Ashes, Ashes (we all fall down?)

On Thursday April 15th a volcano erupted in Iceland.  The result: European and British airspace was utterly and completely closed down.  Luckily for my parents and I, we were already home-sweet-home from Spain, puttering around Maidstone, taking excursions to London and Canterbury, as I'm sure you so excitedly read about.  Not-so-luckily for a couple friends of mine, though, this closed airspace meant they were stranded in Europe with no clue of when or how they would return to England.  Kari was in Spain with her parents and Sarah in Denmark (according to her, the "best place in the entire world" to be stranded - NOT) with her friend Tianne. 
After several days of cancelled flights, Sarah decided to book several trains which would bring her home over the course of three days (and which would cost a ridiculous $1,000 Canadian dollars).  And why did it cost that much, you ask?  Because the Eurostar decided to make a profit from this natural disaster and exploit innocent people who just wanted to get home to their jobs and families (they charged up to TEN TIMES what they would normally charge for a one-way ticket)!  Absolutely disgusting.  Not actually sure why the British and European governments let them get away with that... But really, what choice did Sarah have?  As Timeplan teachers, we don't get paid for missing work, so the longer she was away the longer she would go without pay (and after a two-week holiday, we kinda needed the money). 
She finally made it home late Monday night and made it to work on Tuesday, exhausted but happy to be home.  Kari, who had a similar story and drove 27 hours in a rental car from Spain to France, made it to work on Wednesday.
And it seems as though my parents couldn't have picked a better day to fly home.  They left Thursday afternoon, and England re-opened its airspace on Wednesday evening.  Their flight was only delayed 55 minutes.  Perfect timing for them AND Britny (my roomate) who arrived home from Canada that same day!  Things really did work out for mom and dad and I.  But for all those poor people who slept in airports several days in a row or who paid 2,500 euro to take a taxi home...let's hope the bigger volcano that lives nextdoor to this one doesn't take its turn next holiday, shall we?

Canterbury Tales

On Wednesday April 14th my parents and I went on a day trip to Canterbury; I had heard such wonderful things about the little town and had wanted to go for a long time.  The train station in Canterbury is literally a five minute walk into the town centre which is decorated with shops, old and new, pubs, restaurants, you name it.  To get there, you pass under the Westgate city wall, a medieval gatehouse built in the late 1300s which acted as the city jails for hundreds of years. 

The journey down the block to the town centre was like something out of a fairy tale; some of the older buildings are just so adorable.  The library, for example, set on top of the cobblestone streets that stretch for miles, reminded me of the town in Beauty and the Beast - I was waiting for Belle to pop her head out of the window and start singing. 

We stopped for lunch at a pub, and two-hours later we emerged, full, but annoyed that our waitress forgot to put our order in TWICE.  We waited 50 minutes for our appetizers and then another 25 for our main meal.  I thought my dad was going to punch somebody.  The food, though, was very good (thank goodness, because if it had been crap my dad may have very well punched somebody).

After our excessively long lunch we made our way to the Canterbury Cathedral, the main tourist attraction in the town, about half-way up the street.  The cathedral is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England.  It is absolutely magnificent.  The church is enormous and  absolutely stunning to look at, both inside and out.  The cloister at the back of the church, as well as the remains of the 12th century infirmary, only make the cathedral that much more spectacular.  After the cathedral we wandered around the town for an hour or so and then decided to make our way back home  (they were offering river boat cruises which I'm sure would have been really nice and a lot of fun had it not been really cold, which was a shame).  My parents and I were really glad, though, that we made the trip to Canterbury; the town truly is adorable and the cathedral is a must-see for anybody who lives even remotely close to Canterbury. 

London Blood

Since I won't be home for my parent's 26th wedding anniversary I got them an early gift that we could share together while they were visiting - tickets to see Blood Brothers the musical in London.  We decided to make a day of it and went to London about noon to do some sight-seeing.  We wandered around, had lunch at Pizza Express, and saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Parliament Buildings, and The London Eye.  By the way, how much do you think it costs to ride this ferris wheel?  Take a guess.  £15?  Nope.  £25?  Not even close.  THIRTY SIX FREAKING POUNDS!!  To ride a ferris wheel!  Unbelievable.  I cannot believe that people would pay that.  Granted, the ride takes about a half an hour, but unless they serve a seafood dinner with beer and wine at the top, that is a ridiculous sum of money. 

