Flight seven of fourteen completed!

/12
Another two flights have delivered me to Colombia.
My time with Justin and family was great. I have moved on from tea parties to playing with ‘ponies’, a type of hiding/seek and starting running races in the basement . It’s been such a joy to play with Ivy and Benny and you can really see the need for a basement. With the temperature at minus 13 real feel minus  23 and warnings that skin exposure to the cold for longer than 30 minutes could mean frostbite you can see why the kids don’t go outside to play.
I went into the city and saw the show ‘Beautiful – The Carol King story. It was brilliant and if it comes to a place near you I can really  recommend it.
The snow started up again  on my last day and it looked  set to stay. Justin took me to the airport hotel as I had a 3:15 am check in the next day! It’s always sad to say goodbye but I had some very nice goodbye hugs from Ivy and Benny.
Flight to Miami was good and after a very long walk to the gate for the next flight and about 20 minutes before boarding Valda arrived from here flight. It was a 3+ hour flight to Bogota so we caught up on some ‘gossip’, watched movies and ate an unappetizing meal. Getting into Colombia was easy, hope getting out will be without trouble😊! As soon as we were through customs we headed to an ATM – the money here is confusing as $1 aus = 2,330 pesos! Next stop a taxi to the hotel. As we set off the rain started and down it came we could see lots of graffiti, high rise buildings and green hills. I have read that Bogota has 4500 parks!
Quite a pleasant room which even has a two ring stove, microwave and fridge and room to move around. We dropped our things and went in search of a supermarket – we needed water, milk and a bottle of wine. With our shopping over, although it was only 5pm, we found a restaurant for some dinner. When we arrived back at the hotel we decided to put the milk into a jug and that’s when we found out that we’d bought yogurt not milk! Back to the supermarket for the leche and this time we got the real thing!  I managed to stay awake until 9pm and then the early start caught up with us!

The continuing journey

22/12
Sitting in an airport hotel signifies that my time in England is at an end.
I caught up with a couple of friends, former colleagues, for lunch on Wednesday. We caught up on all the ‘gossip’. It was hard to believe that it was two years since we last had lunch together. There was lots of laughter as we tried to take photos, especially when the young lad on the next table tried to ‘photo bomb’ the picture. His mum then offered to take a photo of the three of us and then the story of why we having lunch was told. It was lovely to see that we were all ‘weathering’ well.
With temperatures hovering around 0C at the start of the week 12C felt almost tropical and I even discarded my down jacket!  Unfortunately the warmer weather meant that it was quite misty. The changeable weather didn’t stop our nightly dip in the hot tub, mulled wine or bubbles in hand, an the stars were spectacular on the clear nights, we even spotted a couple of satellites whizzing through the sky.
Yesterday we visited a National Trust house – Hanbury Hall – stately home built in early 18th century in Worcestershire. This year the decorations were from the 70s & 80s. The Christmas number 1 records were playing and the mention that Babycham, CherryB and Snowballs  were the tipple of the time set our teeth on edge! We also visited a craft centre and watched as glass decorations were blown.

After  leisurely breakfast I headed south unfortunately it wasn’t the leisurely drive I had hoped for. Road works started a 30 minute crawl which would normally have taken 5 minutes. Heading down the motorway we were forced to go across country when an accident had closed it between two junctions. A journey which should have taken a maximum of two hours ended up taking four! I was very pleased to return the rental car without a scratch – had a few close calls!
An early flight -6:30 am take off- takes me to Frankfurt and then on to Chicago. Early night for me!
23/12
Out of the hotel at 4:15 to catch the shuttle to terminal. Luckily I started early as it was very busy but it  gave me time for breakfast. Flight to Frankfurt was packed! It was a quick flight but as we were parked in  the back of beyond and then had to wait for buses catching the connection was a rush. Sods law then dictated that the flight was delayed so the rush was for nothing!
9:30 flight passed relatively quickly with Snoozing, movies ,food and reading. Great surprise at O’Hare airport – so much easier and quicker to get into the country with automatic machines. I was soon through and Justin was there to meet me.😊 We headed to the hotel in the city, where I was staying for a couple of days. After a quick meal together I had an early night – not that I slept terrible well!
Down to breakfast was when I noticed that it had started to snow – it continued non-stop for about 6 hours! I  met Justin and family at the aquarium. It was so great to see them all. Ivy is as cute as ever and seemed to remember me but Benny was rather shy – it’s so strange to see him walking. I headed back to my hotel ploughing through the snow, hard to see at times as the snow was hitting you in the face. I was treading carefully as the last thing I wanted to do was end up A over T and do some damage to myself. It wax a long hike back but after all the sitting on planes it was good to be in the fresh air.

