Okay, ONE More Adventure -- aka Oy vey, we're too old for this!!

Our travel home day began just right, with our driver arriving 5 minutes early in a lovely Mercedes town car  and we arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare to get our VAT refund for our jackets and spend some quiet time in the Envoy lounge before getting our plane home, due to leave at 11:35 and listed as “on time”.  Yay!!!!

And so at 11:10, we pack up and leave the lounge, checking the Departures board one last time for gate info.  And sure enough, there it is:  Flight 741, Gate A2, Final Call.  Wait, what? 

FINAL CALL???!!!!???  WTF???!!!!???? 

WHAT HAPPENED???!!!!????

No time to figure it out.  Off we boogied.  Fast.  Like bats outta hell.  If you’re familiar with Sky Harbor, imagine going from the high-numbered A gates to the high-numbered B Gates, except a little further and with not as many moving walkways to help us along.  We just went as fast as we could and then a little faster.  We were both making noises of 2 old people in the throes of death as we pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed a little harder, with a potential missed flight on the line.

Gene got to the security people just before our gate and they sprang to our aid:  called the gate to tell them 2 crazy, panting, half-dead Americans were still on their way, ran along side us asking us the appropriate security questions (“did your luggage ever leave your sight?” etc etc) and then ran ahead to the gate with our boarding passes & passports. 

With their help and the smiles of the travel gods, we made the plane with only a few minutes to spare.  Gene couldn’t stop coughing for about 20 minutes and both of us shivered with horror at the realization that we almost not only missed our opportunity to travel intercontinental in first class, we came within just a hair of totally missing our plane home!!

What went wrong?  Did you notice our mistake up there?  We were so brain dead we fixated on the fact that our plane was leaving at 11:35 and so we should be at the gate at 11:35.  We totally forgot to consider that minor detail:  the actual act of  BOARDING THE PLANE, which ALWAYS happens AT LEAST 30 minutes prior to take-off.  We tell people that all the time!!!  We’re friggin’ NAVIGATORS at Sky Harbor!!!  We help people NOT miss planes!!!!  And yet, and yet…..it remains true:  when you actually become a traveler, you lose a few brain cells and anything can happen as a result .  And indeed had our brains been functioning just a little more, we would have noticed on our boarding passes that the “Boarding time” was 10:35. 

Thank goodness it worked out, we made the plane, we made the next plane, we made it home, luggage made it home, the kitties are fine and aren’t too angry at us for leaving.  And we can begin the decompression process from a fabulous vacation!

All is well in Enovy class after the race of a lifetime.  Well at least a race against time!  Thank goodness we won!  Oh Sr/Sra Flight Attendant!!  Un otra Sangria por favor!!!

Stick a fork in this baby; she's done!

Final day in Spain.  Whew!  It was a day spent figuring out what goes in what suitcase to most effectively get everything home in one piece.  I think we're in good shape, thanks to my sticking to the plan of bringing clothes I didn't care all that much about and leaving them all behind.  Tonight, I will discard my houndstooth jacket (don't worry Cynthia, I have 2 more in the more fitting smaller size), 1 t-shirt and a pair of jeans that used to fit me to a T, but yesterday I was able to get off without unbuttoning them.  Yeah, sorry, I always lose weight on vacation and this one was no exception.

But mostly today was a day where we had a series of lovely encounters with fellow travelers.  First one was on the train from Sevilla to Madrid:  Darren & Frank and their 2 kids.  Our itineraries were practically mirrors of each other.  They hit the same cities around the same time and went to Las Fallas because Frank had seen a special called "Weird Festivals of the World".  He saw it on the History Channel; I caught it on HDNet.  They were so much fun to talk to.

Next we met a charming older couple who spent about 2 1/2 weeks each year walking a pilgrimage tour.  They started somewhere in France and would wind up somewhere -- I'm not sure.  I have to do some googling to find out exactly what they were doing.  But apparently, it's a big deal, you meet a lot of people and you recreate an historical pilgrimage.  What an interesting conversation we had!  They were from Cincinnati.

