Madrid

This morning's train ride was fairly pleasant. There was a cute old gentleman sitting across the aisle from us who absolutely adored Rachel. It took her about 2 hours to get used to the idea that he wanted to play with her. Once she figured that out, the rest of the trip was golden.

Our car only had 7 people in it: Rachel, us, the old man, another couple, and one other man. We basically had a private car. It was awesome. Rachel could do pretty much whatever she pleased, which involved a lot of running down the aisle and having tickle fights with the previously mentioned cute old gentleman.

We got into Madrid at 2:30 PM and took Rachel to the turtle pond right away. We thought she would be excited about it, but apparently turtles are only exciting in theory. She simply wasn't interested in waiting around to see when (or if) the turtles moved. They probably looked like rocks to her for all the excitement they were causing.

So we gave up on that idea and just got on the Metro to find our hotel.

It's in a wonderful location, right by the palace. We were a little worried about this hotel because they emailed us to say that a baby cot would cost us an extra 21 Euro per night. We declined the cot and thought that we'd have to endure a sleepless night with Rachel in bed with us, but instead when we checked in the man at the desk said he gave us a bigger room because they aren't very full today. Same price, but more beds. We have a double bed and a single bed, but we ended up putting Rachel in the hide-a-bed, hoping that the arms of the couch will keep her from rolling out of bed. We'll see, I guess.

We could sleep 5 grown people in our room, though. It's huge!

Anyway, after exploring our room we went to see the El Prado Art Museum. It's just a short walk from the Metro, but quite an entertaining one. The "Parade of Cows" is in Madrid right now so we got to see some interestingly painted cows. Rachel was much more excited about the cows than she was about the turtles. She couldn't stop mooing.

She was a pretty sleepy girl and fell asleep soon after we walked into the museum, which was nice. I really wasn't looking forward to spending the afternoon trying to make Rachel behave in a manner appropriate for an art museum. I couldn't have timed her nap better if I had tried!

Andrew and I had a fun time walking around the museum together. We saw a number of famous pieces, including Fra Angelico's The Annunciation, Durer's self portrait, Raphael's Cardinal, and Caravaggio's David Victorius over Goliath, and a number of still life by Sanchez Cotan. There was a multitude of paintings by Velazquez. He seemed to be pretty special to the museum. There's even a statue of him out front.

There's nothing really modern in the museum, which I appreciated. Modern art isn't something I am able to eat up. Most everything was from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque time periods. A lot of things were originals, but some things mentioned that it was a copy of an original, which sounds kind of lame until you realize that the mimicked artwork was finished in the 1600s so is still older than most of America's history.

That cracks me up about Europe. When we were in the Seville Cathedral there was a sign mentioning that only two of the towers were original--the others were added later on. In like the year 1500. When I first started reading the sign I thought it was going to say that the others were reconstructed in 1995 or something like that, but no...they aren't original because they were built in 1500 instead of 1400.

Anyway, the museum was nice even after Rachel woke up, although instead of talking about the paintings and artists and styles, Andrew and I started pointing out horses and dogs and babies to keep Rachel occupied. I'm sure glad she wasn't awake for much of the museum because she sure was a handful once she was up!

Me in front of the Prado

It was pretty much dark when we left the museum but we headed off to see the Royal Palace, anyway.

We didn't spend a lot of time there because it was:
A) closed to the public
B) cold
C) nearing Rachel's bedtime.

But we did see the main buildings: the palace, the opera house, and the cathedral, as well as a statue of a horse. We never miss seeing those with Rachel around.

And that's the last we'll see of Europe for a while, I guess. Goodbye clean water. Farewell fresh air. Adios good food. We'll miss everything about Europe...except the high prices!

Goodbye Euros...Hello Moroccan dirhams!

Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda,

Here we are in Spain, Granada!

Spain's been very entertaining, and we're having fun although it has been raining.

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. That song has been stuck in my head for days so it was inevitable that it would end up on the blog.

Our train pulled into the Granada station at 9:45 PM, which is pretty late for a sleepy city like Granada. The first thing we noticed was that it was cold in Granada--several degrees cooler than Cordoba and Seville. We were freezing.

Next we noticed that hardly anything was open. The serrandas were all drawn and the streets were gloomily empty. The graffiti on the walls added a grungy feel to the city and, since there is so much construction and restoration work going on, many of the routes we ended up taking were simply small tunnels under scaffolding.

It felt like we were sneaking around like sewer rats, unwanted in the cold, wet alleys of the city.

We'd only been in Granada for 10 minutes and I already didn't like it.

We asked for directions at every opportunity that presented itself and ended up wandering around far more than should have been possible. Finally we ran into some tourists huddled around a map.

