Yay - Photos

It would appear that this computer will allow me to upload some photos, so here I go. Hopefully it will work, but I´m not holding my breath.

Here´s Mandy at the Arch de Triomphe

Notre Dame And a scenic photo of Paris (it was very hazy while we were there).

At the Gugenheim (Bilbao Spain)

Lisborn Bridge

Mandy at Alhambra (Spain)

Alhambra gardens

Us being dorky on the tourist bus in Granada

Gaudi´s lizard (Barcelona)

Oh and here´s one of Mandy´s puffy hand. They breed nasty spiders (we´re assuming) over here.

That´s about it for now. Yes there are plenty more photos that I will bore you all to dead with.

¡Madrid es el congelar sangriento!

Damn, it´s cold!! We´ve clearly been spoilt by the weather up until now, but now we feel as though we´ve got icicles forming on us if we keep still.

We´re in Madrid, arrived yesterday, after yet another hassel with airlines. I tell ya what, we´ll be sooooooo glad once we´re done with spanish airlines. Today we got to spend another hour or so in discusions with yet another spanish airline . So we´re over airlines. But hey, as the security guard in Barcelona said, you´re on holiday - relax!! We´re trying to - really we are!!

Anyway, best be off, internet access is a killer on the budget.

Adios Barcelona - Hola Madrid

We leave Barcelona tomorrow for Madrid. This will be our final stop in the Northern hemisphere. Then we´re onto South America (more beaches & sun). After the hecticness of the past few weeks, we´ve both really enjoyed our time in Barcelona and we´ve both managed to relax again. Mind you spending time at the beach does have a calming effect. Would be good to stay a bit longer, but alas it´s time to move on.

Just had a bit of excitment here in the internet/phone place. One of the guys using the phone was having a temper tantrum yelling at whoever he was speaking with, and so the guy running the place disconnected his call (after asking him to quieten down). We could all hear what he was saying (mind you we can´t speak spanish so we were missing out). Then there was a bit of a confrontation and now everyone seems to be happy again. Seems to be how the spanish do things. Yell, throw your arms about, yell some more and then all is good with the world.

We spent yesterday wandering around Park Guell it has Gaudi´s house museum, cool mosaics etc. Again this computer doesn´t let me download photos so you´ll just have to believe me on this one. I also found an english secondhand bookshop so we managed to swap a few books so we now have something more to read. Hey Simon - you would have liked the bookshop, it was very ¨black books¨but more pretentious.

Today we wandered through Casa Bastillo, a house that was renovated by Gaudi in 1904-1906. Very cool. He used lots of natural light and colours that are pretty impressive too. Again the useage of mosaics is pretty awesome. I´m going to have to play with mosaics when I get home. We also picked up our Brazilian visas - YAY!! So we´re pretty much all set for the next part of our adventure.

Barcelona

Yay, we´ve arrived in Barcelona. We´re in the apartment and we´ve gotten rid of the car - yay!! Yesterday was a pretty stressful day, due to Barcelona traffic & roads, One World stuffing up a heap of Mandy´s flights (lucky she checked) and basically it was just not a very ¨happy¨day. But the apartment is good and we´re able to cook and do laundry (sad huh). Now we just need to sort out our visa for Brazil and all will be good with the universe (we hope!).

We arrived in Barcelona yesterday afternoon, so we haven´t really seem much of the city yet. We´ve been fairly slack today and only ventured out for a quick stroll along the beach, a visit to the Brazilian Embassy and now the internet visit. Tomorrow we will become tourists again and try and sort stuff out - hopefully some Gaudi.

Best be off. Hope all is good with ya´ll.

Sun, Sea and Surf

We left Granada Saturday morning, and we were very happy to do so. While the place was lovely it cost us a small fortune. We decided that we were tired of carrying around a heap of stuff, like jumpers and jeans and thought we would send them home - let´s just say we´re carrying stuff in future due to the cost of the postage!! So along with the cost of postage and the cost of accommodation, and the poor service we recieved in the Hotel we stayed in (Man they chucked attitude!) we left Granada happy to have seen parts of it but even happier to leave. Alhambra was pretty amazing though and I think Mandy is going to put a couple of photos on her blog so check those out.

We drove through the Seirra Navada - that we beautiful. However unfortunately the sky was way to hazy to take photos. We drove to a small town called Majacar, which is north of Almeria but on the coast. It was beautiful! And even the large amount of Poms there didn´t spoil the effect of the town. We had a cute little room that had a balcony that overlooked the beach - lovely! We even ventured into the water and had a very relaxing swim. Mind you the pebbled beaches are a bit much.

We´re currently in Alacante, and tomorrow we head for Valencia and then we´ll be in Barcelona for a week (yay, and we get rid of the car!). We´ve managed to get all our accommodation sorted out for the rest of our time in Europe and then it´s of to South America.

Best be off - check out the photos on Mandy´s blog. This computer won´t let me look at them.

Parking - OMG!!!!!!!!

Gee´s, when we decided that yep, we´ll hire a car and drive around Spain and Portugal I thought the biggest hassel would be getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road and the other drivers. But gee´s was I wrong. The worst thing has been driving through cities trying to find parking, and trying to find cheap accommodation that has parking. Well, lets just say that the budget has been blown.

I´ve learn new driving techniques. For example all you need to do to drive on the wrong side of the street, double or triple park, drive the wrong way down a one way road is to put on your hazard lights. I tell you we in Australia totally under utilise the hazard lights and have no appreciation to the full use.

We´re in Granada (and we´ve found free internet use). We spent the day at Alhambra which is pretty amazing and we´re so glad that we went. We thought we might have missed it as we read that you needed to book tickets in advance and we hadn´t. But we found a way and it was good.

Tomorrow is more touristy stuff around Granada, and our poor little feet are getting a good workout.

Hope all is good with you all and see you soon(ish)