strawberry tree. It is the symbol of Madrid.
From Madrid I was going to London. I bought a 13 hour overnight train ticket to Paris for the night of July 26th.
The overnight trains are strange here. If you are traveling alone (and do not want to pay for a private cabin) and would still like to sleep in a bed, you are put in a 4-person room (with 4 beds) full of strangers, all of the same sex. It is a very very tiny cabin, with absolutely no walking room, just 2 small bunk beds. Luckily I got the bottom bunk, and slept the entire way.
I arrived in Paris at 8:30am on July 27th and set out to find a means of transportation to London. I hadn´t booked anything in advance for my travel from Paris to London because a) I had run out of planning time, and b) I figured it would be easy (and not too expensive) to get from Paris to London.
I found the ticket booths and asked for a train ticket to London (preferably the cheapest ticket they had, leaving as soon as possible. Unfortunately all the ¨cheap¨ tickets were completely sold out, and so were almost all of the seats on all the trains leaving that day. My only ticket option for that day would mean waiting in Paris for 7.5 hours and paying substantially more than I would have had I purchased my ticket in advance. My other option was to stay the night in Paris and get a cheaper ticket for the following day.
Since I had prepaid for my London hotel, and the cost of losing one night of hotel in London plus the cost of one night´s hotel in Paris was more than the difference between the elevated ticket cost and the ¨cheaper¨ ticket for the following day, I purchased the overpriced ticket.
I spent the following 7.5 hours waiting, sitting on the floor of the Paris train station (the waiting rooms were reserved only for people who checked in, and whose train was leaving within the hour), since there were no seats anywhere!
My train ride from Paris to London was pretty cool. I finally saw the famous Channel Tunnel, the 50.5 km undersea tunnel that connects England with France. I was surprised with how smooth the train ride was!! One moment we were rolling through France countryside, and the next moment everything outside went dark. We were only in the tunnel for a short amount of time (it felt like about 10-20 minutes, but I didn´t look at my watch, so I could be pretty off on the time), but the experience was well worth the price of the train ticket.
I arrived in London, completely exhausted, after 23 hours of travel (Madrid to Paris: 13 hours, Paris waiting: 7.5 hours, Paris to London: 2.5 hours), and immediately hopped in a taxi to take me to my hotel. It was a very tiring day, but I was so excited because it was the beginning of my adventure in London!

Malaga, Spain

We left Granada the morning of July 22nd and took a train to Malaga, Spain. We chose Malaga as our next destination because it is a city in the south of Spain right on the water with nice beaches. We had been touring Spain and Portugal for 1.5 weeks and wanted a little break from touring.
We booked 2 nights at the beach hotel La Chancla, a small hotel which lies directly on the beach. When researching hotels we found that most hotels have a major road separating the hotel from the beach, and we didn´t want that kind of separation! We wanted really easy access to water, and thus La Chancla was the perfect choice. The back of the hotel was directly on a beautifully sandy beach, and our room had an amazing view of the water! It also provided us with a basket of fresh fruit in our room every day. Amazing!
We arrived at 10:30am, so we had the entire day (and the next) to relax at this beautiful hotel.
The hotel had a rooftop hot tub with a great view of the water. We went there first. Chad didn´t want to go into the water because the temperature outside was over 40 degrees (Celsius). But since it was so hot outside, the hot tub actually felt cold! It was nice and refreshing!
We spent the rest of the day at the beach:

 


  The view from our room window:
In the evenings all the bars and cafes along the water came alive and filled with people eating and drinking with friends.
Along the water, on the sand or next to the sand on a patch of grass, there were many small bonfires in little boats. These little bonfires were used to cook fresh fish from the sea in little restaurants. We thought we´d try it out!
Here´s a photo of Chad watching the fish being cooked in the bonfire boat:
Our dinner:
The next night we had some more fresh seafood at another restaurant. He had swordfish and I had squid. So delicious!!
Our two days of relaxing on the beach was exactly what we needed. It was a wonderful end to our time together as Chad was returning to the cold of Canada two days later and I was continuing on to London, England.

Granada, Spain

We arrived by train in Granada, Spain on the late afternoon of July 20. We were so tired from the train and traveling that we spent most of the afternoon relaxing at the hotel, and later went out for a nice dinner.
The following day we woke up nice and early to go explore the Alhambra, a large palace complex built in the 13th century by the Moorish rulers of that period.  Its central palace is ornately decorated with finely crafted details using simple available construction materials like wood and clay.  The palace is amazingly well preserved considering it´s age, and that it endured an attack by Napoleon´s troops.
It was interesting to walk through the extremely large complex because you can see that through the centuries, different rulers built their own houses and buildings within the complex, thus creating varied architectural styles. But for the most part it was done in Moorish architecture (Islamic architecture), which was a big change from the Roman architecture I had been used to seeing! I really enjoyed it. There was so much detail in every piece of work. We learned that the Alhambra was built to resemble paradise on earth.
Here are some photos from the Alhambra:
  Everything was so beautiful and peaceful looking! Look at the detail of the wall carvings:
We had a great time exploring the Alhambra!
When Chad arrived he told me he was worried that during our 2 weeks together we would have a few days of rain and I laughed and said ¨no, no, no… it never rains in Spain!! Spain never has bad weather!!¨ Of course he thought I was crazy and didn´t stop making fun of me for the whole trip. But really, from my limited experience in Spain (my 2 months living in Barcelona), it hardly ever rains in Spain in the summer and it seems to me that the weather is always beautiful! (Beautiful being of course: extremely sunny and above 40 degrees Celsius every day). So, when we had a full 5 minutes of rain during our visit to Alhambra, I got told by Chad how wrong my bold weather statements were about Spain. But I still hold my belief that Spain has incredible weather, and 5 minutes of very refreshing rain does not make bad weather!
After our visit to Alhambra, I stayed at the hotel and Chad ventured out to find a grocery store. He returned with some snacks and beer. At the grocery store, Chad was faced with a wide selection of beer, all of different brands and types. He saw this very mysterious looking can of beer called ¨Sin¨ and was intrigued. He bought a 6-pack for us. When he returned to the room he opened one of the beers and when it tasted a little different, he asked me what ¨sin¨ meant in Spanish. The word ¨sin¨ means ¨without¨, and immediately Chad realized that he had bought us a 6-pack of non-alcoholic beer. We had a good laugh and drank some wine instead.
All in all, it was a short, but really good visit in Granada.

