Hi All,
It hasnt been that long since I last wrote but I didn't get around to talking about Barcelona due to the length of my last email.. Let me address that now!
Let me start by saying this : Barcelona is a great city. Its realy chilled out, and Spain is probably one of my favourite cities in Europe. The weather is great, and I love the whole eat late, stay up late vibe, especially on holidays. Archiecture is really interesting in Barcelona with Gaudi's relgious/nature influences all throughout the city. The ONLY slight blemish to the city this time was that I wasn't blown away by the food there (it wasn't bad, just wasn't amazing!) and the month of August is not the ideal time to go due to the fact that a LOT of local shops/restaurants close for most of August as everyone goes on holidays!
Highlights of Barcelona:
- Relaxed atmosphere
- Great architecture: Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo (pronounced baiyo), las rambla
- Waking up late, eating late
- Jamon Iberico at the markets - so much better value than eating at a restaurant!
- Getting my tan on!
- Relatively cheap compared to London /Paris
The best food we had there was from markets, and the best things at the markets is of course Jamon Ibero! There are a lot of different varieties in terms of cut (shoulder vs leg), acorn vs non acorn, breed pf pig, time of aging (1-5 years) and the flavours do very drastically between them, I personally tried as many different types as possible, all in the name of science of course. Other meals in Barcelona were good, but not amazing - the other highlight being a squid ink paella at a relatively fancy restaurant.
I think food quality was limited by the afore mentioned closure of lots of local restaurants due to August. I'll give barcelona the benefit of the doubt just this once..
It just so happened that Viv, Miranda and Josh were also in Barcelona on the same weekend! Thanks for letting us tag along with you guys!
Just to go onto a tangent...After 5 months of 'low cost carrier' travelling I think I have now established several rules:
1. Saturday morning flights are generally not worth it. Getting up at 3:30am to get to the airport ruins your day, and you end up wiping out in the afternoon anyway so its not like you get to spend a full day anyway. Saving accomodation for a night sounds like a good idea, but the opporunity cost of losing half of saturday due to tiredness and extra expense to get there in the morning must be considered.
2. Location of the airport is important. Depending on when you live, the airport is really important. For example to get to Stansted Airport from Clapham early in the mornig or returning late at night is a NIGHTMARE. We got up at 3:30am for a 7am flight and only just made it and it cost us about 20 pounds to get there. While you may pay an extra 20 pounds to fly from a close airport, this is easily cancelled out by the size of the taxi bill at 12 midnight when you land..
3. Book in advance - plan 3 months ahead!
We also went to Berlin last weekend, organised by Linda... Friday night flight of course - the woman is a pro and learnt the before 3 rules a long ago... She booked us a MASSIVE 2 bedroom apartment in the Mitte district (east berlin).. We arrived on Friday night and immediately smashed a currywurst once we had dropped off our bags. Currywurst is fantastic, its just a sausage fried in oil and covered in tomato sauce which has curry powder in it. We had it at a place right under friedrichstrafe station and I have to say the chips here were amazing - really crunchy and went great with the curry sauce! We also had a few drinks a bar called Van Gogh, it was a really eccentric little place which specialised in cocktails and had a man playing a piano and singing in the corner. Really chilled out place and was absolutely packed from where we got there at about midnight to 2am when we left..... to have KEBABS! Great call by Linda to redirect our taxi driver to take us to a kebab shop instead of home!
This was probably the first kebab i've had since i left australia and this was pretty good! Not too fat, and had enough vegetables to make me feel healthy. The meat was cut really small so that was interesting too. Kebabs and currywurst are EVERYWHERE in Berlin, much more so than in Sydney. Unfortunately, food went downhill from that point, the rest of the meals we had were unmemorable, with a few average roast pork dishes and various sausages/wurst dishes were not impressive. I do remember having a few better meals last time I was in Berlin, but I think the south of Germany (e.g. bavaria) is more well known for food..
The highlight of the trip was definitely the Fat Tire Bike tour - which was 5 hr bike tour throughout berlin. Riding a bike is definitely a good way to see a city - i just dont think you cover enough ground on foot. We apparently covered 14kms on the tour, and although when you think about it, over 5 hrs its about 3 km/h we did have a 1 hr lunch break and stopped constantly to talk, take photos etc. Also we werent tired like we would have been after walking 14 kms..The tour covered most of the highlights, reichstag, berlin wall, checkpoint charlie, bradenburg gate, museum island etc. and the guide, a Kiwi named Francis was quite knowledgable.
Anyway, that more of less brings you up to date with my travels. London has been getting slightly colder but hasn't really turned the corner yet in terms of temperature, I dont have a coat, but its fine so far. It is getting dark earlier now, its dark by about 7:30 pm now,compared to almost 10pm in the hights of summer.. 6 months of darkness here we come!
Danny is coming to visit for a couple of months, arriving tomorow night! It gives me an excuse to go to my first 2 star restaurant in London - The Square in Mayfair. I hope its good!
Hope you are all well. Write back when you guys get a chance!
Take care!
Miles
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