Hurry up and wait

A one word summary of our travels so far: Delayed As in, our Virgin Atlantic flight out of SFO was delayed for an hour right off the bat, then further delayed coming into Heathrow. No problem, we told ourselves, we have plenty of time to catch our flight to Athens, since we scheduled a 3 hour layover instead of trying to rush to catch an earlier flight. But alas, when we checked in for the Athens flight, we got the delightful news that the flight is delayed 2 hours, which finds us here, sleeping on benches in Heathrow’s lovely Terminal 2. We won’t arrive in Athens now until around midnight, which means our plan to take the metro to our hotel will not work, since the metro stops at 11:30. We have been assured by a woman at the information desk that we can take a bus, and that we should then “go to the Ermou Square, find the only street that is just only pavement, follow it to the church, and then the location of our hotel will be behind the church.” We think we’ll probably have to ask for directions again when we get there.

If I do say so myself however, we are in quite good spirits. We are both exhausted, but have many diversions to keep us entertained, including our newly inaugurated high-stakes cribbage tournament (score so far: Erin and Loretta tied with one game each), a fascinating National Geographic article about malaria, and of course ipods, books, etc. On the plane, we had the additional diversion of two blond, pig-tailed girls sitting in front of us, about four and two years old. They weren’t angels, but they did delight in making their dolls dance on Lo’s head, the oldest one telling us about visiting her Grandma in London, the younger one, Lily, just smiling and saying mostly unintelligible things, but in a charming British accent.

We were given 5 pound voucher by the airline to spend at the food concessions here as a “We’re so sorry you’re stuck here for an extra two hours” gift. The airline (Olympic) is so low-tech that it’s just a piece of paper with “L 5” written on it. The security guy joked that we could just take a pen and add a “1” to increase our dinner’s value…hmm. Tempting. 5 pounds doesn’t buy much.

Cheers for now…
E

Time to GO!

We're packed and ready....for me last night, packing was like cramming for a final. I don't know why I do it this way, but I procrastinate and procrastinate until I'm almost out of time. Early this morning, around 3:30, when I was reading a book about Greece surrounded by piles of clothes and still-empty Big Mama waiting to receive them, I did realize how ridiculous I was being. So finally now I've got myself together, slightly worried about how heavy Big Mama is already, and now my sister is on her way to take us to SFO.

Here's the plan:
4:30 p.m. flight to London, 10 hrs., arrive at 10:30 a.m. local time.
wait in Heathrow for a bit
4:35 p.m. flight to Athens, arrive at 9:30 local time.

Greece is 10 hours ahead of PST, so...by the time we arrive at our hotel that night, we will have been traveling for 19 hours, give or take. I suspect it will feel like a little bit more than that, however. :)

Ciao for now...
E

9 days and counting....

On Tuesday, June 19th, Loretta and I head out for 3 weeks in Greece, with a few days in London thrown in at the end. Here are some questions that some of you might have, along with some thoughtfully provided answers.


Who is Loretta?
A good friend from church, proud owner of my first ever hand-knit pair of mloves.


Why Greece?
Neither of us has ever been there. The islands beckon, the ancient cities abound with wonders to be discovered anew, blah blah blah. :)

Why London?
We are meeting up with some good friends on their way back from Scotland. Plus also, I still have a few things left on my "To Do in London" list from the last time I was there.


What happened to Gretchen?
Nothing! We have separate travel plans this summer, but we still remember fondly our various adventures and we spoke of them wistfully on certain very difficult days at work this year. Also, we'll be having our own adventures working together in the little red room next year as we both plan to be out of the classroom.

Is the trip all planned?
Well....nope. Our current one-line answer is that this is the most unplanned trip I've ever had, and for Loretta it's the most planned. We know where we're staying the first 3 nights in Athens and the last 4 nights in London...and that's it. We have a rough idea of what shall happen between then, but other than that, we'll be surprising ourselves! You can read along on the blog and be surprised along with us...

