A Few Things That My Time In France Has Taught Me

I leave for Spain tomorrow, so I figure now is a good time for a reflective post.  But I feel I will have missed plenty of things.  Oh well.  Here goes...

• In France, people cheerfully admit to being a 'râleur' (ie a whinger).  Weird.
• Almond croissants, tarte au citron, macarons...
• Confit de canard, aligot, brebis, salade de chèvre chaud...
• Having a meal in France can really be a lengthy affair.  Btw, why is the apéro not more a part of our culture?  It's brilliant.
• It is possible to survive when supermarket hours are 8-8, closed on Sundays.
• It's kinda nice to be reminded of the time every 15 minutes, by church bells.
• Never underestimate the power (or time-consuming nature) of bureaucracy.
• The NZ schooling system is so much easier.  Maybe we're asked to process info more than rote learn (but I haven't really watched enough classroom teaching to know), but they can have 8 hours of classes, some students only have 30 mins for lunch, they get piles of homework, everything is about how many out of 20 they got...  Also, there are nowhere near as many extracurricular activities, and I didn't see any evidence of stuff like art or music at high school (well, lycée).
• People in the South West of France are rugby (and All Black) fans.
• Mountain views never get old.  However, they can produce weather which makes dressing for a full day out of the house tricky: pretty damn chilly in the am, with stinking hot arvos!
• Train travel: it's great, but you should always opt for 2 small bags over 1 big one.  Think of rolling that bag down the aisle.  Bonus points if your bags are small enough to go in the overhead rack.
• Independent travel is not so frightening after all.
• I miss cooking and baking when I don't have kitchen facilities.  How cruel, to put me in such a food-loving country and give me such a limiting space to cook.
• I'm incurably "gourmande."
• People are where it's at.  Networking is awesome.  You'll never know what good contacts/opportunities/friends you might be missing out on if you don't talk to people.
• A balance between solitude and entourage is very important.
• For the French, eating porridge is weird.  Apparently, so is a girl wearing a cap.  So is mixing up all your food on your plate (sometimes).  Sometimes, you're gonna get looked at in the street, and you will have no idea why.
• There are a lot of really good and generous people around the place.  Must remember to be more like this myself!

Post Pubelo Ingles: Still Hitting Up Madrid

Post Pueblo Ingles: Hitting Up Madrid

Pueblo Ingles: English Training Camp

Down By The Border: San Sebastian

Cordoba and The Road

Aaand... here is the beautiful city of Cordoba as I first saw it when we got off the bus.  What you can see here is the La Mezquita Catedral de Córdoba,'described as one of the most important monuments in hispano-muslim architecture.  This was our first stop.

The really interesting thing about this mosque/cathedral is that it combines Eastern and Western architecture; it was even shared by Christians and Muslims during certain periods.

After checking out the religious stuff, we moved on to royalty: this is the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos (Palace of the Christian Kings).  We had a wander through the gardens, and the palace itself.  I have to admit that I didn't find it as impressive as the Real Alcazar in Sevilla, but it was still interesting.

Just for a bit of history (and a varied one, at that): The palace was built to house Islamic leaders, but was later used as a royal residence (ie by Christian royalty), as a headquarters during the Inquisition, a town jail, and finally a military jail.   It was declared to be a historical monument in 1931, and is part of the UNESCO heritage zone.

After a bit of free time in town, we decided to take tea.  The place we went to was amazing, as you can see from the decor in the photo below.

Nothing like a bit of mint tea with some pastries to combat tiredness from early starts, long days, and lots of bus travel!  You'll have to excuse this terrible pun, but the pastries were very Moorish!  Ahahaha.

Had a bit of time for a quick walk, and went through the old city wall, before it was off to dinner, and back on the bus - for the night, this time.

One Day In Sevilla

So, if you're in Spain, you kinda have to go to a bull-fighting ring.  This was our first activity on our day in Sevilla.  Fortunately, there was no actual bullfighting going on at the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza.  It was, however, exceedingly hot in the stands while we listened to the guide.  That sun is amazingly strong.

Once again, our group was too big for me to really get what the guide was saying as we went through the bull museum, but I did manage to amuse myself by getting this shot of Kingi scaring a bull.

After a wee bit of free time, and some lunch, we visited the Cathedral.  We were game enough to climb la Giralda (lots of steps), but it was worth it for views like this.

Here are some of the bells at the top; we were up there while they rang, so that was cool- if a little worrying, as those things must be damn heavy.

Then we had a while to look through the Cathedral itself.  According to this site, it's the 3rd largest church in Europe, and the biggest Gothic building in Europe (11,520 square meters).  It was built on the site of a mosque, from 1402-1506.  Interesting fact from the same site: "In the planning stages, a member of the chapter is said to have commented, "we shall have a church of such a kind that those who see it built will think we were mad.""

Next stop, Real Alcazar: the King and members of the Royal Family still stays there when they visit Sevilla, which is why it is considered the oldest active palace in Europe.  It has been around, in one form or another, since 913, with the different proprietors each making their additions.  Now it belongs to the Council of Sevilla.  We mainly checked out the spectacular gardens.

That evening, it was off back to the host families.  Me and the other accompanying adults decided that we needed to go out and get a bit of Spanish culture.  So, what better way to do so than with tapas!