Day 12: Moving on and settling in

Quiet day today and I’m sure the 4 bottles of wine last night had nothing to do with it! We picked up the rental car and the airport, packed up and said goodbye to my family.  Then we headed down the road (with endless roadworks between Glasgow and Stirling… grrr….) to get to Frank’s family.  Stopped by Grandma’s for a cup of tea and to say hello before heading to the flat we’ll be calling home for the next week.  Holy model homes Batman!  This place is amazing!  Newly built with everything you could possibly think of to make things easy – except a hair dryer.  It’s right down the street from the garage where Frank used to work before he emigrated.

We then proceeded to clean out Sainsbury’s – it’s amazing how quickly the “must haves” add up to more than 100 pounds!  It will be interesting to how much we actually eat.  We unpacked and got some laundry started and decided that we really weren’t up for a big night out.  So we picked up gran and hit the chippy and had quite the order: one fish supper, one haggis supper, one chicken nuggets supper, one steak pie supper and one chicken supper.  Yup all deep fried and yummy and incredibly bad for us!  We then showed off all the photos from Spain and we’ll call it an early night.

Three things we noticed today:

1. Chips from a chip shop are the best way to eat potatoes.  Period.  Even without vinegar (all they have here is malt vinegar so none for me), they are the yummiest thing around.
2. Scottish people, especially grannies, are incapable of serving tea without biscuits.
3. The only TV service available (besides the basic 5 channels) is satellite – no cable – which is interesting considering most of the country is covered in clouds and rain most of the time.

Day 11: History and family

Not surprisingly, we didn’t actually make it to Arran today – something about not being able to actually see the island itself let alone the particular hill that we wanted to climb. So we slept on…..

And eventually got everyone up and about and we were ready to go…. but where?  To Culzean castle, a castle and stately home I hadn’t visited since I was about 10.  The kids (minus Duncan) did a gorge walk on the property  while the rest of us toured the castle and learned all about the family that held the title to the castle for hundreds of years before death duties made it necessary to turn the property into a national monument.

After the tour, we made a stop in Monkton at cousin Susan’s house and chatted about her recent holiday in Italy and compared that to our experience in Spain (no comparison really!)  But then it was back to Barassie for our last night with my family before heading to see the Cannon clan. A bottle of Prosecco started the evening and it was all down hill from there…

Three things we noticed today:

1. It rains in Scotland. A lot.  Not that we didn’t know this but once you’ve had a while day with blazing sunshine and no rain, you forget that the default is for grey skies and drizzle.
2. Even when it rains, the Scots don’t hide inside.  They would spend all their lives indoors if they did.
3. Supermarkets are they as similar as they are different.  For everything you find in an obvious place in this market, you’ll find an equal number of oddly placed items in the next shop.

 

Day 10: Traditions and Sunburns

Stephen was the only one required to be up early today – something about having to go to work and earn a living.  Like that’s important!    I was the only one up to see him off and enjoyed a peaceful cup of tea while everyone caught up on some sleep.  Frank joined me later and after quick showers, we wandered down the beach road to the  local convenience store to buy sugar – an essential supply for the Cannon family to have tea; surprisingly the Bargh family doesn’t take sugar (actually they don’t really drink tea which makes me wonder if we’re really related.)  It was a gorgeous morning with brilliant sunshine and a cool breeze coming in off the Atlantic, a lovely break from the heat of Spain.

Eventually, the rest of the house stirred and the day began.  Coffee in the sunshine of the back garden while the teens got ready for the bi-annual rock diving expedition.  Apparently what started as a lark four years ago  has become a tradition and the kids felt the need to jump off the rocks at Barassie Beach.  Luckily it was screaming sunshine and nearly 70 F (quite balmy if you ignored the breeze off the ocean!)  After jumping and swimming in incredibly cold water, the teens felt the need to get ice cream at the Marina Cafe – owned by the family of  my dear friend Lorena, whom I have known since I was 10.  I stopped by to say hello as well and it was as if we had just seen each other a few weeks ago.  How I love the connections of youth that carry on into one’s older years!

