The weekend we paid €18 for churros and chocolate!

This weekend I went on my last trip whilst I am here in Spain and spent a few days in Seville with Erin during the last weekend of the main festival there- Feria de Abril.  We stayed in a hostel right near the Cathedral which was really nice, comfortable rooms and nice staff which is always good!  After 3 and a bit hours on a bus I was finally in Seville and met up with Erin when she arrived from Barcelona.  Not really knowing where we were going but heading roughly in the direction of the cathedral we set off, typically we had gone the wrong way only to have to turn round and go back the way we had just came!  We did however eventually reach the hostel and drop off our bags in time for a wander round the city.  In the evening we went to a Flamenco show at the Flamenco Museum which was really good, and well worth the €14 euros we paid for it as there were 2 dancers, a guitarist and a singer, I wasn't sure what I was going to think of it but it was really enjoyable.  After that we, in true Spanish style, went and had paella for dinner in a bar close to the hostel.

On Saturday we woke up to the sound of the rain, brilliant timing for the rain to arrive in Seville the weekend we were there, but as there was nothing we could do about it we just got on with it.  First up we went to the Alcazar, it is an old palace and parts of it are actually still in use, if you paid a bit more you could get a guided tour of these parts, but we had so much we wanted to fit into our day we didn't really have time to do that.  At times it really reminded me of the Alhambra here in Granada, but it was significantly cheaper to get in (€8.50 normally but €2 as students!) After this we went to the Cathedral, with another brilliant student discount, down from €8 to €3!  We were very impressed to have paid to do 2 things for the same amount as the full price entry to just one!  Once we'd seen the Cathedral we headed to the Bull Ring and booked ourselves in on a guided tour and museum visit (of course, student rate applied again meaning that for the 3 things we visited that day we paid under €10 in entry fees- brilliant!) After all of this it was just coming up to 2.30 and we were pretty hungry so stopped for lunch.  The starter was artichokes and ham, which I think would've been really nice, if it hadn't been soaked in so much olive all that it actually tasted like eating a plate of olives (which I really don't like....)  bit the fish we had afterwards more than made up for it.

A trip to Seville this weekend would not have been complete without a visit to the site of the Feria.  We really didn't know what we were expecting when we headed over the river to the site, luckily by now the rain had stopped and the sun was doing its best to shine through, giving us great weather for a wander around.  The feria site is full of tents called casetas that the people of Seville and the surrounding areas hire out for private parties for their friends and family.  There are also some public tents but not very many.  The feria is the opportunity for the locals to show off quite how much money they have with the size and decoration of their tent but most importantly by the clothes they are wearing.  Most people are dressed in traditional Andalcian style, with the woman in full flamenco dresses and the men with the old suits and hats.  There are also loads and loads of horses at the feria, some pulling carriages and some being ridden, clearly being used as an opportunity for people to show themselves and their families off to everyone else that is there.  Once we'd finished wandering round we decided to stop for chocolate and churros (these were actually called bunuelos, their bigger and doughier, but it's the same concept).  We sat down, got served very promptly and then once we had the food in front of us the waiter said "€18 euros por favor" we had no choice but to pay it but we couldn't believe our ears!  €18 for a bit of dough, sugar and hot chocolate!!!!  We couldn't even finish them all, we made a valiant attempt, we really did, but we were beaten and couldn't eat any more.  Once we'd got over that shock we started to head back to the hostel, via a trusty chino shop to purchase some shoes for €4 euros which are the most comfortable things I have worn in my life as my feet were slowly dying from the blisters my usually very comfortable sandles were giving me.  In the evening we practically had to swim to go out for some food and a drink, it had been hailing previously and was pouring with rain - when you're both wearing canvas-y shoes this is not a good thing!  That said we did have a nice selection of tapas at a bar a little off of the beaten tourist route.  When we got back to the hostel we spent quite some time drying out the shoes with a hairdryer before eventually going to bed- after everything we'd fitted into the day we were exhausted!

This morning we had time to waste as we had to be out of the hostel but my bus wasn't until 2.30 so we decided to pop into an exhibition at a building called the Archivo General de Indias where there are lots of maps and other things from the discovery of the Americas.  Seeing as it was fairly early in the morning and we'd not had the best nights sleep we didn't really make the most of this exhibition and ended up skim reading and looking at the maps and pictures because it was very in depth that our brains just weren't ready for it quite yet!  Other than that we spent our time wandering around, in and out of little tourist shops, drinking coffee and eating lunch before it was time to head off again!  We did happen to come across a little street market that was selling lots of old coins, stamps and other things including old postcards, they were all written and had been sent to people at one time or another, some of them were really interesting as they had Viva Franco! and Viva Espana! Stamped across them.  We could've looked through them for ages.


Now I'm back in Granada I am very glad that this is a puente weekend, because Tuesday is the 1st of May and therefore a festival day across Spain we also get Monday off as well because, lets face it, what is the point in going into work just for one day? Got to love Spain for that!  Hopefully I'll get some work done over the next couple of days, I certainly will if the weather stays as rubbish as it currently is because I won't want to be stepping outside!