And tonight, our vacation capper:  a meal at Restaurant Botin, the reported oldest restaurant in the world per the Guinness Book of Records.  Founded in 1725 and continuing uninterrupted on the same spot ever since, it is either an over-priced tourist spot with mediocre food or a must-do experience when you visit Spain.  Our experience was a very good one.  The service with spot-on, the food really really good.  Our tummies are happy, our minds are happy, everything is happy.

On the way there, we got a little lost and asked a local policeman directions.  He spoke English and was as charming as any Spanish native we've met so far.  Shared his experiences at the restaurant ("I do not theenk eet ees the oldest, but they eenseest they are so") and the dishes he liked the best.  What a sweetie!  Our 3rd delightful encounter of the day.

And we continue our gentle re-entry into the big bad world (yeah, we've been keeping up a bit with the news, but not too much):  we have yet another splendid room in a splendid hotel and tomorrow, we do not hassle with a taxi.  I have arranged for pick-up service to take us directly to the airport where we will enjoy Envoy (aka "First") class on US Airways at least at far as Philly.  What a way to end our two weeks.

I'll sign off with some final photos.  If I'm too tired to enter another blog when I get home, I just want to thank all for following our adventures.  It made it oh so much more fun to know that we weren't traveling in a vacuum, but that others were keeping up with our adventures!

A good shot of the Cathedral showing the dueling architectural styles:  Christian church, Muslim bell tower.

And the Cathedral at night from the Solarium of our small hotel, just a 2 minute walk away.

Gene in front of the Ave train that was responsible for our going to Spain and not England.  He wanted the high-speed train experience and he got it.   "Ave" means bird, implying the train flies like one.  And they make it look like a duck.  Don't know if that quite fits the image they were going for, but it sure is cute, especially when its red nostrils light up.

Restaurant Botin

So I ordered the suckling pig specialty and dang!  it comes with a little tail and snout!!!! EEEEUUUUUWWWWWWW!!!!!   But it tasted pretty damned good and -- sorry vegetarians -- I'm higher on the food chain.

The view from our table.  Okay, the view from our table after 2 or 3 glasses of their Sangria.  Yum!!

The happy couple officially celebrate their 15th wedding anniversary and kiss the vacation goodbye!

Gene was at Velo-City2011 in Sevilla, España

Sevilla's Meteoric Rise in Transportation Cycling

2006-2009

The City of Sevilla in España set a goal of catching up with other cities in España and Europe to attain a significant increase in self-powered transportation. With not too much of the transportation infrastructure oriented to cycling and about 6000 daily commutes done by bicicleta in 2006, Sevilla measured 66,000 in 2009! A truly meteoric rise.

But the city is not at all sitting on its laurels. This last week, it hosted Velo-City 2011, <http://tinyurl.com/VelloCity2011>, a global, annual conference on cycling, the benefits, how to promote it and a meeting of the minds of movers and shakers from many parts of the world. The Keynote speaker was Gro Harlem Brundtland who has been Prime Minister of Norway three times, chaired the UN committee on sustainability in 1987, and continues to serve humanity. A large number of elected officials from the U.S. were recruited to advise the City in infrastructure improvements for cycling.

Then, and now, the people and things of Sevilla are primarily moved by carbon fuels. I observed a decent number of buses, Priii and “Smart” cars, but during “rush” hour, traffic jams look just like the rest of the industrialized world, namely bogged down. There is a new and very beautiful light-rail system taking people through heavily traveled routes, and a subway system (which I didn't observe).