We then spent a good deal of the afternoon having tea and biscuits (not me, but everyone else) in the back garden of my Auntie Alice’s house. She was my mom’s best friend when they were growing up and the real root of the Cannon-Bargh relationship.  Although it started with my mom and Alice and then continued with their oldest daughters (me and Fran), it has now been truly cemented with the first round of grandchildren, regardless of whether they are 3rd or 4th cousins.

A quick stop at the grocery store to bolster the alcohol and GF supplies, and we were in the Bargh’s garden again barbequing lamb and kebabs.  Eventually the sun faded a bit  and that’s when we noticed the sunburns:  what we had successfully evaded in the scorching sun of Spain by the relentless application of sunscreen, we succumed to in Scotland by the naive assumption that sunscreen was unnecessary. (Who gets sunburned in Scotland for heaven sake?)

Loads of aloe vera cream was applied before the teens headed out to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the grownups worked to support the European wine industry.  Rumor has it that we are getting up early to hike the highest hill on the Isle of Arran.  We’ll see how that goes.

Three things we noticed today:

1. Family sticks regardless of the circumstances. We may be separated by time, distance, and cirmstances but watching our kids act like they see each other every day makes lots of things worth it.
2. Right hand drive takes time to get used to even if you grew up with it.  Frank was the first one to admit that he’s glad he won’t have to drive here until we’ve had a few days to adjust.  If he had to navigate the roundabout outside Prestwick Airport last night, we’d be toast.
3. Sunny and cool in Scotland is the perfect antidote to hot and sticky in DC.  And we’ve been told the reverse is also true.

Day 9: Spain, Scotland, and the Sword

Our last day in Spain is also a transition day – and a long one at that.  Up early to get showered, packed and out to the Alhambra in time for our 9 am visiting time to the Nazrid palace.  We had no idea what that actually meant until we got there but afterwards it all made sense.  There reallly are no words to describe the Alhambra adequately – Versaille is the closest comparison I can think of but that still doesn’t fit as the timing and the details are wrong although the scale is pretty close.

It is a set of palaces that were first built in the 13th century and then added to by a series of sultans before the Christians took over in the 1500s and built their own buildings (churches of course and Charles V needed his own palace.)  While factual and correct, that description even come close to describing the amazing architecture, ceramic work,  and intricate moldings and carvings that cover every square inch of wall floor and ceiling in every room of all the palaces.  The lion plaza was all dug up as they were restoring the lions and doing archaeology work in the courtyard so we couldn’t fully appreciate what is apparently the centerpiece of the palaces but we were impressed nonetheless.

The views from the tower walls of the mountains and the city of Granada were breathtaking. And there were the gardens of the Generalife (???) which were nothing short of stunning with flower arbors and beautifully trimmed hedges on multiple levels and fountain after fountain.  The guidebooks suggest planning for 3 hours for your visit – we were just shy of 4 hours and we didn’t even try to see everything – there were entire sections that we didn’t have the energy for – even after stopping for a cafe con leche and a snack!

What was almost as impressive as the sight itself is the precision with which the tourists are handled by the staff.  I’m sure there are military manouvers that aren’t as well planned and orchestrated!  The timed entry tickets to the palaces make sense because there are so many visitors that you need to control the flow of people through the buildings – we were in a time slot that was not sold out and it was still very crowded.  I’m tempted to make a joke about the two Japanese tour groups we had to contend with but I think I’ll leave well enough alone! In addition to having a specific time slot for palace entry, there are sitogns everywhere helping you to “decide” how to continue your visit.  No decision really – you will go through the grounds in the order and manner that has been dictated for you.  There are a few places where you actually get to choose where to wander on your own but they aren’t the important things that you want to see.

And keep those tickets handy!  There are several sections that you are clearly told that you only get to visit once and they scan your ticket before granting access to those areas.  And they scan them again at random other points in the grounds and we weren’t quite sure why. All in all though, it made the extra drive to Granada well worth it – even if the MC Escher exibit in the Charles V palace was temporarily closed because they had just finished a music festival there… 

And so we wandered around Granada a bit more – making sure we made the most of our last day in Spain before having our last late lunch (with sangria of course!) and then beginning the drive south to Malaga for the flight home.  I wish I could say I was looking forward to it but that would be lying.  If you have never flown Ryan Air, think of Greyhound but with wings.  They really define “budget” airline – there is a charge for *everything* including water, priority boarding and online check-in.  This is the airline that was rumored to be considering coin operated lavatories and standing room tickets.  Yup, that cheap.  We didn’t choose it for the price but the destinations:  it’s one of the few airlines that still flies into Prestwick airport which is no more that 5 miles from my cousin’s house and therefore extremely convenient! I didn’t like the 9:30 pm departure time which meant that someone would have to come pick us up at midnight but Stephen’s a champ and came through even though he has to work tomorrow.