Madrid Endings and Seville

Our last day in Madrid was unfortunately not spent touring this amazing city. We awoke to some seriously major technical difficulties with my computer, and spent the entire day dealing with them. Thanks to the computer department team at El Corte Ingles (a European department store), and many infuriating hours, all was sorted out by the end of the day. I am finally back on my two feet technologically, and I will be carrying with me just a little more Spanish than I would have if I hadn´t encountered this problem.
The morning of July 19th we had train tickets from Madrid to Seville for 9am. We arrived at the train station around 8:30am (just to be on the safe side) and went searching for the platform, but we couldn´t find where we were supposed to go! We finally asked someone and they informed us that the train departing for Seville was leaving from a different train station in Madrid. Apparently there are 3 train stations in the city, and we went to the one we had arrived at (from Lisbon, Portugal), not realizing that was not where our Seville train would be leaving from. Luckily we were able to have our tickets changed (free of charge) for the 11am train (since there was no way we would make it across the city to the other train station on time).
For safety purposes, Chad has been wearing a money-pouch that hangs around his neck, under his clothing, and rests on his stomach. We have been keeping our passports, extra cash, Euro-rail passes, and other valuables in the pouch. So, when we finally found our train, and were asked to show our Euro-rail passes, naturally I turned to Chad and lifted up his shirt in search of the money pouch (forgetting that we put the pouch in my purse right before entering the train station). And, when not finding the passes on his stomach I freaked out. I can´t imagine what the ticket lady must have been thinking (¨what crazy Canadians, strip searching each other for Euro-rail passes??¨). Luckily I quickly remembered where they were and grabbed them from my purse, and all was well again.
The train ride was so smooth and comfortable! We each had a table/desk in front of us. They even gave out headsets and played a movie, just like on planes! We were pretty impressed!
Once we arrived in Seville, we found our hotel, and then went walking around the city. It´s a small, beautiful city, with lots to see, right on a river. We were not prepared for the intense heat though! At around 5pm the temperature was 42 degrees Celsius!!
We first walked along the water down to the famous bull fighting ring: Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza. We had wanted to get tickets to the bull fight since Chad had never seen one (I saw one when I lived in Barcelona), but unfortunately there was no fight going on that day. Instead we went for a tour of the bull ring and into the small museum. The bullring was built in the late 1700s and seats up to 14,000 spectators.
  You can tell pretty clearly how hot it was outside by our glowing faces:
We were pretty hot from walking around so we took a little break at a bar right on the water and had some delicious Mojitos. (That´s me standing at the bar ordering us more  Mojitos in the background of the photo below)
We then passed by the Torre del Oro:
We then went by this really large and beautiful building that houses the Archive of the Indies, which contains documents and artifacts that relate to the colonization of the Americas by the Spanish.
Right behind this building we found the huge gothic Cathedral and La Giralda (it´s bell tower), built in the early 1400s. Unfortunately since it was Sunday evening, the cathedral was closed and we were unable to walk around inside. We still had an amazing view from the outside.
We also saw the outside of the Real Alcazar, Seville´s Royal Palace. Unfortunately it was also closed.
We strolled around for a few hours and then had dinner at a local Tapas bar. Tapas are small appetizer plates, and they are very popular in Spain. You generally order a number of different tapas, and all together they form a filling meal. 
One thing that I found pretty cute about Seville is their pedestrian walk/do not walk lights at intersections. I am so used to the lights in Canada, with a stationary little green or red man as a walking indicator, but here in Seville, they have a moving little man and a countdown to how many seconds you have left. He first starts out walking slowly, then as the time left decreases he starts walking faster, until he is sprinting for the last 5 seconds. I took a photo of him but clearly you can´t tell from the photo that he´s moving. But he´s still pretty cute!
As we were leaving Seville I noticed the size of my backpack. It has somehow grown extremely large through my travels!!
Just to compare, this is me with my backpack as I was leaving Toronto a month ago:
This is me as I was leaving Seville:
Notice how the top of the backpack rises about a foot above my head, while before it was almost at the same height as me!!
We could have easily spent a few days exploring Seville, but we had train tickets for Granada leaving the following morning.  We loved our short time in Seville and hopefully it won´t be our last!