I rented a bike on two of the days I was there and got a feeling for what the city has done to encourage cycling. The good news is that there is a connected, dedicated path system that forms a pretty good grid of the city. The bad news is that these (usually striped bi-directional) paths are very narrow and are often immediately adjacent to pedestrians and motor vehicles. Separation from pedestrians is strictly by paint and from motor vehicles, by pipe railings and permanent pylons that are less than 2 feet high. Thus, normal usage levels (rush hours) results in no or difficult passing and motor vehicles passing towards you just inches away. Intersections are trouble spots, but fortunately traffic lights are often positioned to protect pedestrians and cyclists. Since the layout of major intersections (often signaled circles) have pedestrian crossings (and now cycle crossings) located away from the circles and are controlled by signals, motorists have long been used to stopping for pedestrians, cyclists too are respected.

Unfortunately, I only saw three or four “serious” cyclists, that is, those with a helmet, decent clothing and a properly adjusted bike. Clearly LAB training is needed.

It is a bit amazing that there are throughways is a town as old as Sevilla which was originally laid out for someone on a horse. I am surmising the advent of the motor vehicle resulted in demolition of existing buildings to attain the existing throughways. [Our taxi from the train station could only bring us three “blocks” from our hotel].

In a way I'd like to have Sevilla's problem of nearly fully used cycling facilities. I would not like to try to carve out a little more of the zero-sum space available to all forms of transportation. In the U. S. there is not enough respect from motorists for pedestrians and cyclists to have safe Bike Paths adjacent to motor vehicle roadways, specifically at intersections of cross streets. At the very least, Sevilla should double the bike paths it currently has, not to new areas, but to the other side of the street where they currently exist. That would provide wide enough paths for safe passing and continue to have all cyclists ride in the same direction as adjacent motor vehicles.

This leads me to the real difficulty I have with the approaches I've seen wherever I have been. That is, city engineers almost require two levels of cycling skills and confidence. The paths of Sevilla and East Jefferson in Phoenix are for a more casual rider. Confident, skilled drivers of bicycles will choose to merge in with traffic, safer as borne out by crash and injury data. I also know walking comes before running in everyone's life.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Some pix from the event:

Keynote Speaker Ms. Bruntland

MC Gil Peñalosa

Attendees


-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Some of Sevilla's cycling infrastructure:

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Yours Truely

A Splendid Day for a Climb -- Hooray for Training!!!

First off, it's impossible to find a clothing store in Sevilla where you can buy something pretty to wear on the plane home.  If I wanted to, however, I could buy 1) red shoes, 2 inch heels, black polka dots;  2) black shoes, 2 inch heels, red polka dots;  3) a shawl;  4) a dress that makes me look like Carmen.  It would work maybe in Sevilla.  In Phoenix?  Hoochie mama all the way.  So I just walked around and then visited the big Cathedral when it opened.

The Cathedral was built on top of what used to be the Mosque here, but they kept the Minaret, so you have two wildly diverse architectural styles side by side.

Main altar in the church.  It is huge!  It is gold!  It is carved to within an inch of its life.  I believe you have to be a high mucky-muck to be married in front of it.

This is the alleged tomb of Christopher Columbus.  Or it's not and he's really in Santo Domingo and was just here for a while.  Whatever.  Whoever is buried here got hisself a real nice sarcophagus.  Nicest I've seen since Napoleon's in Paris.

This is the Muslim bell tower.  Only thing left after the Catholics built their church on top of the old Mosque.  The arch window is the level you can walk up to.  35 sloped ramps.  About a 20-23 degree angle, each arch about 10-12 feet long.  My training paid off!!  I walked it, no sweat!!!!

Better view of where you walk to.  You get to just below the bells.  And here was my reward for walking all the way up:

A 360 view of Sevilla on a perfectly clear day without a cloud in the sky.  It was worth the walk and a gorgeous pretty-much-end to sightseeing in Sevilla.

The Inn at Sevilla

Not really.  It's the Hotel Casas de Santa Cruz and it's delightfully charming and wonderfully quiet following the noise and hoopla of Valencia.  It's in the historic district, a two-minute walk from the Cathedral where I'll explore this morning before trying to get in some shopping without getting lost.  Gene left early to join in the fight to save the world from cars at Velocity 2011, a conference devoted to biking around the world.