But the big question remained:  what about the sword?  We had paid for a checked bag each (more than the actual tickets I think) but now we had 5 checked pieces.  Two hours before the flight was due to depart, they opened one ticket counter for check in (yup, one) and we all queued up.  After about 30 minutes, it was our turn.  We had no problem with the actual cases as we had worked very hard to make sure they were all under 20k (I paid extra for the 20k limit – it’s cheaper if your cases are less than 15k but we couldn’t be sure).  But we had 5 items not 4.  Had we declared this when we booked the tickets, it would have been an extra 45 euro – assuming they would let it on the plane.  Now we had this weird green shrinkwrapped thing (we paid the guy at the airport to wrap it in cellophane to protect it) and it wasn’t expected and doesn’t look like a suitcase.  They stared at it, asked what it was – it had become a “decorative wall hanging” for this situation – and decided that they’d let it on but of course we’d have to pay the “2nd bag paid at the airport” fee of 80 euro!  Grrrr…. It almost made me wish we had paid the 140 in Toledo and avoided all the pain.  The guy behind the counter looked at me expectantly as if I actually had a decision to make – if I didn’t pay, it didn’t go ergo, we paid.  Frank owes me big time for this one….

After that the flight was relatively uneventful.  We grabbed bad airport food before standing in another queue to get on the plane and participate in the free-for-all of finding seats.  Luckily we got two sets of two right in front of each other and the three hours of boredom began.  But we landed on time in blissfully cool 14c weather and were promptly collected and taken to the Bargh household where minor revalry commenced before a very late bedtime.

Three things we noticed today:

1. Tourists in a particular city run into the same tourists everywhere.  The couple in the lobby of our hotel when we checked in were on our tour of the Alhambra then next day.  The family sitting at the table next to us in a restaurant for dinner we see in the shops later that day.  It’s a little creepy actually.
2. RyanAir is an example of the ulitimate in capitalism: bare bones, no frills and they even sell advertising space on the overhead bin doors so it’s a little like flying in a subway car – especially since the seats don’t move.
3. European airport security doesn’t want you to take off your shoes.  Really, please don’t.

Day 8: the rain in Spain is entirely confined to Granada

We’re nearing the end of our Spanish journey.  Today was another transition day where we changed cities from Sevilla to Granada.  We started with breakfast at the dining table in the suite – rolls with incredible cheese and ham (okay, rice cakes for me but the fillings were great!), yogurt and chocolate croissants with take away coffee and juice from a local coffee shop.  That got us up and on the road by 10 am for the 3 hour drive to Granada.  I’d like to say it was a charming drive but it was 200+ kilometers of olive groves, sunflower plants and lots of brown.

We got to Granada just before lunch and the rooms weren’t ready so we started to wander around town.  This place seems to have much more of a “big city” feel to it as there doesn’t seem to be an old town proper like there has been in most of the other cities we’ve visited.  We had a light lunch at a cafe on one of the many squares because it was hotter than Hades!  Then we traipsed back to the hotel to get things sorted.

First on the agenda was to print out our boarding passes for tomorrow’s flight to Scotland – I can imagine that I’ll have an entire chapter to write about our Ryan Air experience but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.  Second, head to the Alhambra which was the entire reason we came to Granada.  We headed out and encountered our first raindrops of the entire trip.  It lasted about 10 minutes (during which I was afraid I would break my neck on the smooth wet marble-tiled sidewalks!) We found the local bus – our first experience with public transportation this trip – and headed up the big hill to the big palace. That’s when we found out that there were no more tickets for today!  When the guidebooks suggest booking in advance, they mean it!

