Utrecht... 2009

After saying our goodbyes to the Spanish sun, we hopped on a flight up to Amsterdam and headed straight to Utrecht to meet up with the lovely Nicole and Dries, friends of ours via Avi (who studied for a year in Utrecht). They'd welcomed us into their home once before - a year ago exactly, to be, well, exact. Astute readers may recall our post about Queen's Day 2008; well, we had so much fun we decided to come back for more. Day one was spent unwinding and regrouping before the party began on April 29, Queen's Night, with a fairly low key celebration that took us to Eamon's house - another friend, but one we hadn't met before - where we also met up with Erwin - a friend we have met before. Some Guitar Hero and Buzz quiz video games took us through the night before retiring early in preparation for the morrow.

We started the day off right with a flongers before scraping together whatever orange we could find (though I had specifically bought an orange Oktoberfest shirt back in September in preparation for this eventuality) and hustling out to the train station around 1PM. Huge lines, but we got tickets and, luckily, seats on the train. Key, as that allowed us to drink our first beers of the day in relaxed style. Definitely a good start to the day.

Once we arrived in Amsterdam, we promptly commenced with a hardcore wander. See, there seems to be a theme with Queen's Day where the entire day is spent moving from one meeting place to another. We, like the Dude, abided. The only thing is, you gotta surrender to it and just go with the flow, not worrying about anything other than having a good time. So we wandered past the locals hawking anything and everything (Queen's Day is a freemarket day where anyone can sell anything anywhere) to a square with music and food... though it took us quite a while to get to the food (loempia, bapoa, and fries), what with all the beer and dancing. We eventually made it over the Westerpark, which is a pretty cool park that we'd never been to before.

Oh, and before the square and before the park we went to the anti-squat home of a few friends of friends - an anti-squat is set up because in the Netherlands, squatters have lots of rights and it's hard to kick them out of places so owners will rent places extremely cheap if they aren't up to code rather than let squatters move in. This anti-squat was ridiculous. Basically a three storey mansion in the heart of Amsterdam shared by only three people who paid a grand total of €100 a month. Ridiculous.

Anyway, there was much more to Queen's Day than just that but no room for it here. Suffice to say it was awesome and acquainted or reunited us with many of Avi's friends we'd met the year before; in addition to Nicole, Dries, Eamon, and Erwin, there was also Analiese, Karlien, Adam, Barynia, and Matt the Russian, among others. Awesome day.

We spent a few more days just chilling out with Nicole and Dries, not doing much of anything except for relaxing... though we did make it out of the house for a couple physical activities. Like playing basketball at the neighborhood park... against eight year olds. We dominated them with our teamwork and sportsmanship, showing explosiveness and sticktoitiveness like you've never seen before. We also had about three feet on the tallest kid. And after we mopped the floor with their mutilated remains, Dries broke Kate's glasses with a completely benign but completely errant shot that sailed over the hoop and smacked her right in the side of the face. We really can't blame Dries though, it wasn't his fault. But it was just the start of Kate's week of hell... but most of that took place in Arnhem where we went for a few days to get out of Nicole and Dries' hair... but more on that later.

What else did we do with our 10 days in Utrecht? We played a few rounds of Monopoly and Uno, plus a couple other card games, including teaching Dries and Nicole how to play Yanif. We also got a little more exercise in a soccer game where we met up with Nicole's brother (who is living in Utrecht for the year, studying international law) and his friends from school. This was a bit more of a challenge than slaughtering 8 year olds on the B-ball courts, proving to me exactly how out of shape I truly am.

Also on the agenda was a joint birthday party for Nicole and Dries. They'd invited a bunch of friends to a BBQ in the park and invited us to come back from Arnhem for the festivities. Apparently it's actually not legal to have a barbecue ANYWHERE in Utrecht - something we only know because Dries actually asked specifically for this - but we flaunted the law and did it anyway, grilling up such tasty morsels as burgers, Egyptian kebabs (courtesy of Eamon's mother), and chicken wings. Throw in some beers and some monkey-in-the-middle with the soccer ball and you got yourself an awesome day. Especially when it's topped off with Karlien's homemade strawberry cheesecake... so good... and another round of UNO. Of course there were some birthday gifts and Kate and I contributed a birthday/thanks-for-letting-us-bum-around-at-your-place-for-a-couple-weeks present of the board game Carcassone, winner of the prestigious Spiel des Jahres award in 2001. This was a game none of us had ever played before but which turned out to be really, really fun (we got the idea for a board game, incidentally, as there are like 10 shops in Utrecht dedicated solely to board games - just packed floor to ceiling with every game you can imagine). I recommend Carcassonne whole-heartedly... and apparently it gets even better once you get the hang of it a bit more.

Throw in a few wanders into town for some markets and food - including the Italian sandwich stand and the Greek gyro place right next to the Dom - and you've got a pretty good idea of our time in Utrecht. We also finally made inside the Dom church dominating the skyline and marveled at the stark white walls and intricate gravestones within. But really our time in Utrecht was dominated by awesomeness with Nicole and Dries. Thanks again, guys...