But I wanted to share photos of this little charmer, very old on the outside, free wifi on the inside.  What's not to love?  (and thank you, Google Chrome, for uploading my photos when Windows wouldn't.  Could the 30 other Windows Gene has open on his computer be the culprit?)

Gene enters the small and cozy "lobby".  Can't really be more than 20x20, if that.

The view looking directly up from the center of the lobby

The view of our entire floor looking from just outside the door on the left.

The view from our little balcony to the left

And the right.

We'll have to lug our suitcases a few short blocks in order to meet our taxi tomorrow morning for our final train ride back to Madrid.  But the lugging is worth it.  This was a sweet little place to hole up in for our final days in Spain.

Catching up

I never had time to show photos of The City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia.  It is their pride and joy as well it should be.  A magnificent group of buildings housing a Science Museum, an Aquarium and an Art Museum.  Many people come here just to walk around.  Our time was limited, but we did manage to get inside the Science Museum and were very impressed.

It's impossible to get a full view of the entire "City" in one shot.  This is the Art Museum at one end.  Then the center stretches for about 3 or 4 more city blocks to the right, plus down one level below sidewalk level.

These cool sculptures dot the walkway.  People try to imitate their poses for their photos.

Views of the Cordoba Mosque

I love how the Spanish used mosaics of stone to create their "carpets".  "Floors" like this are all over the city in various parks.  The workmanship is just incredible.

A view of just a small part of the gardens.  That's the Mosque way in the background on the right edge 

The inside of the Mosque is deep and wide -- deceptive from the outside.  And it is filled with archways such as this.  They are magnificent and very peaceful to look at and walk under.

And finally......

The tree & photo that lost the tour (it IS a big tree; ya gotta admit)

P.X. RULES!!!

PX is Pedro Ximinez, one of the finest (and powerful) wines you can have.  They serve it in tiny cups.  The glasses are to regular wine glasses as espresso cups are to regular coffee cups.  Sweet like a good port, but not sticky sweet.  Two servings could knock you on your ass, I'm figuring, but one gives you a gentle functional buzz.

But more on that a little later.

Today was Cordoba and the Mosque there.  We were in a tour group of 25, led by a multi-lingual guide.  We were from all over the world:  US, Belgium, Paris, Brazil, Holland, Italy, and a couple dressed in traditional Muslim garb, though I don't know what country they were from.  The tour guide gave each speech 3 times, once in Spanish, once in English, once in French and that seemed to cover everyone.

It was historic and interesting, though I can't say I got a lot out of the tour.  Our guide's accent was just a tad too strong for me to follow along.  So I started taking photos.  Of this and that and particularly of a huge tree that had to be just hundreds of years old.  And that's when I took too long.......and lost the tour.  Oh me oh my.  I thought Gene & I would be able to catch up, but they took a turn and then the streets just turned this way and that and there were sooo many other tour groups and they all start looking alike and....... oh well.

So I figured: 1) no law says you HAVE TO stay with the tour, 2) we didn't miss the bus back to Sevilla, just the tour, 3) I'm smart enough to read my guide book and learn about the Mosque on my own, 4) hell, I'm smart enough to tour the damn Mosque on my own.

And so we did.  My only consequence was having to pay an additional entry fee to the Mosque since I wasn't part of a tour group.  Oh well again.  The upside of losing the tour was the opptorunity to meet a splendid and funny British couple with whom we shared stories about our travels and overwhelming opulence some of the displays in the Mosque -- something we could not have done with the lock-step of following a guide.

From there we wandered through the marketplace and stumbled into a wonderful restaurant called Bodegas Mezquita and had what we've decided is the best Spanish meal of the entire trip.  Start with Andelusian Gaspacho which easily matches the recipe I have and Cordoba-style cod over what looked like a fabulous ratatouille.  We chatted with the waiter and praised the food and he brought us some eggplant fried in a honey sauce.  Then he brought out the Pedro Ximinez wine, which is the basis for the honey sauce.  And then we went next door and bought a bottle of the stuff.  Oh yum yum.