This time next week my Mum, Dad and Nana should've landed in Malaga and be arriving in Granada!  I can't wait to see them, they are staying for a week over my Mums birthday and mine too.  I have classes on 4 of the days but only in the mornings so I should be able to spend plenty of time with them.  The scary thing is quite how fast the time has flown, once they leave I have just 2 weeks left of classes, including a visit from a friend from Lancaster and then 4 weeks of exams before it is all over a done with!

"Attention all passengers, there are meercats in this station"

This weekend, as many of you know, was my last weekend in Brussels before I go back to England for Christmas (2 more sleeps!).  I could've spent it making the last minute finishing touches to my coursework or doing some proper work on my essay for Lancaster but instead I got to be a tourist again for the weekend showing Henry everything that Brussels has to offer.  On Thursday I wasn't even sure he was going to make it with the snow in the UK and the meltdown it seemed to be causing at Manchester airport, as per usual!  Luckily, seeing as I had to make the epic journey out to Charleroi airport armed with magazine, kindle, tea and cereal bars- the flight only came in a little later than it was due to.

This weekend the snow arrived in Brussels too, it wasn't that impressive but I wanted to have proof of it.  Apologies for the awful photo but there is only so long you can keep the window open for- it was freezing!

On Saturday we went to the Atomium, tip: don't bother going to Mini Europe when you can just see the whole thing from the Atomium! 

I'm not sure if I wrote about the Atomium the last time I went so for those of you that don't know it was built in 1958 for the world Expo, so that basically makes it Belgiums answer to the Eiffel tower.

I don't know the area around there very well but we decided to have a wander, we were just looking for somewhere to stop for a coffee but actually what we found were the following:

 I don't even know what this is I'm afraid...

The Chinese pavillion, and opposite this.....

The Japanese tower.  Not the sort of thing you'd usually expect to stumble across in Belgium.

Saturday also brought with it a bit of a navigational fail.  We headed to Place Saint Catherine for the Christmas Market and were very disappointed when we got there and just found a few stalls, a creepy looking carousel and a little band playing.  We were sure we were in the right place though, after all there was a sign that said Place Saint Catherine...  Jenny then told us later that if we'd have just carried on walking we'd have made it to the real market which I must say was significantly more impressive than what we'd seen!

We were going have a look around but there was a service going on at the time, I can't believe I've not actually been in there yet!

Usually when you stumble across some road blocks and a significant police presence including helicopters, a water canon and riot shields your first reaction probably wouldn't be to investigate would it? Well we did, on the basis that curiosity only killed the cat so we should be pretty safe.(For any worried parents/family members reading this, don't worry!  We wouldn't have been stupid enough to get into the thick of it, we just wanted to know what was happening...)  From what we could tell there wasn't much going on, just a small group of protesters so the police reaction seemed to be a little OTT.  I asked a man if he knew what was going on, annoyingly he did tell me in English after having asked in French... but he told me something that roughly adds up to this.  Clearly there was a lot more going on than we had seen.  As I write this I have seen a lot more police around again today and more road blocks and things so it must still be going on.  On our wander we stopped for a chat with the king...

We went and watched the light show on the Grand Place, we were going to hang around and see a woman dressed as a butterfly do something but it was wet and cold, I'm not sure we missed out on much anyway.

On Sunday we went to the Christmas Market (the right one...) in the afternoon.  I totally forgot to take any photos, I think I was somewhat distracted by the huge hot dog I was eating.  We got to see some people showing off on the ice rink and look at all the stalls.  Before we headed there we went to a museum, I've already been but if we hadn't gone Luke probably wouldn't have spoken to Henry for about a week so we had to really.  I will happily admit that I didn't enjoy it when I went on my own, but I now realise that was just because I had no clue what I was looking it, when someone else is telling you what it is you're looking at it makes it a lot more interesting.  Can't promise I've retained much of it though, other than something about why the edge of some guys hat was folded up...

Yesterday we went to see the Palais de Justice, considerably more impressive than the equivalent in the UK.    

This photo was just taken outside, the inside is worth looking at too.  It's a shame that I'm not going to get to see it without scaffolding though. 

Seriously, how hard is it to find somewhere to eat in Brussels that isn't a tourist trap?  Very, I'm telling you.  Vietnamese food however = good (although I could've had the exact same thing in a Chinese...)

That basically brings us to the end of my last long weekend in Brussels for 2011.  It's been a bit of an epic blog today but I thought including the photos rather than just telling you to look on flickr was kind of me.  I really am on countdown now though, I have my suitcase here ready to pack, I've been cleaning the flat and doing the washing- I just want to go home!  Wish me luck I have a presentation tomorrow, or at least should do... fun times! 

[Oh yeah, and about the meercats (and lets face it the only reason a number of you are bothering to read this), it was just a simple case of misunderstanding on Henrys part when there was an announcement at Midi station warning about pickpockets.  Have to say the meercats would be a lot more fun though!]

A weekend in Luxembourg- we did a lot of walking!

Walking.  This seems to have been the theme of our weekend, and don't get me wrong, I enjoy wandering round and discovering places but I have a limit, and I think my legs have found it this weekend as they are no longer functioning at full capacity I must say....

The journey to Luxembourg city from here isn't too bad, just over 3 hours on the train.  It all went swimmingly, until the little screen on the train started saying "Terminus Arlon" (a town in Belgium...) and we started worrying just a little!  Luckily it must have meant that Arlon was the last stop in Belgium as the train soon continued onto Luxembourg.  Phew!  We arrived in a rather cold Luxembourg in the early afternoon and headed off to the hotel to dump our bags.  After filling in a form that seemed to want to know everything but my inside leg measurement we got into our room.  We decided that the best thing for us to do first would be to go to the tourist information centre to get ourselves a map (as you will later learn it obviously wasn't good enough...).  Seeing as it was still mid-afternoon we wanted to wander over to the European area and see everything over there and it made sense to get it over and done with first as it was on the other side of the city.  So off we went, in the direction that according to our map and the signposts would lead us to the area with all the EU institutions in it.  After a while we were faced with a long path, leading uphill, through the trees.  For some reason this didn't strike us as odd, I just remarked that they must send the tourists the scenic route as presumably all the people that work in the EU institutions don't walk this way!  So up we went...it didn't take too much longer for us to realise that we clearly weren't going to get there that night.  The problem was this being abound 4.30-5pm in November it was starting to get dark and we were on a rough path, through the woods and round an old fort, with no lights.  Brilliant.  The choice being either to turn back where we'd come- hardly a short distance, or continue we decided to march onwards.  Eventually we ended up at what you could loosely term as civilization.  I hesitate in calling it this as there seemed to be no people, shops or anything of the sort.  By now it was too late to be heading for the EU stuff and about time to be searching for food.  Problem.  Luxembourg is basically on 2 levels, the high town and the low town.  They aren't very well linked-other than by a great many stairs and you'll have a job locating them.  So this is how we spent a large part of our first evening in Luxembourg, trying to "escape" the Ville Basse and get back where human life could be found.  We managed this - via an epic flight of stairs and a series of rather steep hills.  Nice relaxing welcome to Luxembourg....  Food was soon located, and you know you're in a posh expensive restaurant when they take your coats and give you some pea-mousse thing whilst you look at the menu.  It was a fish restaurant and all the food looked (and tasted) very nice.  We did feel a bit like (bad pun coming....) fish out of water though as we were most certainly the youngest people in there.

Saturday-
On Saturday we had to head to the European area, after all the mess of the night before we had worked out where we'd gone wrong and how we'd ended up underneath the bridge we'd actually wanted to be crossing.  As it turns out it is probably for the best that we'd not made it there the previous night as there was a lot to see, it took us a good hour or so to walk round and wouldn't have been so good in the dark.  The geek in me wants to go and see the rest of it in Strasbourg now seeing as I've seen the European Commission and all the other bits here and now (here comes the list...) the European Investment Bank, European Court of Justice, European Court of Auditors and the European Chamber of Commerce in Luxembourg.  I'm pretty sure we also saw where the main translation centre is too.  I've been looking into all the types of translation jobs they need in the EU, I'd love to translate for the Court of Justice but that would involve some form of Legal qualification which I don't have, well I can dream can't I?

After this we did a hell of a lot more walking!  I've put some photos on Facebook but for those of you not on there I'm about to stick them on Flickr too so I'll give you the link, just give me a chance to get them up there.

2 observations about transport in Luxembourg- there are loads and loads of Audis, especially in the European area where at least I'd say 1 in 3 cars were Audis.  Also Luxembourg, despite being tiny seems to be the European Capital of busses or something, there were hundreds of them, often with the very useful destination on the front of "Luxembourg".

After exhausting all the views and monuments of the city, writing postcards and drinking expensive (but very nice) coffee we went to the restaurant next to the one we'd been to the night before.  Whilst we were looking at the menu outside the waiter from the other restaurant came past and said hi, 2 young female students were probably a rare occurrence for that place, must've been easily recognisable or something!  When we were inside we were offered the English menu and caused some confusion when we asked for the French, and one of the waiters clearly wasn't sure as he insisted on speaking to us in English each time, although the others did at least stick to the French.  When we ordered the waiter asked me if I was sure that was what I wanted, did I know what it was?  I thought I did having read the English version of the menu outside but evidentially it was a different thing entirely.  What I was ordering, the internet now tells me, was part of a pigs large intestine.... yuuummmmm :S  I'm glad I didn't go for that in the end then...  As the exciting, party-animal, Erasmus students we are, we then returned to the hotel, got into our PJs and watched Danse avec les Stars.....

Sunday- To round off our trip we headed to the Museum of the History of Luxembourg City, presuming that the museum would be some what relative to the size of the city itself, it was surprisingly big though but a nice way to spend our last morning before heading back to the station and returning to Brussels.

I know I've already told you how much we walked, but seriously, my legs really really ache now.  I've had my exercise for the week.  Maybe I don't need to climb the stairs every day?!

My Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bexnobes/