So back down the hill to book tickets for tomorrow (9am – ugh!) and do some shopping.  This was not my idea of a nice way to spend the day but apparently my teens were in need of European bargains so off we went.  We took a short sangria break – Gilly joined us this time – and then proceeded to close the shops down.  Net haul:  a windbreaker and cool new shoes for Duncan.  Finally, our last dinner of tapas and vino blanco before we spent the last hour or so wrestling with the cases to make sure that none went over the 20kg limit that I paid for.  Now to see if we can get the sword on as an extra piece of luggage – stay tuned!

Three things we noticed today:

1. Spanish cities have definite layers: the first ring of outskirts have furniture stores (muebles), the second has automotive industries, and the third is strip clubs.
2. A local store here sold Hammer pants style shorts for men – nuff said.
3. A 4 euro bottle of wine from the convenience store is as good as anything we’ve gotten in a restaurant.  We thought so last night when we first opened it but verified it when we finished the bottle during packing tonight.

Day 7: Every city needs a second chance

(Still no wifi in hotel so typos are due either to BB thumbs or my inability to correctly work th Spanish keyboard on the computer in the hotel lobby. )

We’re trying very hard to like Sevilla but the city and circumstances are not cooperating. We started today by making one more attempt to ship home the sword. Unfortunately, this meant a journey in the car through the streets of the city which isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy. We eventually found a DHL shipping center but alas, no joy – it can’t be shipped, reason unclear. We’ll have to pray that Ryan Air will take exorbitant amounts of our money to put it on the plane on Wednesday. Otherwise, anyone prowling through the dumpsters at Malaga airport will find a nice surprise!

Trying hard not to hold it against Sevilla, we parked the car and wandered out to try to restart the day. We found what looked like a lovely cafe in one of the plazas where people appeared to be eating breakfast – fresh squeezed OJ and coffee cups were in evidence – so we joined them. And were promptly informed that the only things on offer were tostadas, no huevos, so I got to watch everyone eat. Eventually we found a greengrocers and I got an apple but I confess that I was taking this personally.

We continued on, however, to the northern part of the tourist map to the Plaza de Espana and things started looking up. The government building and beautiful plaza with a fountain were charming – ceramic tiling everywhere including the railings and lamposts! The circular courtyard around the fountain was a popular place for horse carriages to drive leading my cynical teens to make jokes about Spanish NASCAR!

We then proceeded to the Real Alcazar – a group of palaces and gardens that is nothing short of amazing! We may not yet appreciate the city itself but the historical sites are incredible! Room after room of moorish architecture blended with Castillian style and colorful ceremics that was truly amazing! And the gardens inside the walls were also incredible – trees growing on multiple levels of the palace which I’m not sure I fully understand but appreciated nonetheless.

After we were historied out, we made our way to a lovely place for lunch and then hit a few of the local touristy shops before siesta (which might be habit forming!)

I opted for a shorter nap so I could have the bathroom to myself for a lovely bubble bath. Once we were all up and moving we picked up supplies for tomorrow at a local convenience store and then headed to the river.

A river walk may be just the ticket to make one appreciate a city. We saw lots of people in kayaks – including some who appeared to be playing water polo in their kayaks! Being resigned to being one of a zillion English speaking tourists, we took a river cruise which was far more relaxing than informative – possibly because I don’t appreciate bridges built in the 90s or the buildings constructed for Expo 92. But we did see our first clouds of the trip! Yup, it took 7 days for us to see even the whispy white ones we saw tonight.

Then dinner at a a “real” restaurant – meaning not a tapas bar – which was delicious albeit confusing: they brought Gillian the wrong chicken dish which we didn’t realize until she had eaten most of it and then they brought what she ordered but it was too late. An FYI: both restaurant today charged us for baskets of bread we didn’t actually order and at dinner we were charged “por entrada” – 4 euros entrance fee that went with our bread.

Three thing we noticed today:
1. Hotel shower gel is very versatile. You can use it to hand wash that extra pair of underwear and when you pour it in the jacuzzi bath tub and turn the jets on, you get the most amazing bubbles!
2. Business men on scooter are both fearless and frightening. They are usually dressed in suits and dodge in and out of traffic in a very scary manner.
3. Dry heat means you need to consume ridiculous amounts of liquids – even sailing on the river, you get parched. We’ve opted for a combination of agua y sangria and have fared pretty well, thank you very much.