On to England.

A short, empty flight took us down though the mist to a cold, rainy London.  Luckily, as I'm not a politician, (Aussies will undertand this!) being a dual national, I pulled out the British passport and was quickly through immigration and customs.

Although the temperature in Franfkfurt had been around 4C it felt a lot colder at Heathrow. I quickly found the bus stop for the car rental companies and was soon filling out the paperwork for my hire car. My sis and b-i-l had arrived on different flight, same time, but reached car hire before me - they flew British Airways!

By the time we set off it was raining quite heavily and it was like that until we reached my nephew's house. There were still patches of snow, left from the previous week, piled up on roadsides. It was good to catch up with mynephew and his family, his girls have certainly changed in the two years since I last saw them! After a quick cuppa John, b-i-l, headed home to get the fires lit and the house warmed up before Jake and I arrived.

It took a couple of hours driving up busy motorways to reach our destination and we were looking forward to a blazing fire and John ready with a G & T for us. Unfortunately a very different scene greeted us! The front door was wide open - why let the heat out? Then we looked at John standing in the garage dripping wet and noticed a jet of water spraying around the garage. Poor John had noticed that the pipe had burst and was trying to turn of the water but, apart from him getting soaked nothing was working. We all tried to pull together to work out what to do. Only course of action was to turn water off at the mains. While Jake and John were doing that I was filling every available with water.  After numerous phone calls to the water board and emergency (no answer from them) plumbers we realised we were in for a long cold night!!!!

The fire was on in the lounge but the heat was minimal and I was still shivering sitting in my down jacket covered with a duvet. A good old cuppa went a little way to helping. We knew there was nothing to be done until the morning so it was off to bed clasping a hot water bottle and an extra duvet. No way could you read for long before your hand froze!

As you can guess it was a slightly uncomfotable night not made any better knowing that you couldn't shower. John filled buckets of water from a watertank in the garden for us to flush the loos - was this a mean trick my sister was playing taking me back to the 1800s!. Thought about getting water fron the swimming pool but that was frozen!

After an assurance that a plumber would arrive before 12 Jake and I headed off to the shops - first stop a toilet with running water!! Had my biannual fill of Marks and Spencers - knicker draw needed filling😊!  Good news  during the course of the shopping expedition was that the water was fixed - it appears that the shut off valve 'blew' off. Must have been to do with the fact that it had been minus 13C before I arrived!

Returning home to a much warmer house, we decided that we could manage without heating but no water was a different matter!

Frosty again this morning. Forgotten what a pain  it is to have to de-ice the car!
Today I had a visit to Gladys and family. Unfortunately Gladys had a fall a few days ago and wasn't feeling the best. It was lovely to catch up but I left with the feeling that my visit was the last one I would have with Gladys.

