Barcelona Baby!

In an effort to make this blog actually possible (ie. possible for my lazy self) I will give a quick summary of my daily activities followed by my daily highlight.

Friday
Last day of school, YAY!! A quick lunch with the ladies at school, quickly go to the train station and leave from there! Best last day of school ever!

Highlight of the day: after struggling up the many, many steps to the apartment where we stayed I was told that at a place across the street they had falafels. Properly done falafels, in a wrap. This may not seem like a big deal to anyone in the world other than me but I have not had one since I was in London during my undergrad so this was a BIG deal! I had three in the space of 4 days.

Saturday
After having a late night flight, and delicious falafel snack, I had a wonderful lay-in. We walked to the beach and had snacks at a cute little spot right down on the sand. At night we went to a birthday party for a friend of who I was staying with in Barcelona. It was held on a terrace about half-way up an apartment building. It was definitely the perfect spot for a gathering. The terrace was surrounded on three sides by different buildings and the last side was open to the alley below. There was mini-lights strung around the terrace and candles around the sides. A bbq and delicious snacks made it perfect!

Highlight of the day: This is easy, the terrace birthday party. Both an english and spanish version of 'happy birthday' was sung and the mini-lights cast an almost magical glow over everyone. It was perfect, like the set of a movie.

Sunday
After another lovely long sleep we had a picnic in Park de la Ciudadella. This park was breathtaking! A huge, almost Aztec, monument type sculpture surrounded by fountains and pools of water was definitely the highlight. There was also a huge statue of a mammoth (RANDOM), a man-made lake where you could rent boats and a few museums. Lots of perfectly manicured grass made a perfect spot for a picnic!

We then went home for a rest and had a stir-fry for supper. We then ventured back out to see the 'Magic Fountain'. It is a fountain show with different coloured lights, all done to music. Beautiful! Afterward we climbed up to the Palau Nacional and got an absolutely perfect view of the city at night.

Highlight of the day: Enjoying the view of the city at night. It was very close to being perfect!

Monday

Woke up in a decent time, aka before lunch, and jumped on the metro to the Sagrada Familia. It is a huge Roman Catholic Church started in 1882, construction is expected to be completed in 2026. For many years construction relied on private donations. The intricate design was amazing! However, the line to tour the inside of the church literally stretched around the block....not a chance I was standing in that! 

After the quick decision to leave the church behind we climbed up to Park Guell. Now when I say climbed I actually mean took the wonderfully placed outdoor escalators. If they were not there I can honestly say that the climb up to the top would have killed me. Knocked me down dead. It was a steep incline to say the least! The view at the top was definitely worth it, so beautiful! The park was designed by Gaudi, the same architect as Sagrada Familia and another museum, Batllo house, that we visited later in the week. It was so cool, everything was done so creatively. Near the top of the park there was what appeared to be a large, sand-covered floor completed surrounded by a bench. Now this wasn't a normal bench, that wasn't Gaudis' style. It was swooping, no straight lines, completely covered in a colorful mosaic. We sat on this bench and ate our pack-lunch in the scorching heat of the direct sun. Afterwards we followed a path to the bottom where we discovered that underneath the square was a wonderfully shaded area, with huge stone pillars and mosaics in the ceiling. Then we walked down from the park, had a snack at perfect little cafe and walked into the city center.

Highlight of the day: 3rd falafel supper in a row. Delicious! 

Tuesday

This was meant to be a beach day but when I woke up I discovered that mother nature had other plans. So instead it was another day of art! Off to the Picasso museum we went. It was here that I discovered that Andrew is quite the art critique. What an awesome new development. He spent his time in the museum developing a rather detailed explanation for the changes in Picasso's art technique. It would take years to describe it and I simply don't care enough to do so.

Lunch was from a little cafe, we chose our food from a Spanish menu. Andrew had a wonderful lunch and I ended up with fried fish skin and a cold prawn-slimy mushroom number that left me more hungry than when we started. The worst part was I tried to order words that I recognized. The mushroom-prawn mush was what I thought was going to be pasta. Turns out Spanish isn't my forte.

After lunch we walked up Las Ramblas, a big 'street' for only people. There were lots of vendors and artists doing sketches of people. There was also enough tourists to make me wonder if there were any left in the world at all. Afterwards we sat down by a fountain in a big square which turned out to be pigeon paradise/my worst nightmare. After being dive-bombed by many a bird I left with what was left of my dignity. 

Highlight of the day: On the subway on the way home there was a man with a portable karaoke machine singing his heart out. Hilarious!

Wednesday

An early start to Casa Batllo, a house designed by Gaudi for a very, VERY rich family in 1877.  This house was amazing, there were no straight lines in the entire place! It was supposedly designed to represent the sea and everything underwater. Very different but very cool! I would definitely recommend going! While here Andrew again decided to become an artistic interpretation, coming up with 'creative' explanations for the designs around him. 

As this was my day to choose the activities I forced us to traipse around until we found pizza for lunch (I did NOT eat the entire thing myself....okay, fine, I did). It was delicious! Then it was home for a nap, chili for supper and chatting with friends. 

Highlight: Being able to order off a menu that was not entirely in Spanish, and therefore know what I was getting to eat! I do not want surprises on my dinner plate!

Thursday

Two words: BEACH DAY!!!!! We made a huge lunch and walked down the beach for the day. A perfectly relaxing day, couldn't have been better! Swimming in the ocean, reading on the beach, life is rough! 

Highlight: doing simply nothing all day long. That and Andrews sunburn. Turns out that sunscreen works after all!

Friday

Last day....went to Sephora (makeup HEAVEN) and stocked up on supplies. Then we went for a last lunch at a cafe and packed up. Birmingham will not be able to compare to Barcelona, that's for sure!

I had an absolutely wonderful trip, I will be back to Barcelona for sure! :)

nurture vs nature: proof i am turning into my parents

Although I live an ocean away from my family it is starting to become very clear that I am quickly turning into my parents. A very strange combination of both of them.

How I know I am turning into my Father

- I randomly sing at school. People have started to notice and comment.

- I can never remember the names of kids at school... and if they look even remotely like someone else I will probably call them that name first. I don't think Dad has gone a single day at school remembering everyones name. Once he called me Edison. Edison was our dog.

- I don't just walk down the hall at school, I charge. So much so that I tend to run into the desks and chairs of the younger children as they are so short and out of my immediate view. While in Bali I got a pedicure and the lady asked my why I had so many bruises on the same spot on both of shins. It was an embarrassing explanation.

- I am rather....'dramatic'. The staff at school are starting to make fun of me for being 'too excitable' or 'too happy'. As if that is a bad thing!

- It is my constant goal to be the first teacher at school. If I am fail to be the first one I am actually a bit angry at the person who beat me.

- On Saturday and Sunday morning I feel endlessly guilty if I don't jump out of bed and start accomplishing things. Who needs a day to relax? Relaxing is completely over rated.

- Within 5 minutes of deciding that 'it is probably a good idea to sit down and relax a little' I fall dead asleep because I haven't stopped working since I woke up. 

How I know I am turning into my Mother

- I spend all my spare time in my garden, just puttering away.

- I get super excited when I get a plant at a good deal and feel the sudden need to tell everyone about what a 'deal' I got.

- Last night I spent literally 3 hours in front of the tv cutting material, loving every second. Mom does that at least once a week. 

- I have company coming next weekend and started cleaning 7 days in advance. Just slightly ridiculous. My 16 year old self would punch me for that.

- The biggest one: this morning I ate my cereal and drank my tea while sitting on my back stoop in my pj's. If that isn't Julia French I don't know what is!

seafood feast!

hog-what?

The third, and final, part of my 2010 Holiday Extravaganza was New Years, or Hogmanay, in Scotland!  While the weather was typical of the UK, ie. complete crap, we had a fantastic time! We stayed in a huge old Victorian house, the set-up was typical of a Canadian farm house. Rooms that led into yet more random rooms, nice high ceilings, a super wide staircase and a fireplace to boot! The house was fully stocked with everything you would, or could, ever need. It was also decorated for the holidays with a Christmas tree and garlands which helped to sustain the holiday mood.

We tried to go for a walk through a park one afternoon but the 6 inch layer of sheer ice which covered everything prevented us from going any faster than a snails pace and we ended up just walking downtown the cute village of Callander.

For Hogmanay we went to the Lade Inn for an amazing meal and some dancing! There was a local band was some classic pub music mixed in with some traditional ceiligh music and dancing (which, BIG surprise, I was a complete failure at). What I enjoyed most was the actual count-down. Everyone crossed arms, held hands and sang Auld Lang Syne...a perfect moment!

We spent the rest of the trip watching movies, playing games and sitting in front of the fire. All in all a fabulous trip!

Christmas at Forest Lodge

After spending time with my cousins outside of Manchester I was traded off to my Aunt and Uncle who live in the UK equivalent of Algonquin Park. It is absolutely gorgeous! They have three dogs: Charlie, Ollie and Stanley. Charlie is a big labrador, Ollie is a hairy collie and Stanley is a mystery.

For our festive breakfast we had black pudding, sausage, bacon, potato cakes, brown beans and buttered toast. What a way to start the day!! After each scrumptious bite I could feel my arteries clogging just a little bit more....worth it? YES! 

Our lovely Christmas dinner was started with tomato soup; it followed by turkey, ham, bacon-wrapped sausage, potatoes, stuffing, carrots and asparagus soaked in mouth-watering gravy. YUM!

The weather has been less than ideal... snow, slush and the recent addition of all-incasing fog. I didn't know that it in the middle of winter there could be fog that lasted all day... well there is. But I did manage to get a couple shots of some of the more picturesque mist!

This afternoon (Wednesday), we went to the coal merchants on the way home. Now I had always been under the impression that household coal fires were a thing of the past, just another example of my UK-life ignorance. My trip to get coal, a regular occurrence for many UK’ers, was by far the highlight of my day. It was wonderfully dirty, there were cute trucks loaded with sacks of coal for home deliveries and huge piles of coal outside the building, much like Canadian salt piles waiting to be spread on the roads. The best part was two men, completely covered in coal-dust, who were loading sacks, they had the worlds biggest smiles and were singing the entire time, so cute! Now that I have created this literary image for you add a blonde girl walking around wide-eyed, open-mouthed and camera out... yes, that was me. And yes, I looked very much like a ridiculous 12 year old child who was just let into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

In a pickle?

During dinner last night I was educated (just when I thought I knew it all!!) on the history and MANY varieties of the pickle. It is not that I have lived a ‘pickle-less’ life; I spent the better part of four years working for a in a kosher kitchen for a Rabbi, during this time I chopped, sliced and diced my weight in dill pickles many times over. Throughout my childhood I was exposed to what I would consider the regular pickles: bread and butter, dill, gherkins (my favorite), deliciously deep-fried pickles and of course the glass pickle I bought Kathy and Terry to hang on their Christmas Tree (yet another epic Christmas present in a series of epic presents). 

So last night when my Uncle Alan pulled out a jar of what he claimed to be pickles, but looked to me like a jar of mush and something diced, I was rather surprised. It turns out I am practically a pickle virgin! 

Fun pickle facts (just knowing that I think facts about pickles are fun is further proof that I am a teacher):

- Americans consume 26-billion pickles a year. That’s about nine pounds of pickles per person...explains a lot.  

- More than half the cucumbers grown in the U.S. are made into pickles.

- Amerigo Vespucci, for whom America is named, was a pickle merchant before becoming an explorer.

- This one shocked me: kosher pickles aren’t necessary ‘kosher’ (ie. prepared under rabinnical supervision) but were made in the manner of Jewish New York City pickle makers...ie they used a TON of garlic and dill!!

The history of the pickle goes all the way back to 2030/40 BC with the Mesopotamians, they came to Western Europe around 900 from Sumatra. The history is of the pickle is actually rather ‘regal’; The pickle is mentioned in the Bible in Numbers 11:5 and Isaiah 1:8, Aristotle thought they had healing qualities, Julius Caesar fed them to his troops because he believed they contained both physical and spiritual strengthening characteristics, Shakespeare using even used pickling as a metaphor in the play Hamlet. Thomas Jefferson was quoted with what I can positively say is the most beautiful way I have ever heard a pickle described: "On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar."  And to top off the list of famous pickle-eaters the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys (American football teams for my non-Canadian readers) 41-14 in September of 2000. The players claimed the win to the strength they gained from drinking pickle juice (another example of American ‘brilliance’).

Polish, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, , brined, candied, lime, half-sour, sour and Tsukemono (done in soy brine) are the pickles that my Blessington Road upbringing did not expose me to. Oh, and apparently there are also ‘Kool-Aid Pickles’ which claim to be famous in the Southern United States...but I think this type of pickle can just be added to the list of things that Americans have tried to ‘improve’ but have ruined. (The USA apparently also has an International Pickle Day in New York City...unsurprisingly weird).       

http://www.virtuowl.com/beauty/vinegar-beauty.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickled_cucumber

http://www.rockmnation.com/2010/7/9/1560662/mizzou-links-7-9-10

http://www.nyfoodmuseum.org/_ptime.htm

Photos of Christmas...UK style!!

Christmas 2010 Adventure: Part One

These are some photos taken around Glossop and Hadfield, villages outside of Manchester where my cousins live. We went to a perfectly quaint park that had a duck pond, Victorian baths (recently renovated into a beautiful pool) and a cute little waterfall complete with stone bridge. After taking the first bunch of pictures I realized that my camera lens was horribly dirty so sadly they aren't the best. We then ventured up to the top of a hill (which I of course forget what is called) and got an amazing view of the villages and Manchester in the distance!

Both Hadfield and Glossop are the very definition of the perfect British village; stone walls, terraced houses, super tight roads, neighborhood shops and corner pubs with friendly folk who wish you a good afternoon as you pass by. I have to admit, this is a nice change from Birmingham!

Day Two: Today has been perfectly relaxed. Got another 10 hours of sleep (GLORIOUS!!!) and then continued the French family tradition of Christmas baking while watching holiday-themed movies.  So I made sugar cookies and watched Love Actually. Just wish my Mom and Anna were here to join in! 

I also spent some quality time with Lewis, teaching him to play hockey. Mom and Dad sent him a mini-stick and ball last summer so now I am making sure that he learns use it properly!! haha 

Day Three: Journey into Manchester

Today (Wednesday) Mel, Lewis and I took the train into the city to explore the Christmas markets. I didn't get a chance to visit Birmingham's so I was quite happy to go! We enjoyed mulled wine, super-fresh pork sandwiches and strudel with custard for dessert. Yum!! :)

Only slightly lost haha

Yummy mulled wine!

                                                          Totem pole of cheese!

I love how you can see the super hot coals under the

racks, can't get more real that that!

mmmmmmmeat.

This was our lunch....no joke. And it was DELICIOUS! :)

Love the little wooden spoons!