I'm getting "server rejected" messages to all my uploaded photos.  I'll try tomorrow.

Gene has discovered a bike conference here called "Velocity 2011".  He is chomping at the bit.  He has rented a bike and will try to attend in the morning.  I will shop.  After 2 weeks of constant "together" touring, we will both be very happy.  It is a healthy thing to do.

Mama mia!! thatsa spicy meata --- whoops wrong country

When I get home, I'm not gonna have meatballs for a month.  I keep having them here.  And I keep having them here because "albondigas" is one of the few words I know for Spanish foods, so when I'm really hungry and don't want to experiment, I go with that.

And I've learned that it's "al-BON-digas" and not "albon-DI-gas". 

So that's progress.

So when you think about it, what's really wrong with using a Segway anyhow?

I survived the bike tour.  Yay!  It almost didn't happen because Spain doesn't like to put street signs up apparently and we are in a section of town where one wrong move puts you 4 blocks away from where you want to be with dead-ends all around.  In fact, the only reason we finally made the bike tour was because the leader came looking for us and we linked up, so all was well.

It was a nice way to see Seville, my training -- going to the gym, biking over there, etc -- paid off and I was able to keep up pretty well.  We were with another couple from Holland.  They bike all the time and I got the impression they thought I was a lazy-ass American.  Kept calling me "Mrs. Armstrong".  Har har f***kin' har. 

Anyway, my bike was cool.  Seat was low -- maybe too low, but that allowed me to push off with my foot and if we went slow enough and I was unsteady, I could just move the bike along by walking.  (let that image wash over you for a while as I'm doing right now).  The other good thing (don't tell Gene) was that the bike shop didn't have helmets available, so we rode with the breeze through our hair. 

I know, I know, but it was fun being like a kid again.

My favorite spot was when we tried to go down a very narrow alley and some kind of walking tour was coming up the alley -- walking tour meets bike tour.  Never a dull moment.  But here are a couple of nice shots from the bike tour:

The tour was a great way to see Seville.  It is a beautiful old city. 

The Beginning of the End

We are in Seville.  It is quiet.  As we mentioned, it was like someone flipped a switch.  Las Fallas was over?  Constant firecrackers were over.  From 60 to 0.  Overnight.  Quiet.  Amazing.

Took a little time getting to our hotel.  The cab dropped us off and told us we had to walk the rest of the way because the streets were too narrow for a car.  He was right.  And no one could tell us where the street we were looking for was or had heard of the hotel.  I did have a wonderfully interesting experience asking for help in Spanish.  Guy didn't speak English and didn't speak Spanish well either.  Said to me "Parlez-vous francais".  !!!!!!!  Why yes, yes I do!!!!  "un peu".  And so he told me in French where another hotel was that would probably know of ours and could help.  Man, do I feel inter-continental or what!?!

But I found the street before we needed to do that.  This was the hardest hotel to get to and the absolute most charming.  Building must be a couple hundred years old, but with modern upgrades inside (like wifi for starters).  Photos tomorrow because the area we will spend our final 3 days in is sooo charming!

Tomorrow!  The infamous bike ride I trained for.  Tuesday, the only "tour" we are taking -- to Cordoba and a huge mosque.  Wednesday on our own in Seville, Thursday, back to Madrid.

Hasta luego, kids!

Ninots and the Respect They Get


Photos of some typical ninots

This was the this year's winner.  If I read the banner correctly, it may have been their 2nd win in a row.





This gives a good idea of how tall some of these are

 And the respect they ultimately receive.  To tell you the truth, they started to look alike and I started to get turned around, so I don't think I have a photo of the one we watched get burned.  But never mind.  It was BIG, it was pretty cool and here is its fate:

The firecrackers set it off

About 10 minutes later

About 20 minutes later.  They have this down to a science and it doesn't take long.