hello/hola/kaixo from somewhere just outside of Barcelona. We're on the train, which is running about an hour late, so thought I'd use the opportunity to write some more 'blog'. It's now 10.50pm so it's rather dark outside - just heard that Barcelona is 30 minutes away, that's if we don't stop again. It's the first time that we've been on a bus or a train that's not been on time in all the trips we've made since we've been here. Not so bad really.
So - about our time in Zaragoza the weekend before last. We went by bus because the trains were booked out by the time we'd got sorted and made the decision to go. Actually, it was our only chance to go before Barry heads to London and then on to NZ and summer time wo hoooo for him!!!
We had to pick up a beautiful piece of pottery, which I'd left with Sergio and Loudes when I went back to NZ last June because I had no space/weight left in my luggage, and had forgotten to get when we were in Zaragoza before going to Azpeitia. The best opportunity to get it back to NZ is with Barry at the end of November so off to Zaragoza we went. Also, Barry wanted to see some of the things that the rest of us had seen and it was a good chance to hang out with our Zaragoza friends as well. We arrived on Friday afternoon and headed back to Azpeitia on Sunday afternoon.
To our surprise our usual hotel in Zaragoza, The Hotel Paris, was booked out so we went to the Hotel Roma which is down the end of Calle Don Jamie by the Plaza del Pilar and The Le Seo Cathedral, a really nice location though I did think that there may be a lot of bell-ringing noise on Sunday morning but there wasn't, thankfully.
this was taken from our hotel room window - the Le Seo Cathedral
We had a fabulous weekend with lots of beautiful food and great company and the sun was shining every day. . On Friday evening we met up with Yolanda and Jose Antonio for a chat and walk about. We eventually got the tram to xoxoxoxo and then walked up all the steps to the top of the waterfall and then wandered our way down again and then walked back onto the city center, the same walk that I did with Thomas, Robyn and Wayne almost 1 year ago. Sergio met us and so it was off to a bar for tapas and beer. After a little while a friend of his, Sumil, joined us. Sumil lives in Barcelona and before he left us we had swapped phone numbers and had the possibility of meeting up when we are in Barcelona. All going well, this will happen tomorrow evening. We then had dinner in a restaurant which used to be a hang-out for bull-fighters back in the day and the walls of this restaurant are covered with old photos and stuffed bulls heads, great big black ones.
The food was interesting and delicious - migas (breadcrumbs mixed with stuff); huevos rotos (hot chips with soft yolk fried eggs cut up and mixed in with the chips and these also had truffles scattered amongst the chips) and madegas (pieces of lamb rolled up in ligaments of some animal and fried and then sliced thinly yummmmmmm). It was all very delicious. We finally got back to the hotel at about 1am. All in all it was a very good night.
On Saturday, Barry and I went to the Roman ruins dating from the time of Caesar Augustus and then to the Goya Exhibition which is a permanent exhibition showing lots of his drawings of life as he saw it going on around him. Possibly the precursor to photo-journalism - bullfighting, war with its madness and chaos as well as other paintings of his and other artists.
After some lunch we wandered along the river to visit the latest addition to the Zaragoza scene: 'The Zaragoza Eye'. It's not what it's actually called but I don't remember the actual name of it. See what I mean! It was a neat ride, 5 times around!
looking out over Zaragoza
On Saturday evening, afternoon in Spanish time, we met up again with the others, this time Lourdes and Irene were with us, for a walk about and a look into a museum that I hadn't been to before. The first exhibition from South America, didn't interest me much but Sergio pointed out some of the language differences between Spanish in Spain and South American Spanish and that was interesting. The next one, Japanese photographs of the tsunami, was ok.
Once more it was time to eat and this time we went to 3 different places to eat different kinds of tapas, most of which I don't remember except for the place where we ate about 5 or 6 different types of cheese, chosen from a huge range of cheeses, and bread. There's always bread. This bar was all about cheese and as soon as we walked in the smell of all the cheeses was amazing - pure cheese. Barry thought he was in heaven. I took no photos this night. We called it a night a bit earlier than the night before.
On Sunday Jose Antonio and Yolanda picked us up from the hotel and then on to pick up Sergio and the off we went to the village where Goya was born and I shall tell you about it tomorrow
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