German adventures

Arrived Frankfurt after a long uneventful flight. I think I gave my sis and b-i-l a bit of a surprise turning up at 6:30 am. The apartment was on the fourth floor and I was tempted to use the invalid stairlift but was worried I’d wake the neighbours!
A shower and cup of tea soon restored me and we set out to discover Frankfurt with our accommodation host.  He showed us how to buy a day ticket for 11euro not per person but for up to 5 people to use constantly through the day. The tram  network is brilliant. We visited different tourist spot including the Christmas markets. The aroma of gluwein permeates  the air. Of course we tried a variety of different types. Just in the interest of research!
After an afternoon siesta we went back out to the Christmas markets and joined throngs of people wandering the stalls. There were police, carrying machine guns, amongst the crowds and we’d noticed that a lot of the entrances had huge blocks of concrete in place to stop any would be idiots.
The highlight of the evening market was having a bratwurst sandwich from the largest bbq I’d seen.

 Once back at the apartment, a hundred year old building with a few quirky touches, I ascended to my bed an interesting affair but comfy. When I descend it’s not  a pretty sight as I come down on hands and knees backwards – the picture should tell all!

Day 2 saw us heading to Heidelberg on the bus. Having done a reccy the night before we were confident that we knew where we were going .We got to the Bahnhof and an unwell man fell to the ground in front of us- not the best people as we couldn’t communicate with him and everyone around us was ignoring him until a young girl took over from us  .Off we went to the bus station with half An hour to spare ,however, we nearly didn’t make it as we were told that instead of being green our bus was going to be white! Luckily I went to ask an official and he said “Come on madam we are waiting to go!” “But we were told to get a white bus.” I said. To which the official laughed! It was a tense 90 minute trip through pouring rain wondering if in fact we were on  the right bus! First stop was the railway station restaurant – memories from my childhood were that the railway station restaurants served great food . I definitely enjoyed my hot chocolate laced with Grand Marnier.
We decided against catching a bus to our destination – the Schloss (castle) and started to walk instead. After about 45 minutes we came across a Christmas market, after a mooch around, we took the funicular to the castle. Although it was wet and grey the castle was very interesting especially seeing the biggest wine barrel.

Back down to the main square lunch was on the agenda and a very fine schnitzel was had by all. Deciding that time was on our side we once again made the walk back to the Bahnhof to catch our bus back to Frankfurt – my fitbit told me that we had walked more than 20000 steps. It was good to get back to the apartment but those 4 flights of stairs was purgatory!

Day 3 started early with our ’host’ taking us to the station to help us buy our tickets for our trip to Rothenburg. It meant a two hour train ride from Frankfurt, then a 40 minute regional train before an even smaller train ride to our final destination. It was so interesting to see the countryside changing the further we travelled from Frankfurt. There were areas of forest, flat land, wide rivers and many vineyards (need to do a google search to find out which wine it was). Patches of snow were seen the closer we were to our destination.
On arrival in Rothenburg we followed the crowd to the walled, medieval town. The buildings were very interesting and it was a very pretty place, especially with the covering of snow making it look even more festive,however, food was in our minds and rather than go to a restaurant we decided to get a bratwurst roll from the market along with our tipple of gluwein. I have never had a ‘hotdog’ anything like this before with a massive sausage hanging over   both ends of the bread -it took a lot of skill to eat it without getting covered in mustard and boy was it tasty.

After a good walk around the town we stopped for tea and kucken – apple strudel. A good break from the cold! As we left the cafe we felt a light sprinkle of snow on our faces and you could really feel the change in temperature and so we made the trip back to Frankfurt.
We have been  to a number of different places and can honestly say that the German transport system is superb – clean trains always on time.

Adious holiday!

A few days ago we walked the streets of Barcelona in search of Spanish leather - I had found the address of a respected leather shop. Armed with the directions it was not quite as quick as we thought - did check a couple of times with people who obviously though my "Si, si" meant that I understood them!  We eventually arrived and I was disappointed with the stock - you really can't beat Italian leather!

A trip on the metro - getting good with this - took us to the area of Barcelona called La Rambla. So ramble and amble we did. There were numerous souvenir and flower stalls but the 'food  market' was the best. There was so much variety and the displays were very enticing. Even the bottles of olive oil were in bottles which could have graced the perfume isle in other stores. Unfortunately we couldn't find seats at the deli 'bars' so continued our walk.

Instead of walking up the middle of La Rambla  we took to the side paths and there was a shoe shop beckoning us in. I walked away with 2 pairs of ankle boots - well Spain is known for their shoes!

It was a cold 4C real feel -1C yesterday morning! I put my themal top on for the first time and boy did you need it - the wind just cut through you. No doubt I will be moaning in a few days that I am too hot!

We caught a taxi up to Park Guell, a park designed by Gaudi, which didnt quite turn out the way it was expected to. We visited one of the houses and it was a well put together museum about Gaudi's life and work.

Now getting ready for the long trip home. Fly to Doha later tonight, then a 15 hour layover, in a hotel, then 14+ hours to Sydney

What a difference 12 years makes!

After looking out of the apartment window across to the Sagrada Familia it was finally time to see the inside.

WOW! What a change - last time I was here we were walking on boards and the centre was dirt with scaffolding everywhere! Now:

It was breath taking!

You just stood and stared - will probably have a stiff neck from looking up! It is hoped that the building will be completed by 2026 - the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death.

We visited the  museum,  on site,  which shows all the drawings and models  used to show the basic construction.

Although not quite  as impressive as the inside the designs on the outside are  interesting.

So much work has gone into this building and it is estimated that it is costing 1 milliln Euro a day to build!!

We had tickets which included going up to the top of one of the towers - lift up, walk down - but because it was so windy it was cancelled. After looking at a few reviews on line it might have been for the best - very high, narrow walkway from one tower to other and a claustrophobic descent!

We spent the afternoon exploring  the local area.

Finally to Barcelona

Our few days in Denia were rather relaxing. We strolled through the town, had a massage, visited the castle, drank coffee/chocolate in open air cafes (when it was warm enough), Googled the names of the yachts seen from the window, ( one had been built for a middle eastern prince!) and people watched!

We were on the 9th floor and after dinner one night we came back into the apartment block and pressed button for lift, waited for ages, saw the lift was on level 8, thought someone was getting in and waited. Finally climbed stairs to first floor, called lift again, still not arriving. Slowly climbed each floor, pressing for lift as well as trying to find the light switch. I made a mistake on one floor and pressed someone's door bell instead of light - luckily no one was home but we did hot foot it up to the next level! When we reached level 8 we found out why the lift wasn't working - the door wasn't shut properly!

We did enjoy seeing the ferry come in/go out each day and the day we decided to watch it come through  the harbour entrance was the day the Med turned into a raging sea - wild enough that even the fishing boats didn't leave the harbour! We walked along the harbour wall trying to time our run through the waves coming over the top, didn't get wet luckily!

Was impressed to see a small boat head towards the ferry and then to see the pilot climb aboard to bring it into the harbour.

Beautiful sunrise!

We left Denia and were heading towards Barcelona with an overnight stop in Tarragona. Managed to get out of Denia with only one mistake - thank goodness for roundabouts! It took about 4 hours to reach Tarragona - Spanish drivers are mad! They tailgate and pull in/out at the last minute! Speed limits don't appear to concern them! 

Found the hotel and then had a wander. The amphitheatre here dates back to the first century - amazing!

Decided to eat in the hotel but they would only serve dinner from 8:30pm - too late for us!  Had to eat in hotel coffee shop but could only get pizza. The place was full of older ladies, many playing cards, who looked as if they'd been to the hairdresser that day - perhaps it was their weekly night out!

It took about 90mins to get to Barcelona airport where I dropped of the car. The guy didn't seem too concerned about the car/wall tangle - hope I don't get a letter asking for money when I get home! Caught airport bus and metro to eventually find our accommodation here. We are straight across from Sagrada Familia.

View from apartment in afternoon.

Today we took hop on/off bus. It must have been the coldest day of the year - 3C!

Survived the 2 hour round trip - so many changes since I was last here - but our legs failed to work properly - frozen? Tomorrow we have a tour of the Sagrada Familia  - looking forward to that.

Onward through Spain.

The day after our gorge walk we were all up ready to get to Granada and our guided tour of the Alhambra. Although Granada was only about 90mins away the weather was rather variable with frost and fog patches but wecarrived in good time! Once our guide arrived we started to tour through gardens and 'palaces'. The insides of the buildings were quite remarkable.

I will never remember everything that the guide mentioned but the three hours soon passed and we were all glad that we'd had a guided tour!
Next stop was lunch and we were able to sit and relax in the sun.

The next day I had to say goodbye to my sister and b-in- l. It had been so great tosee them and a lot of reminiscing went on - hopefully we will be able to catch up again at end of 2017.
It took a while to get started as the car was totally covered in ice - out came the credit cards and the scraping began! I think the car registered minus 4 - a tad cool for those from southern hemisphere!

A drive of about 4 hours bought us to  Denia on the Costa Blanca. It's an old Spanish port town - settled over 2000 years ago. The apartment we are in overlooks the port and we keep an eye on the comings and goings of the daily ferry to the party island of Ibiza! We have walked around the town and port and have a visit to the castle on the plan for tomorrow.

To Sevilla and beyond

We finally managed to make it to Seville by train! Even got the correct seats! When we arrived we made our way to the centre of town and it was after wandering down many little lanes we came across Savilla cathedral. It was very impressive.

 Unfortunately the queues to go into were very long and so we checked the interior out on line -  very impressive! Just got into a restaurant for lunch as the rain fell. A dish of paella and glass of sangria hit the spot.

Next day we left for a long drive to Baza was we were catching up with my sister and b-in l. We made it to the local supermarket as it opened to stock up on all our needs. We were soon on our way but once again were worried that we were going in the wrong direction! After a couple of false starts we found the road that we needed and sped through beautiful countryside. It was a long drive with a couple of stops but the directions given to us for the cave house were spot on.

The lady who greeted us was eccentric, to say the least! The cave house was another eye opener - a labyrinth for sure - as it's also known as the fairy house you might get the idea!

Valda and I got sorted and then set about waiting for my sister to arrive when i received a strange text to say that they were having trouble with the car but were heading towards Granada and would get in touch. They finally arrived about 11pm and what a story they had to tell! They were due to pick up a car at Malaga airport but were told that the insurance for 4 days was going to 1200 euros and they would get nothing back, even if the car was perfect! They then walked away from the hire firm, caught a bus to Granada and then a taxi to here (130kms away). There was much joy at their safe arrival and it turned into a very late night!

We had a lazy day yesterday with a quick wander around the local town. We are quite high up and there is snow on the mountains. 

Today we went in search of a gorge walk that I had found on line. It was impressive scenery and we did have a pleasant amble in the sun.

Going to Seville

Our day was planned we were catching the train to Seville. Off to the station we trotted - well ambled! At the ticket office in my limited Spanish I asked for two return tickets to Seville. What time I was asked. The 9:14 please. No! I then realised that all the seats were booked unless I wanted to go at 2pm. Manana (tomorrow) I asked. Si,Si so tickets were bought.

Not wanting to return home at 9am I asked how long it took to go to Cadiz - 45 minutes and tbere was a train within 20 mins -  tickets for Cadiz please. I think the guy was pretty impressed with our quick decision making. So we were off to Cadiz rather unexpectedly! Went onto the platform for the train when :
1. a  sign came up saying exit immediately - my Spanish is getting better &
2. A guy came up asking us about a train - we had to shrug our shoulders and say sorry ' No hablo espanol!' He then spoke to someone else who indicated that his train was on another platform. Well that put us in a bit of a panic, showed the same guy our ticket and he indicated that we were on  the  wrong platform. We were off , like greyhounds out of the gate, to the next platform and on reaching the train collapsed in a heap! On regaining our breathe we saw a train arrive on the platform we had left!!

