Our time with friends in Zaragoza

In Zaragoza for only 1 full day and 2 nights, such a short time which went by very quickly. Most of the time we spent with the people that I'd got to know and became friends with - Sergio, Lourdes, Irene, Yolanda and Jose Antonio - I couldn't have met a nicer bunch people and finally they got to meet Barry, having met Thomas, Robyn, Wayne, Emma and Sam when they visited me in Zaragoza. I also got to say "hi" to a lot of the teachers, staff and students who were a big part of my life there, have a morning cafe con leche in the local teacher' cafe, no staff room for these teachers. Surprisingly, I managed to remember quite a lot of the Spanish I'd learnt and it seemed ok, well, nobody fell about laughing although, for a while  I was telling people that "we are driving to Azpeitia yesterday". I did feel rather foolish when I realised that I should have been saying 'mañana' not 'ayer'. Must have been confusing for a few people. 

We didn't do any tourist 'stuff' so we'll have to go back for a weekend or two so Barry can visit the Goya exhibition and the underground Roman ruins.

We spent a little time with Yolanda on Tuesday night and it was almost like old times Friday afternoon walking, Spanish/English chatting and maybe a coffee or a beer and then we met Sergio and Irene and walked to the river with them, again, just like old times for me.  Central Zaragoza is such a fabulous place to walk about in - no traffic is such bliss.

On Wednesday we had lunch with Sergio, Lourdes and Irene and  afterwards Sergio and Irene went back to school and we walked with Lourdes back to her school but on the way - PAIN in my right calf  - A PULLED MUSCLE, I couldn't freakin' believe it!  Fortunately not too bad and I managed to hobble slowly to Lourdes's school and say Hi to Jose Antonio. So then it was on the bus and back to the hotel, pick up some ice and that was that for the rest of the day until it was time to meet at a bar for dinner - at Spanish dinner time, 9.30pm. 

What a fabulous dinner -1st came juicy and tender calamari, 2nd came  'huevos rotos' which is a traditional Spanish dish of soft yolk fried eggs on top of hot chips. It comes in one big dish for the center of the table and then the eggs are chopped up and mixed in with the chips. Everyone has a fork and tucks in and then mops up the remains with fresh bread - really delicious. 3rd came the'bocadillos' - like breadsticks with different kinds of meat etc in them. All this food was accompanied by beer, of course! 

Our huevos rotos

And then it was time for the goodbyes to Yolanda and Jose Antonio. They said they will visit us in Azpeitia so more like "hasta luego".  My 'stuff' from my Zaragoza apartment was in Sergio's car so we drove, well, he drove us, to our hotel and unloaded us and it. More goodbyes, never gets any easier to say goodbye although they also said they will come see us in Azpeitia so again "hasta luego" was more appropriate. Zaragoza people, if you're reading this -"hasta pronto".

The next day was 'driving to Azpeitia day' not that we were beginning to feel nervous, or anything,  about driving on the 'other side of the road'.

 

Final day in London and on to Zaragoza, Spain

Monday  23/9 - in London

Our last full day with my London family. Emma had the day off YAY, after a late start to the day we wandered our way to The Docklands Museum and what a great place to visit. It is one of the best museums I have been to, not that I'm an expert on such places. It is very comprehensive and interesting. I got only half way through and was feeling rather 'museumed out' and Emma and Barry had had enough so we called it a day at Docklands and made our way back to the city  to meet Sam at his work. I will certainly return to Docklands to see the rest of it one day. For anyone going there I would suggest going in two stages IT'S FREE!!!! I didn't take any photos here, I wouldn't have done anything justice and, sometimes it's good for me to just leave the camera at home.

After Sam finished work we called into a nearby pub for a beer and some time together, just the 4 of us and it was great. Chatted and laughed and then a conversation with an old local looking for 'friends'. Then it was on to the tube and back to lovely Brixton to the Craft Beer Bar, which has about 50 beers to try and buy, and  to meet some other lovely people, namely Holly and Brit and finished a fantastic day off with a Japanese dinner. It's one of the great things about Brixton - all the different eating places and bars to go to, not to mention that living there are some of my most favourite people in the world. 

The next morning, Tuesday it was time to organise our bags re weight allowances, say goodbye and head off to Stansted Airport for our flight to Zaragoza, Spain. We had decided that we would take a taxi and had one of the most interesting taxi rides so far. When we booked the taxi we were told that 1 hour 15minutes would be plenty of time to allow - NO NO NO - it is not plenty of time at all! Almost 2 hours was more like it and that was in a taxi screaming along at 95 MILES PER HOUR sometimes. I had a silent mantra going on - "we will make it and we will be in time". We did make it safely to the airport, "whew",  rushed in as fast as we could, a little hampered by our luggage, got checked in ok, slow through security (toothpaste in Barry's bag, my shoes had to go through again SEPARATELY!) all taking up time, got through to find the 'final call' sign flashing on the board. So off we 'ran' again through what seemed like miles of corridorsto get onto the plane and YES we did make it, with no time to spare at all! We were a little ( to say the least) frazzled.