More soon!

Final Photos....

Hey everyone...

We got in last night, after the usual long, trans-Atlantic flight. It's good to be home, though I'm already looking wistfully at our photos as they flash by on my computer's screen saver. Here are a few random ones to close out the blog. Thanks for reading!

Erin

The symbol of Spain...there were many of these all along the highway as we drove to Madrid.

This is a very famous bull, named Barbero. He almost killed a very famous matador.

At the bullfighting bar, with our little beers and gazpachitos in our hands...too bad you can't see the gory detail of the photos. Lots of blood and horns in places you wouldn't want horns to be. Thankfully, this is as close as we got to a bullfight.

Las Meninas by Velazquez...


...and re-interpreted by Picasso.

My favorite Raphael painting in the Prado...I love how thoughtful Mary's face is.

La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona...a 100 yr. construction project, just like in the Middle Ages.

Yes, chipmunks for sale. There was a pet market on the main shopping street full of crazy and seemingly illegal things to buy.

It's Barcelona...the Thinker is a bull, of course.

Collioure at night.

Not pictured: two delicious and quite large glasses of sangria.

I know, why a picture of a toilet? Because it was the TINIEST toilet I've ever seen. (Note my bag for obvious comparison purposes.) Taken at a McDonalds somewhere in France.

From the chateau...G w/2 suits of armor, whose hands we shook everytime we walked down from our room.

Pretty typical Bruges view. There were swans here too, just not in this picture.

Wish I could have bought all these little Belgian finger puppets...the picture will have to do.

Can you find me? This was our lovely A-dam hotel.

This is the photo from when we were really munchy in Amsterdam that one night...

e for erin...or actually just in the middle of a huge amsterdam sign that we climbed on.

Una noche en Granada...y ahora Madrid

View of Granada from the Alhambra palace

Gretchen, the tireless shopper...

Artsy, water-reflection photo.

Taking a break in the Alhambra gardens...

Jasim and I...his smile not in evidence, but it was nice.

Hey all...

Will update on Madrid in a moment, but wanted to review our last night in Granada first...it´s been a busy few days!

After touring the Alhambra we were busy shopping in the very Moroccan-feeling streets of the market in Granada. Actually, Gretchen was doing most of the shopping....I was following along the narrow and very merchandise-clogged alleys feeling a bit tired. She stopped to buy something, and as she looked around I started talking to the quite nice man that worked in the shop. Long story short, he asked to meet up later and take us to a tea house, to which I promptly said no, thanks. (We had planned an expensive, splurge dinner for that night.) I told Gretchen as we were walking away, and she convinced me to go back and say yes....so I did.

We agreed to meet in a few hours, and the rest of the evening was quite delightful...he was charming, an Iraqi doctoral student who is studying in Granada to be a professor. He bought us tea, and later we all got gyros for dinner and went to eat them near the moonlit river near the shadow of the Alhambra walls. Gretchen was a great chaperone to what turned out to be a lovely little date...she did leave to do even more shopping for a bit, but only after things seemed to be going quite fine. We said goodbye to him and caught the bus back to our hotel...and yes, I do have a picture, but cannot post from this internet place. Alas!

Early the next morning we made the drive all the way up to Madrid in order to make it to the amazing Prado museum here before it closed. For the art-loving readers of this blog, I must say that the Prado is perhaps the most impressive museum I´ve been to, save the Louvre. My favorite of all is Velazquez´Las Meninas, though I won´t bore you with many art details.

We are off now for one more touristic visit...the Royal Palaces...and then plan to have a last dinner with some last sangria(s) before we catch the plane tomorrow morning! It´s been great fun writing this blog, even more fun knowing that you all were reading, and great to read your comments. I know many of you read but didn´t comment...G & I were wondering how many, so if you don´t mind, drop me a line at eschweng@gmail.com and let us know! I plan to update one last time, with pictures, when we get back.