During our journey we did find that we should have caught the other train but all was well as this one was also going to Cadiz! It was an interesting trip mainly through flat lands although there were lots of  waterways - not sure of their purpose. We travelled beside the beach into the station and, although sunny, it looked rather cold.

We made our way into the centre and found it a very interesting place.

After a cuppa and the usual discussion about how disgusted we were by the amount of smoking everywhere including restaurants - no wonder we are coughing our lungs up an so appreciate the no smoking in certain areas policy.

We came across Cadiz cathedral and ventured inside. So much history and it looks like money is needed to restore the ceilings - there was netting up to stop any of it falling on your head!

 we wandered tnrough the streets until we reached the sea.

We had a great day with an awesome tapas lunch - with finally a sherry we liked! Well we are in the sherry region! Finally found our way back to the station and got on the correct train, which luckily terminated at Jerez so no problems there! Hopefully we make it to Seville!!

From Africa to Europe

Tne  blue city was rather attractive although the reason that it was blue was to keep away the mozzies didn't quite ring true with us! My day was spent relaxing with a massage and the lack of voice was keeping me low key! By the end of the day the hotel staff had the solution - to drink a third of a glass of pure lemon juice! I did this under sufferance and it didn't help that Valda wanted to record   facial expressions - for YouTube no doubt! Amazingly I did have some voice the next day!

 Taxis took us to the local bus station for our 3 hour trip to Tangier. All was going well until the kids behind Valda and I started kicking us. A few delicate words from our guide helped! It was a rather windy descent and luckily we weren't at the back of the bus because that seemed to be the spot for the locals vomiting! The joys of travel!

As soon as lunch was over we left the group for their overnight train and we booked into a very pleasant  hotel in Tangier Medina! Over a couple of G & T's our hosts explaned how they had come from Nice, bought two houses, knocked them down and produced a beautiful hotel.

It was so good to stay in somewhere rather special but an early ferry, to Tarifa, Spain, soon had us on the way again.

A half an hour delay had us bobbing up and down, rolling from side to side until we eventually reached Tarifa. Only an hour on the clock but then we had to put our watch forward an hour. A free, well part of the ferry ticket, bus ride (for about 45 mins) bought us to Algeciras. The view of the rock of Gibraltar was quite impressive. We then took a taxi to the car hire company. Well, we arrive 10 minutes after the lady should have gone off duty and the huffing and puffing and general negative demeanor told us in no uncertain terms what low life we were. Caught her out though when she told me that my licence was out of date - it still had a year to go! After theatrically wiping the sweat from my brow she finally became more human. The car was bought to the door, and with no instructions we were on our own!

I made my way out of Algeciras ok and Valda was my navigator. We were soon out on the freeway and all was well  - until we got within a stones throw of the apartment and then everything went to pieces!! We had followed instructions but then got caught up in one way streets. I made one serious error but realised in time when I was preparing to turn left - but it was an Aussie left! I'm sure the scooter rider thought ' bloody tourists '!

After, what seemed like hours  driving around the one way streets we made it to a large supermarket and called the apartment owner who arrived on his motor bike to find us. We followed closely until arriving at apartment parking. Unfortunately the car door handle and a wall had a disagreement - oh well!!

We insisted that a cab was booked to take us to the local supermarket - no way I was doing any more driving that day! We bought copious supplies and after a few drinks headed off to the land of nod.

The next day, with map in hand, we wandered into the centre of the town. We noticed every road that we had driven download and couldn't believe how close to our destination we had come!!

We found a local market and bought prawns to cook for dinner. Made one of the local stall holders laugh when asking for garlic as we had to buy 4 bulbs - no way you could buy them singularly!

Tried our hand at ordering sherry at tbe local bars but haven't been  too successful