However, soon we were flying over the English countryside, the English Channel and then the French countryside, the Pyrenees, the very dry and extraordinary landscape north of Zaragoza and finally touched down, on time, in Zaragoza. We were through security in no time at all and taxied into the city. A very orderly ride. I was pleased to find that the driver understood my Spanish and we got to the right place - The Hotel Paris in the center of the city. 

Our room had a big balcony, rather like a 'party deck' and had such a view - I just have to show some photos -

We really liked looking down on the higgedly piccaldy rooves with the different coloured tiles and the fabulous Basilica dell Pilar.

The school that I spent most of my working time in  when I was in Zaragoza is the building halfway up the left edge of the photo - one of the nicest places I have worked in. 

For anyone who is looking for a hotel in Zaragoza I think that the Hotel Paris is great and the staff are wonderful.

How lovely it was to be back in Zaragoza, everything felt so familiar.

Back in London

Saturday 21/9 

Back in Brixton, London having been challenged (just a small one) by the subway system to find a bus  from 'no idea where'.  Just as we were commenting on how fantastic the subway system is it stopped and, we were told, is going no further due to a breakdown on the tracks to Brixton. Suffice to say we made it!  Pizzas for dinner with our London family - not bad at all.

On Sunday we braved the crowds and made it into The Battersea Power Station. This iconic London landmark was open to the public over the weekend before being turned into apartments, shops etc - the usual exciting development. The chimneys are being taken down and rebuilt according to the original plans and specifications - how about that!  A huge number of people had the same idea and the queue was miles long. Fortunately, we were there before it opened so once they started letting people in, we moved along rather quickly with a couple of fun altercations with queue jumpers along the way. It was a great day out and we all pleased we'd gone. Here's some photos:

One more thing on the subject of queues, queues being a British phenomenon - inside the power station a queue formed, and grew as more and more people joined to look through a little hole not much bigger than a keyhole  in a door. What was to be seen through the hole was nothing more than some stairs. It was easy enough to realise that there wasn't much to see because no one looked for more than a second or two, however,  one kiwi couldn't resist - can you spot him?

Outside the power station, beside the Thames River were 2 fantastic ancient cranes. I hope that somehow they are preserved.

We wandered our way back to Brixton and on to the 'Old Man Pub' on Elm Park Rd for some pints and dinner. The pub doesn't do food but instead has a pile of menus from local take-away places which will deliver food. So, we ordered some Chinese deliciousness and it came to the pub which then supplied us with the utensils to eat it with. Such a damn good idea!  

And that was the end of a fairly good day. 

Leeds

We had a great time in Leeds visiting my niece, nephew-in-law and great-niece and staying in their new (as in 1st) house.  We didn't do more than hang out with them so no tourist ventures into the city. We've been there before had had a wander around then. My impression of the city both times is that it is a dark city - all dark red bricks and dark green trees. We wandered down to their local bar-restaurante for a pint or 3 of the local brew and some delicious food although Barry's 'bacon chop' wasn't as big as he was expecting. Trained back to London the next day without any problems. Not such a simple thing as I discovered in previous trips - random cancellations, faulty train before leaving the station so had to change and lost our booked seats, train on fire, people telling us we were in their seats, we weren't and then seats booked for the wrong day, tossed out in some little place on the way to the airport being 
 "there  may be a bus and taxis"!!!! So, an uneventful train trip on British Rail was really nice.

Here's some photos from Leeds

First blog so is kind of a trial run

 here goes - blogging is beginning.

In London and it's great to be with Emma and Sam again. I do declare that I'll never fly via the US again.  I can not be bothered with the nonsense of queueing for security processing even though I'm in transit. Over an hour at San Francisco and then fairly mediocre service on Virgin Atlantic

London has been a mixture of grey drizzle and sunshine and cool temperatures. We've visited the Lowery exhibition at the Tate Britain and a paper art exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery.  The Lowery was interesting but the paper art wasn't at all for me however Barry was thought it was and he wandered around while I sat on the step.

I feel like an experienced traveller around London now, but I'm  always surprised at how long getting about takes even though the subway seems to me to be fast and efficient.  Thankfully there are rather less people in London this time so it's easy and enjoyable to move around the city. 

We've eaten at the usual places - Khans Indian and Bob's burgers, Ruth's famous in the coley household lasagne at Emma and Brit's place, we've laughed a lot. Time is passing too quickly, unlike the hours that crawled by while we waited at San Francisco Airport. Guess it all depends on 'fun'.

And now Barry and I are on a train speeding through the English countryside en route to Leeds.  Looking forward to spending time with the Leeds branch of my family.  The country is very green except for the miles and miles of brown paddocks which have just had the hay cut. Amongst the green and the brown are the English villages and towns with their red-brick houses all the same as each other. Occasionally there is a castle, windmills and a few cows and sheep, nothing that could be called a mountain. It all looks very neat and tidy. I'm not having much luck with taking photos. By the time I get my camera up and ready to take a shot the moment has passed, there are a lot of high hedges along the railway tracks which doesn't help.

Just passed a small lake beside the tracks and all around the edge were people fishing - sitting on stools of some sort, looked like they were about 3 meters apart. It looked very funny - well, I thought so.

Just passed through Doncaster so will be in Leeds in about 30 minutes.

random photos from the train: