The final blog ... 2010 in closing...

Just in time for the end of 2010 I'm closing this blog as I plant my feet back in East Africa for a different adventure and challenge. 2010 has been a roller coaster year of emotions, adventures, challenges, new experience and new beginnings. People travel for different reasons and this year was about me exploring all those things I never got the chance to do – I still unfortunately have not done them all but it seems to me that once a gypsy always a gypsy and you are never satisfied, always looking for the next challenge. South America, NYC, Laos and more of Asia are still on my hit list of places to be exlpored but Im grateful for the year (the year that just flew) that allowed me to see and experience so many things that many people in this world will never experience or undestand – from ashrams to temples, to rivers, to gutters, to slums, to palaces and travelling using planes, cars, trains, ferries, piki piki's, buses, trucks, camels, donkeys, feet and kites – I'm grateful for the adventure that has been so far.

The highlights of the journey this year are as follows (in no particular order):
*Teaching English in a slum school in Inida
*Visiting the Taj Mahal - AGAIN
*Spending a day in silence at the Golden Temple, Amritsar, Nth India
*Studying dance in Pushkar, India
*Attending the 1st ever Bellydance festival in Istanbul, Turkey
*Attending the Hilldrez Gypsy Festival in Istanbul, Turkey
*Roaming photography on the streets of Istanbul
*Becoming Godmother to my favourite cousins child in Greece
*Attending the Sacred World Music Festival in Fez, Morrocco
*Seeing Ait Ben Haddou Unesco Heritage Site outside Marrakesh
*San Juan Festival, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands
*Being in Barcelona for the World Cup & Spain getting into the final
*Dancing in the rain at a street festival in Madrid
*Driving at night in London
*Studying and performing Tanzanian dance in Arusha
*Meeting my Indian sponsor child
*Meeting my St Jude's Tanzania sponsor child and seeing her everyday!
*Teaching my St Jude's standard 6 students dance routines
*Being in Stonetown, Zanizibar for Ramadan
*Seeing my shit-eater cousin from Italy after so many years
*My first ever safari on a school bus with St Jude's kids
*Attending Holi festival in India
*Attending the elephant festival before Holi in Jaipur India
*Attending my first ever real Indian wedding
*Travelling Spain with my Mum
*Seeing my first ever Masai

The list could go on and on but these are the one's that I remember most this year. Meeting my sponsor child from India was very emotional for me and living in Africa heart breaking.

In 2011 I wont be travelling as much but it's my intention to start travelling East Africa while I'm here to tick some more countries of my list. Thank you to everyone who has followed me on this journey in 2010. Sometimes when I havent written I've received emails asking what's wrong and that's when I realise Im not alone on this journey – you've all been sharing the experieence with me it's just that Im the one suffering the stomach bugs and empty bank account! :)

I hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for more madness in 2011. Have a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

Granada, Spain - Oct 2010 OLE!

Ah Granada! A friend from the Canary Islands told me that he thought Granada was a place that I would love since I'm into the whole Middle Eastern thing. Well during the first couple of hours being in the city – that being trapped on a full bus in the worst traffic I've experienced this year with a suitcase and road works as far as the eye could see – I was questioning what on earth he was talking about. For the first time in a while since I started travelling I felt like I really had lost my sense of direction and couldn't nut my way around even with maps here. This was freaking me out as I usually am little miss navigator. Eventually after much broken Spanish – ok 1 or 2 words like Donde Esta – we found our hotel and I started laughing thinking it looked way too grand to be what I booked on the internet. Thankfully I was wrong and we had a completely refurbished hotel complete with flatscreen tv, AC and funky décor – it was a brilliant change to our initial intro to the city. So me being determined that I cant be lost in this city, we set off to explore the town on foot and for me to do a little photography. What a gorgeous city and easy to navigate after you have something to eat ha ha.

We decided to take yet another tacky open deck bus tour which was a brilliant idea yet again, as I got my bearings where all the main sights were. The main reason for me to come to Granada was the architecture of the building from the Arab influence, the World Heritage listed Alhambra, the gypsy villages and the Flamenco dancing in caves.

OK so I found heaven and that first night in town I seriously considered cancelling the rest of my plans and staying in Granada to study Spanish and Flamenco from the original gypsy families. This is still an option down the track but for now I decided to continue on the Africa path until further notice. So for the first night we booked a brilliant night out through our hotel. A bus load of us we greeted by a gorgeous Moroccan girl who much to my pain could speak 5 languages fluently – kill me now!

So first up we visited the gypsy village area – up a steep hillside district with cobblestone streets, lampost lined streets and pretty little terrace style homes. It was hard to believe this was once a undesirable area to live and now the gypsies live on goldmines! We walked about the area and made our way up to a look out that had beautiful night views over Granada and across to the Alhambra. I really felt like I was in my father's village in Greece up there overlooking the town below. As some stupid tourists complained that they had to walk the pretty cobblestone streets in their high heels – Take them off princess! - we continued our way down the hill and back on the bus to the highlight of the night a evening in the gypsy caves.

I knew I was in heaven as we walked up the stairs to the caves, I could hear the thumping of the Flamenco shoes on the wooden floors, the husky voices and classic guitar pouring out the door, into my ears and through my veins. Yes dramatical but you had to be there! Did I mention I rushed in and got the best seat in the house – the exact seat that Michelle Obama had when she was there – if it's good enough for her its damn well good enough for me!

Oh I couldnt stop smiling as they stomped away on the timber floor, sipping my sangria amidst taking photos and video of the excitement. The whole cave setting just rocked my world!

The other most amazing and almost I missed the whole thing – the Alhambra – F*k me what an amazing place – sorry its the only way I can describe it. The UNESCO heritage listed site is brilliant with its Arabic architecture. They only let in so many people per day – I think it was 2000. The first day we completely missed it so we thought lets arrive early the next morning and catch the morning sessions (you can enter the grounds during the morning, afternoon or evening session) thing is that morning we were kind of lazy and slept in so we missed the morning session and when we arrived at what I thought was 2 hours early for the afternoon session, they had already sold out of the afternoon tickets! I was in shock as that was our last day in town and that was really why I was there! After queuing for 30 minutes I walked back to mum all teary eyed like a kid who missed out on ice cream. I cracked it – mental meltdown moment (MMM) and then realised there was a night session so I had to qeue up again – this time for another 30min and just as Im at the front of the qeue they make an announcement that they are nearly sold out of night tickets – I was peaking and desperately wanted to pull everyone out of my way as this was my last chance – I got to the booth after nearly stranggling some girls in front who wanted to buy all of Spain – when I finally get served I get told Im buying the last two tickets – thank god!

So we had both garden tickets and evening tickets – talk about complicated ticketing system. We decided to spend a couple of hours and see what this garden was all about – brilliant!! It took us hours and hours to get through those gardens not to mention that it decided to torrential rain on us with no umbrellas or raincoats but we continued and I was determined to take photos with my SLR in a plastic bag with a hole in it for the lens! We were shivering and it became ridiculous but mum really understood how important it was for me to see this place in its entirety and if we didnt do it now we wouldnt have time at night.

After thawing out back at the hotel and eating it was time to get on the bus back again to the Alhambra for the night session – after much jostling in the line for prime position we were let in and can I say it was so worth all the drama!

I have never seen architecture at any site in the world as amazing as this! Not the Taj Mahal (only my favourite Wonder of the World so far) not Angkor, not the Pyramids – just amazing. I couldnt stop taking photos of the beautiful patterns. Actually a lot of the architecture reminded me of Morocco in particular some of the old buildings I saw in Fez – but certainly more extravagent.

That night when we left the Alhambra there was no taxis about and someone had told us we could walk into town in about 20min, we were a little worried about security but then I spotted on of the guides walking in that direction and when I asked him which way was town he said “Follow me”and we did and it was a beautiful walk all down hill through beautiful greenery that we would have gotten lost if we didnt keep up our brisk pace to keep him in sight. As we got nearer to town we knew it straight away as the streets became alive with everyone out eating dinner, socialising – al the things that everyone does in Spain post 11pm. Granada was pretty – we had a sketchy introduction but it was so much more when you scratched beneath the surface. I forgot to mention I found a whole suburb of vintage stores with 2nd hand clothes – one in particular full of 2nds leather jackets so I was in heaven. I will be back to Granada and perhaps even for a 2-3mth stint to learn the language and the dance.

Next blog... Bye Bye Barca

Cordoba, Spain Oct 2010

You know sometimes when you just cant be bothered and wonder why you are making yourself go to all the effort. Well this was an example of how I was feeling on this particular morning in Sevilla. I had read my trusty Lonely Planet and decided that I was up for the challenge to nut out a day trip to Cordoba as it was only a couple of hours away. But it's the transport dramas that really makes me not want to bother – getting up early is another reason too! So we manage to get up at the crack of dawn, skip breakfast, catch a bus to the train station – where we stocked up the most delicious crossaints and freshly squeezed orange juice.

The train was smooth, fast and showcased beautiful scenery. Just the day before I had a run-in with the vending machine that took my coins when I was craving a chocolate but never gave me the chocolate! I started to push and kick the machine whilst keeping an eye out for security guards – mum to the rescue put in more coins and got me 2 chocolate bars – phew! Well this same drama happened again on the train (yes there are vending machines on trains in Spain) only this time it didnt give me my water! I came back to my seat with a long face only to tell my story to mum and have her burst into fits of laughter – what do you call vending machine anxiety???

So after a short and beautiful trip out to Cordoba we arrive at a new station and within moments find the tourist information centre who advise that we can catch the bus right outside the station door – all true and he dropped us right in town. I found a gorgeous old bridge with a statue of Mary on it. As it was only around 8am when we arrived I got some great shots with the sun in the background and it looked brilliant behind her!

We went into the most amazing mosque now converted into a church – the Arab style archways were amazing. The detail that the church architects went to just to ensure that they could outshine the beauty of the mosque – fail in my opinion. I loved it there. Then we decided to roam the narrow streets of the town and found many little gift stores selling handicrafts from leather.

There was a beautiful old nights castle that we also visited and rested in the most amazing gardens, whilst enjoying gorgeous views over the town. Of course I had another tapas and Spanish beer craving so we ended up in yet another bar drinking beer with just enough time to giggle and stumble up to the main road and somehow fluke our way onto a bus back to the train station for the trip back to Sevilla. Its a beautiful town and definitely worth the day trip!

Next blog.... Granada