They let us borrow it for a minute and we were able to figure out where we were and how to get to the main square in town. There was another map there and we were able to locate our hotel and walk straight to it.

Our hotel room was warm and cozy and made Granada seem a lot more friendly. I decided to hold off judgement about the city until the morning.

Things usually look better in the morning (unless, of course, you happen to be Rachel, in which case they look far worse), and Granada was no different.

Why did you wake me up? WHY!?

With the serrandas open, half the graffiti of the city was gone. The streets were full of people and the sunshine had cheerfully pushed away the rain clouds. We enjoyed a brisk walk up a steep, narrow hill to the Alhambra. It was a lot colder than we were expecting it to be. We could see our breath; and there was ice. (Two things you don't get often, if ever, in Cairo).

We were excited to see the Alhambra but weren't too happy to find out that the ticket booth is a 10 minute-walk uphill from the entrance gate. We had to walk past the entrance gate...for 10 minutes...buy our tickets, and then walk back to the entrance. Who thought that one up?

They schedule time for tourists to visit the Palacios Nazaries (Nasrid Palaces), and our time was 11:00 which meant that we had to just hang around until then. Rachel was pretty impatient, but it was well worth the wait. It was very ornate. I can't imagine how much work went into creating all that detail. Seeing it made me want to go see the Taj Mahal more than ever--this is kind of how I imagine the Taj Mahal would be, only on a bigger scale.

It was so cold inside the palace, though, that it was all we could do to keep warm. We kept having to add more clothes. First we put on our gloves, and then after a while added our hats. It was freezing. But Rachel thought it was fun to see all the "wa-wa" so she cheered up a bit. She loves a good fountain.

We tried letting her run around by herself for a bit but she was so overwhelmed and distracted by everything that she kept running into people, so we had to keep her in the stroller.

Once we got outside of the palace things started to warm up, at least a little bit. The sun had made the final push over the hills and we could feel what little warmth it offered. It at least let us enjoy the Generalife gardens without the annoyance of our teeth chattering.

Clearly we were not expecting Granada to be this cold. It was so cold that, for me, it was almost not enjoyable. If everything hadn't been so beautiful I would have focused entirely on being cold and miserable (which, for me, are synonymous). But as it was, things were quite beautiful and every now and then I decided that I liked Granada, despite the cold. It's not Granada's fault it was so cold.

Besides, we had plenty of exercise carrying Rachel's stroller up and down all the stairs, which helped keep us warm. There are so many stairs at the Alhambra! I'm not even kidding. I don't know what the royal families did when they grew old and couldn't use stairs anymore; there's no such thing as a rambler here.

Things would even be marked as wheelchair accessible, so we'd go in with Rachel's stroller only to find that there are scores of stairs every direction we looked, but no ramp or lift of any sort.

Sometimes we'd go up one staircase and go down another only to find that we didn't have to go up the stairs to get where we wanted to go at all. We joked the whole time that the only reason the Alhambra was an Arab stronghold for so long was because it was built on this blasted hill that no one wanted to climb in order to overthrow them.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the sole reason they were in Spain for so long, actually.

From up on that hill you'd already have a perfect view of everything going on around you...and then they built this super tall tower to give even more of an advantage. We could see for miles!

I was planning on taking a nice picture of Andrew holding Rachel with the city sprawling out behind them (since we haven't taken any pictures like that before *sarcastic wink*), but Rachel wouldn't look. When Andrew prompted her to look at me by saying, "Where's Mommy?" the whole setup completely fell apart. Rachel squirmed out of his arms, ran over to me, and gave my leg a big hug.

Leaving the Alhambra was a lot easier than it was coming; we just had to do our best to keep up with the stroller. Rachel was, as you can see, in a much better mood.

For all the complaining I've done about Granada so far, you might have come to the conclusion that I didn't like it. But that's not true. I did like it. I just didn't like being so utterly lost upon arrival. And I didn't like how cold it was. But it was a pleasant place to be. Surprisingly enough, we found it less touristy than Cordoba. The prices were better and things were less crowded. It really was quite a charming city, in broad daylight, when we knew where we were.

I especially enjoyed it from the cafe we ate lunch in. I tried a potato tortilla, Andrew had a bacon-something-or-other, and we enjoyed our lunch looking up at the Alhambra from the valley, in the warmth of the restaurant.

I also enjoyed the moss. I love moss. I think I'll always be a Vancouver girl at heart and moss just makes me feel at home.

After we were full of such wonderful, warm food it was a shame to head out into the cold again. Such a shame that we decided to go back to our hotel and take the afternoon off. It was wonderfully relaxing and Rachel actually took a nap, which helped improve her mood even more.