We then decided that we had better find the theatre that Blood Brothers is playing at, since we didn't actually know where it's located.  That was an experience.  Note to all: Charing Cross ROAD and the Charing Cross underground stop are not even remotely close to each other.  I, however, did not know this.  So about an hour and a half later, of being absolutely (and very stressfully) lost in London, we found the stupid Pheonix Theatre.  Thank GOD, because I was losing my mind.  So we picked up the tickets and decided to take a little journey to this pub that my dad had wanted to go to eleven years ago when he and my mom were last in London.  This supposedly fantastic little pub, called The Charles Dickens, is in the most obscure place and really is not that fantastic (especially if you are a woman who needs to use the toilet, eh mom?).  So we had a couple drinks, got to sit down for a while (which admittedly was very much needed) and were off again to have dinner before the show.

We ate at a restaurant just down the street from The Pheonix called Garfunkles, and it was quite a good dinner actually.  Then to the show!  I was especially excited because Mel C (Sporty Spice, for all you Spice Girls fans) is currently playing the role of the mother.  She was really good too!  The show itself (one of the longest-running musicals in London theatre) has a contemporary nature vs. nurture plot, revolving around fraternal twins who were separated at birth. The twins' different backgrounds take them to opposite ends of the social spectrum, one becoming an Oxbridge-graduated councillor and the other unemployed and imprisoned. They, despite their mothers' desperate attempts to stop them, become best friends and fall in love with the same girl, with tragic consequences. 

It actually doesn't have a whole lot of singing in it; it's more of a drama in my opinion.  But I really enjoyed; it is very emotionally charged (with some great humour as well), and the acting I thought was brilliant.  Mom and dad enjoyed it too, so that made me happy.  After the show we took the journey back to Maidstone and made it to bed around 12:30am.  Another very long, but very enjoyable day with my parents.

Spanish Wonder

The UK gets a way better deal when it comes to Easter holidays than we Canadians do; Easter Friday plus two weeks!  Including weekends, that gives us seventeen days off.  Now that's a great Easter gift.  But what made my fantastically-long holidays even better was that I got to spend it with my parents, and in Spain on top of it! 

My friend Cara and I met my mom and dad at the airport in Madrid on Saturday April 3rd.  My parents were much more tired than Cara and I were, considering they had flown all night from Toronto, and mine and Cara's flight was only two hours.  But they muddled through that first day as we travelled to our hotel and had a small dinner at the bar in the lobby.  The next day we started our 8-day bus tour with Trafalgar Tours called The Spanish Wonder; in my opinion, the tour truly lives up to that name.

On day one we took a day trip to Toledo which is about 30-40 minutes outside of Madrid.  It was sunny but cool, especially as we made our way to the top of the gigantic mountain that overlooks the entire city, including the Saint Martin's Bridge.  The views were breathtaking, with the Alcazar and the Cathedral dominating the skyline, and the snow-peaked mountains off in the distance.  As we journeyed down the mountain we visited the Town Hall of Toledo which was built in the 16th century and the Church of Santo Tome, a beautiful synagogue.  All four of us really enjoyed Toledo, it is such a cute little town.

That evening we, along with two couples we met on our tour (Manny and Colleen and Eddie and Sue from New Jersey) took the underground to the centre of Madrid and went to the Plaza de Toros to watch a bull fight.  The matador was a young man named Daniel Loque who had just been conferred as a professional matador two years ago...and you could tell.  Pardon the brutality, but good matadors are supposed to kill the bull with one shot (or one spear, if you will); they are supposed to stab the bull so that the sword pierces it's heart on the first try.  Well, Daniel Loque did not kill the bull the first time (or any of the bulls for that matter - there are six rounds, so they kill six bulls per bull fight).  It was more like three tries with the sword and then (and again, this part is sensored) they would have to stab it in the head with a smaller knife and jiggle the knife around in it's brain to finish him off.  Once the bull was dead they would tie a rope around his neck and pull him around the ring by a couple horses, like some kind of celebratory thing.  The whole thing was disgusting and brutal and cruel and sad.  It's no wonder bull fighting is becoming less popular amoung the locals.  Admittedly I did want to see it though, and I'm glad I did, just to experience the Spanish culture, but I would definitely never watch one again.  After the bull fight we went into Madrid and had dinner with Manny, Colleen, Eddie and Sue at a place I can't remember the name of, but I had the best sea bass I've ever had.