Day 6: Sittin’ in Sevilla

After a later start than usual on this Sunday morning, we packed up the car
and headed out of Córdoba to the outskirts to visit the ruins at Medina
Al-Zahra. We stopped for a quick breakfast at a casino (?!) where no one
spoke English and there was no written menu. Go Duncan the super
translator! Turns out that you could have tostada, tostada, or tostada
(yup, toast!) which was not really for me. Duncan managed to get me two
fried eggs (not quite as green today) and the others enjoyed the equivalent
of half a toasted baguette – Gilly’s with jam and the boys with crumbled
Iberian ham, crushed tomatoes and olive oil.

Thus fortified, we headed to the  Muslim settlement dating from the 10th
century that was the capital of Muslim Spain. The ruins were really
interesting and there were active archaeological worksites all around. But
it was hot!  We melted climbing through the  kitchen and governor’s rooms
and the like. So back to the air conditioned car for the 1.5 hour trip to
Sevilla accompanied by Spanish guitar music – from a CD of the trio that
played during our excellent dinner the first night in Córdoba.

The new Spanish highways proved a bit confusing for Sally, our fearless GPS
system and while she had no problem with the old streets, we kept losing
the signal in the little alleyways.  We eventually found the hotel (which
is right on one of the big plazas so it shouldn’t be *that* hard!) and were
confronted by our first disappointments.  While I have nothing but great luck with the website Booking.com especially with European hotels, this is the first time that things weren´t exactly what we wanted.  I booked a nonsmoking suite with a double and two twin beds.  We got a smoking suite with a king size bed and a sofa bed and the wireless isn´t working.  And the Sunday desk staff were not really up to scratch as far as making changes.  So we carefully assessed the smell of smoke in the room (none) and the size of the sofa bed (adequate) and decided that it would do for now.

Then off to see Seville.  We had lunch at a lovely taverna near the cathedral and all was going well until Duncan spilled his vino tinto all over my black skirt.  I managed to wring most of it out but I still smelled like a winery.  Nontheless, we decided to tackle the cathedral since it seemed appropriate to get some Jesus in on a Sunday even if we did smell funny.  It was really impressive, I must say if for no other reason than the fact that Christopher Columbus is buried there.  Pretty cool!  The main altar is way over the top for gold plating and there is an altar plata (silver altar) which defies the notion of polish.  In addition, there is the amazing Giralda tower attached to the cathedral – the bottom two-thirds were originally a minaret from a mosque built in the 13th century.  We´re really getting our Moorish exposure!  The cathedral brags that it is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and I can believe it!  After more than an hour (and several hundred photgraphs), we went for the obligatory siesta.

After a short nap and showers, we ventured out again and wandered the city to find a good place for dinner.  Since we had such good luck with Trip Advisor in Cordoba, we thought we´d take their advice again and headed to the most highly rated restaurant in Sevilla.  Unfortunately, our luck didn´t hold out.  While we enjoyed the meal, it was nowhere near what we expected; we should have known we were in trouble when the told us the were out of albariño but said they would have a similar wine and tried to serve us gewurtstraminer!  Not the same thing at all thank you!

So we wandered through the gardens out side the Real Alcazar and went to another cafe for a last drink and desert.  Now I will tell an embarrassing tale on my spouse:  he had a major brain fart!  He had been doing so well with learning basic Spanish words but his mind must have just snapped because he accosted the closest waiter and blurted out ¨Sit?¨in a half command- half plaintiff cry.  This led to extensive peals of laughter and much joking for the rest of the evening.  Duncan enjoyed his first mojito in amoung snorts of laughter at his father´s expense but by the time we rolled into the hotel after midnight, all was forgiven (but not forgotten!)

Three things we noticed today:

1. TripAdvisor is not always right.  We could see where the restaurant we chose could have been wonderful but we were disappointed by the fact that it wasn´t for us.
2. The fans you see Spanish women carrying are not an affectation:  they help with the heat tremendously and I have now made my souvenier fan part of my daily wardrobe.
3. More English is spoken in the streets than Spanish.  This is the first city where there have been more people conversing in English (with a huge variety of accents) than in any other city we´ve visted so far.