When she woke up we got all bundled up to go outside again. If we wanted to visit the cathedral we were going to have to get a move on it. It closed pretty early, we thought, but we made it in time, purchased our tickets, and went inside. The cathedral was a lot smaller than it looked from the outside. So small, in fact, that we weren't sure we were in the right place.

We weren't.

We had purchased tickets just for the Crypt and Museum of the Catholic Kings at the Royal Chapel (Capilla Real) of Granada. It houses the crypt of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the King and Queen that sponsored Columbus' journey across the Atlantic Ocean, as well as some more members of the royal family. That was cool to see, although Rachel was a little freaked out.

She really doesn't like statues of people--they worry her for some reason--and since there were several statues around, including some huge ones on top of the crypt, Rachel was pretty nervous the whole time. For some reason she finds cherubim particularly worrisome. She just doesn't like that innocent "babies" are frozen in stone, I guess.

We were a little disappointed with our visit because we had hoped that we would get to see the rest of the cathedral. But the allowable pathway through the Royal Chapel is clearly marked and there was no where to go but out.

Determined to get inside, we wandered around the cathedral for some time until we noticed two people coming out of a hallway, hidden from view by the cathedral wall. We followed it and found the entrance to the cathedral! We were pretty excited.

It was basically deserted inside (apparently no one else could find their way in, either), but it was one of the nicest cathedrals either of us had been to. Instead of austere silence, they were piping cheerfully reverent classical music through speakers.

The sun was just starting to set, making the stained glass windows on the west wall glow in vibrant, warm tones. It was simply gorgeous.

One of my favorite things was all the music books they had on display. Each song began with a beautifully illuminated letter and there was a beautiful border around each page. They are big, too! They are about as half as tall as I am! They had a book sitting on the conductor's stand by the choir seats and we could read it from the floor, that's how big the font is. It must take a million page turns to get through a single song!

Rachel's favorite thing was...any guesses? A statue of a horse. For some reason statues of animals don't bother her as much as statues of human figures. Horse statues don't bother her at all. In fact, she prefers statue horses to real horses. Our visit to the cathedral was a wonderful way to crown our stay in Granada. It was nice to spend the afternoon in such a relaxing atmosphere. Kind of a shame we didn't have more time in Granada--there were a few more things we wanted to see, but if we wanted to do anything in Madrid (which we did) we had to cut our Granada experience a little short.

Just another day in Cordoba

Seeing how we so gracefully missed the morning bus to Madinat Azahara Tuesday morning, and the afternoon bus got back too late for us, our last day in Cordoba was a bit more relaxed than planned. Sometimes it's good to just slow down and have fun instead of racing around trying to get everything done.

First we went to see the synagogue; it was closed when we tried to visit it on Sunday. It's a pretty small building and we were only allowed in the main room. It was used as a synagogue until the Jews were expulsed from Spain in 1492; after that it was used as a house for hydrophobes. Now it's just a tourist attraction.

It only costs 30 cents to get in, but it is free for EU nationals. The guard didn't charge us anything, just waved us inside. Either he figured we were EU nationals or didn't think 60 cents was worth getting off his chair and walking to the front desk.

Rachel had a hard time in the synagogue. It was the first thing we did in the morning. Do you see a theme yet? Let me spell it out for you. Rachel + mornings = grumpy. It's a pretty simple equation.

Andrew asked us to smile for a picture. I smiled, Rachel gave him a wonderful pouty face. That picture, unfortunately, didn't turn out. So with the next picture we both went for pouty. Rachel covered up her mouth. Maybe she was embarrassed?

There were inscriptions of scriptures all along the walls. Many of them had been destroyed, but there were several others still intact.

We went to Alcazar after the synagogue. It was great! Rachel loved going up in the towers and looking down on the gardens. She would balance her forehead right on the glass and just stare out the window.

Andrew and I took turns going up into the highest tower because there isn't a very good guardrail, at least not good enough to meet the high standards of an overprotective mother-of-a-dare-devil.

I went up first while Andrew and Rachel played on the castle wall. When I came down to meet them and was almost within arms reach of Rachel, she took off running, aiming directly at a gap between some crenellations.

I grabbed for her but missed. And then I freaked out.

I thought she was going to go over the edge for sure. But, bless those Spaniards and their safety protocol, she didn't. I had failed to see that there were glass barriers between each of the crenellations and assumed there was just open air between them. Apparently I've lived in Egypt far too long.

It took me a few minutes to catch my breath. I swear I almost had a heart attack! But, Rachel is still alive and all is well.