On day two we travelled to the city of Cardoba and visited the mosque of the Caliphs which is half Catholic church, half mosque.  The place was huge and absolutely stunning.  We arrived in Seville that night and ordered a Spanish pizza and wandered around the city; a quiet, early night.  The next day we had a tour of Seville.  We started out at the Parque de Maria Luisa, a paradisical half mile of palms and orange trees, elms and Mediterranean pines, covered with flower beds and dotted with hidden bowers and ponds.  The park is designed with 1920's art deco and is the location of the stylish Guatemala buliding.  We then went to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Seville which is the third largest church in the world.  This church is the home of one of Christopher Columbus's tombs -- I say "one of" because the tomb only holds 150 grams of good ol' Chris; apparently he is buried all over the world.  The views from the tower of the church are incredible; you can see all of Seville, including the Plaza de Toros, which is pretty cool to look at from above.

After the church we went to the Alcazar, which was originally a morrish fort but is now a royal palace.  The gardens here were beautiful.  We then took a horse and buggy ride all around Seville, passing by the Andalucian Presidential Palace and a bunch of other really nice buildings.  It was a really busy but really wonderful day.

On day four, before we went to Granada, we stopped off in Carmona (the city of the dead) and went to the Necropolis which is a sight of old Roman graves for people, elephants, whatever.  This place was pretty boring actually.  I mean, massive holes in the ground.  Who cares?  Not me, I can tell you that much (and not Manny either). We did stop off for a free drink at a hotel called the Palador that was once the old palace of Pedro the Cruel where we could see the gorgeous views of Andalucia.  So it wasn't a complete waste.

We got to Granada next where we went to the Alhambra palace - this was my most favourite thing of the entire trip.  The views were just absolutely magnificent; there really is no way to describe what I saw, and pictures can't capture the true essence of it either.  Unfortunately though, I started to feel really crappy while we were there.  I had horrible stomach pains and I was up sick that entire night.  Having the stomach flu, or food poisoning, or whatever it was, is not so much fun when you're on a bus trip.  I was in excruciating pain the entire next day on our way to Valencia, and to make things worse our tour bus broke down half way there and we were stranded at a pit stop for about four hours.  I ate a couple popsicles, slept on the bus, and pretty much wanted to die.  When we finally did get to Valencia I went straight to bed, which majorly sucked.  Although, looking back, I think that was the best day for me to be sick, since we didn't really do anything anyways, and our tour of Valencia was missed and rescheduled for the next morning.  So, Valencia; we saw The Great Cathedral of Valencia (surprise, another church!), the Tower of Serrano, the military building, the train station, and the bull ring.  Valencia was short and sweet. 

Then we were off to Barcelona, but not before we stopped off in Peniscola, a little beach town that reminded me of a bigger (and much more beautiful) Grand Bend.  The beach here was really nice, and my crazy father, of course, went in to the Mediterranean Sea and froze himself to near death.  But we did have some fantastic pizza and pasta at a little restaurant down the street, and since that was the first thing I'd eaten in two days, it tasted pretty good.

When we got to Barcelona we went to the Sagrada Familia which is a still unfinished gothic church designed by the famous Gaudi.  Gaudi was an architecht who designed a whole bunch of stuff in Spain, but who is most famous for this church.  Our tour guide told us no one really knows when, if ever, this church will ever be finished.  The front of the church depicts the birth of Christ, and the back depicts the crucifixion of Christ.  It was a pretty fascinating building, considering it isn't complete, although it's not really up my alley. 

The next day we took an excursion to Montserrat, the sacred mountains of Catalonia which is the location of the Basilica Real, another church.  We went back into Barcelona after this visit and went to the Park Guell which is a very strange but beautiful park with a lot of things designed by Gaudi.  We then took a walk down La Ramblas street, home of the pickpockets, to the Rambla de Mar, a pier that houses a statue of Christopher Columbus.  Another long but fantastic day which we finished off with our farewell buffet dinner and wine.
And that was the end of our Spanish Wonder.  Lots of churches, beautiful scenery, amazing gardens, fantastic weather...a little vomit...what more could I ask for in an Easter holiday?