Hasta luego,
E & G

Eating at Abeula´s house

We found this fan in the Alhambra gardens...at least a 15 euro value!

Hola...

The tourist version of Granada is limited to a few big things: the biggest is the Alhambra palace, of which I will write more later. Also, there is the Albayzin, the best preserved Moorish quarter in Spain. It´s full of winding, cobbled streets, little whitewashed homes and buildings, morning glorys growing in mats over the stone walls, and crazy little red buses that go like mad through the tiny lanes. Not exactly clear on the bus system, we walked last night through the quarter, trying to find a little square that we´d read about in Rick that promised locals hanging out: grandmas gossiping, kids playing soccer, and great food. After some amount of confusion and stumbling up hills in the early evening heat, we managed to find the plaza we were looking for. Sometimes during a trip like this reality falls far short of what you´ve been imagining, often it´s even better, and sometimes, like last night, it´s just exactly right.

We sat down at the outside table of a little restaraunt whose sign promised sangria and gazpacho, our new favorite thing, and were greeted warmly by an older woman. As we ordered (the two things already mentioned, plus arroz con pollo and papas a la pobre), it became clear that her two little granddaughters were playing in the square right in front of us, being watched quite lovingly by their older brother. The food took a long time (I saw her go and get the raw potatoes for our potato dish), so we had ample time to soak in the atmosphere. It was quite a lovely evening.

Alas, there are no pictures from Abuela´s restaurant, but I´m attaching some photos we took at the Alhambra today. (oops...this computer only let me attach one!) It is a truly amazing place....a beautiful, highly decorated Moorish palace, but the gardens were my favorite part. They are huge, full of lovely plants, but best of all was the water....wherever you go you can hear it, burbling, trickling, and sometimes even roaring down little waterfalls.

Madrid mañana...

E

Traveling with a local

Chocolate con churros, at last! (we'd been trying to find them for a few days...)

The Alcazar gardens

more gardens...i was quite taken with them.

An example of the slow pace of life, or just a kind of lazy horse and buggy guy...

Our friend Matilde, the key to our lovely and tasty evening...

Hola todos...

Yesterday we had the pleasure of meeting up with one of our friends from work who is Spanish and comes here every summer with her family. She and her husband drove to meet us in Sevilla, and being with her as we trouped around town was amazing. Where usually we struggled to figure out what to order, and gingerly attempted to find new places and restaurants, having Matilde with us was a completely different experience. In very Spanish style, we ate and drank at three different bars/restaurants, stopping along the way at parks and plazas we hadn´t yet seen. Our three stops:

1. A little bar where we´d eaten before...but this time Matilde ordered a lovely, local, light summer white wine that was delicious. Unfortunately, the kitchen was low on food because of a big party earlier that day, so we moved on to...
2. A quite fancy restaurant where G & I probably never would have gone, but we were all thirsty from walking around and so we stopped in. As G & I were talking about how hard it was to get enough vegetables in our diet here, Matilde quickly solved that problem by ordering us all some gazpacho...wasn´t on the menu, but as she said, "It´s summer in Andalucia...of course they have it!" Indeed, as the waiter brought us huge wine goblets filled with thick, golden, garlicky gazpacho he said something to the effect of, "This is the real thing...not for the tourists." And really, words cannot describe how good it tasted to us last night. I am inspired to try to make some version of it when I get home.
3. Finally, on the hunt for some true tapas, we found a little restaurant right in our neighborhood where Matilde consulted with us and quickly ordered us fresh sliced and salted tomatoes, small chunks of fried fish, little plates of pork and potatoes, and, best of all, jamon iberica, which is the most expensive kind of cured ham here, made from black pigs that are fed nothing but acorns. It was so delicious that we are planning to smuggle some back to the U.S...hopefully customs will look the other way.

It seems that this has basically become a food blog, but just to balance I´ll throw in a few pictures from our tour of the Moorish/Christian Alcazar palace yesterday....we're off to get our rental car and then drive to Granada.

Salud!
E