Once I stopped hyperventilating I was actually able to enjoy the view, and quite the view it was, too. Again, maybe it's that I've lived in Egypt too long, but that clear, blue sky just sweeps me off my feet every time I see it!

And everything is so green here! Even the roofs grow green stuff!

Once off the roof and on firm ground again, Rachel was free to explore. Andrew and I were exploring, too, of course, but we were letting Rachel take the lead in our little expedition. She was mostly looking for statues/pictures/mosaics of horses and even found a few, which she joyously shared with us.

The baths were quite the maze. Rachel had a fun time popping out of doorways at us. She makes the most wonderful faces!

When we had looked over almost every inch of the castle itself, we started on the gardens, which were immense and immaculate! There was a friendly little cat that followed us around for a few minutes. Andrew and I both gave it a good rub down, in turn, and then it wanted some attention from Rachel. She did not want anything to do with it, even though it was a clean, undiseased cat, and obviously very used to people. It kept trying to rub against Rachel's leg, purring up a storm. She screamed and ran away. Just another sign that we've been in Egypt for far too long already!

The cat soon gave up on Rachel and went to glean attention from some other tourists. We left to see more of the gardens. Getting from point A to point B looked so simple when we looked down on the gardens from the towers, but once we were actually in them they were rather hard to navigate.

The whole garden is a series of ponds, waterfalls, and fountains. Gravity seems to be what drives the whole setup. It was so amazingly intricate--I can hardly imagine planning a garden like that today with electric pumps, let alone doing it hundreds of years ago.

Rachel was really excited to see the fish ponds full of goldfish and catfish. Fish are almost as exciting as horses, if not more so, since fish can't really "get" Rachel and a horse can. Poor Rachel, afraid of so many fun things! She probably will never get a pet horse, and I'm not sure she'll ever go for a cat or a dog, but she might do okay with a bird or a fish...we'll see.

Andrew was having a fun time with the fish, as well. He would spit into the pond and the catfish would race to his loogie and gobble it up. It was quite disgusting to watch. Don't worry, I made him stop. The goldfish, oddly enough, were smart enough to know that it wasn't really food.

After the fish we wandered off into part of the garden that reminded me a little of The Secret Garden, Alice in Wonderland, and Beauty and the Beast all mixed together. It made Andrew think of Lord of the Rings.

The hedges were all trimmed into shapes--there were even a few small "mazes"--and there were mossy statues of royalty all over the place. Andrew and I decided that we want a garden like this one (as long as it comes with a landscaping crew so we don't actually have to do the work ourselves).

We wandered around the gardens until mid-afternoon, when we decided we should probably get something for lunch. Andrew picked an orange off a tree and put it in his pocket.

We've been wondering how anyone could go hungry in this country with all the orange trees around. Oranges are so plentiful here they're like manna from heaven. Oddly enough, no one seems to eat them.

We read on Wikipedia that the oranges in Seville are too bitter to eat and so are turned into marmalade and other orangey treats. It didn't say anything about oranges in Cordoba so we figured we'd try one.

We now know why the locals just kick them around on the ground instead of harvesting them for free produce. The oranges are very bitter, indeed. I usually like sour things, but this was much, much too sour.

It took almost a full liter of water to wash the taste out of our mouths, and when our eyes had finished watering, we headed off to the Puente Romano again.

We had been planning on going to a little museum on the other side of the river but got sidetracked when we saw a sign for a grocery store. We've been running low on Rachel-behavior treats, which are absolutely 100% necessary, and have been trying to replenish our supply, but between late openings, siestas, and early closures we hadn't been able to find a grocery store.

So instead of going to the museum we went on the hunt for the Eroski market, and only got sidetracked at a playground for about a half hour before we found it.

Eroski ended up being in a huge mall complex. It's kind of like Carrefour, only it's not Carrefour or it would have been called that. It's basically your local European Wal-Mart. It has everything from groceries to clothes. Andrew found a fleece jacket on sale for 3 Euro. Just my size. And we found a whole little tub of goldfish crackers for about 1 Euro. Never underestimate the power of a goldfish!

And that was pretty much the end of our day in Cordoba. We walked from the grocery store back to our hostal to retrieve our luggage, then we went off to another park/playground combo to wait until it was time for our train to Granada to leave. Andrew left us playing while he went off in search of dinner, but the doner place he wanted to eat at was closed so we just grabbed some pastries at the station.

The ride to Granada was pleasant. Rachel stayed awake the whole time, of course, which was amazing because she only had a 10 minute nap the whole day...she's just not a sleeper...but at least she was happy the whole time we were on the train.