Sevilla

After a month of gorging ourselves on Jeannie's cooking, we finally pried ourselves away from the kitchen table, packed up our bags, and hauled ourselves out of bed at 6AM to catch the bus to Sevilla. We ended up leaving the same day as Alan and Mark so Grania, Sam and Jeannie's daughter, drove us all to the bus stop and we hopped on and napped for the hour and a half drive into town. We dropped our bags off at Hostal Nuevo Suizo and headed out again for a full day of sightseeing of the beautiful city of Sevilla as the Scots were only staying one night.

First up was the Alcazar palace, a royal palace - and still the official residence of the Spanish kings and queens in Sevilla - that was begun way back in the 1100s. It was largely built by the Moors and added to by Christian kings over the centuries. The Moors, by the way, were the ones who built all the cool stuff. There are just halls and courtyards and treasuries and gardens... one of the most historically interesting pieces was a painting that has the first graphic depiction of the New World, complete with Columbus and his ships.

One other wee fun fact about the palace was that it was in an earthquake that shook off some beautifully painted tiles; the tiles originally formed a picture but when they fell off, someone just stuck them back on randomly and now it looks like one of those mixed up puzzles with one missing piece where you have to put it back together... We know this because we sprung for the audioguide (3.50) - just one though, which I listened to and then dutifully repeated the info to the others (I would, by the way, recommend getting at least one audioguide if you go as there is a lot of info in them). And another puzzle was outside in the form of a labyrinth, which we all wandered through while trying not to fall asleep in the midday heat, especially since the guards patrol all the benches to make sure no one lies down.

We ate an overpriced picnic lunch picked up from the Opencor supermarket (don't go there - way too expensive but the only thing nearby) in the sprawling Parque de Maria Luisa, then we decided to fight on through the fatigue and head on over to the other main attraction in town - the massive Cathedral. This place is enormous - and is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Very dark though. And a little Spanish-Catholic creepy with a bunch of bloody statues and some reliquaries. There also seemed to be a whole warren of hidden little side rooms that led us through the treasuries containing the smaller jewels, as opposed to the giant gilded altar in the middle of the cavernous main hall.

Also part of the cathedral is the Giralda bell tower which does exactly that, towering above the city. It's a bit of a walk to the top... however, it's pretty easy as it's all one ramp. Why, you ask? Because it used to be the mosque's minaret and the muezzin (guy who calls the faithful to prayer) would RIDE HIS HORSE up the ramp to the top every day. I don't know why all towers don't just do away with steps and go with the ramp-thing. So much easier. Anyway, we goofed around up top a bit and snapped some shots of the city below before descending in time to catch a game of footie at a nearby overpriced, but recommended Flaherty's Irish pub. And then it was time to party.

And by party, we mean drink in the hostel room until the wee hours of the morn. We introduced the Scots to Kings - aka Ring of Fire - a game they took to like goats to horns. Or something. We got a little loud and out of control and I must admit I got a little uppity as I was worried our roommates weren't too happy... but the memories - not to mention the photos - were priceless. Unfortunately, we don't have the pictures, but you can see some of them on Mark and Alan's photo blog and I'll leave you with this shot of the four of us taken at the bus station as we bid them goodbye the following morning and settled in for a couple days of just the two of us again.

Honestly, we weren't sure exactly what else to do. We felt a little strange, a little aimless, especially as the big Sevilla sights were already ticked off the list. But we pulled ourselves together and soldiered on, wandering aimlessly around town for a while like we do. We discovered a pretty cool plaza with a bunch of bars and cafes(Plaza del Salvador), got in a fight, and marveled at how this building was unfinished; if you look closely, you can see that they ran out of money or something half-way through and had to leave the second half of the building unadorned and sculpture free. We then went home, had some ramen and beer, and stayed home for a quiet night in.

The next day was our last and that meant back to beating the sightseeing path with a stroll down to the Plaza de Espana, a pavilion erected for the World's Fair in a Sevilla some years ago. Pretty cool, especially all the tiled paintings of Spain's various provinces that ringed the place. We then got some doner at a restaurant called Petra - quite tasty and a welcome change from the steady diet of ham and tapas. We also debated if we should buy the tickets and eventually decided that yes, we're in Spain, we should go to a bullfight.

Which is a bit of a misnomer as there is nothing even remotely resembling a fight here. A closer description would be bull-taunt-and-torture-to-death, but I imagine they rejected that for PR reasons. It's like going to watch a sports game where you already know who's going to win - and where's the fun in that? It's about 15 highly-trained athletes with weapons, horses, and thousands of years of knowledge (not to mention walls to hide behind) against a single scared bull who they have to goad into charging at them because he'd rather just chill out in the sun. Not really that cool. We watched six bulls be killed and the highlight was definitely in the first "fight" when the bull upended a horse and threw one of the matadors. I mean, you really are rooting for the bull to win.

Plus, it's not that comfortable. Granted, we got the cheap seats, but it was packed and there are no aisles. There are also no seats, but rather concrete step-benches where you have to squeeze between someone's knees behind you and have another person squeeze between yours in front. I had to go to the bathroom at one point in between bulls and I had to fight my way over to the stairwell... at which point I realized there were still no aisles and people had stopped moving for me as the next bull was coming out. So I had to jump over the railing and drop about 10 feet down. Insane.

But as uncomfortable as I was, it was nothing to the bulls. I cannot stress enough how little they want to participate. It's not like these are blood-thirsty beasts - these are male cows who just so happen to not like the color red very much. Nor do they like a bunch of guys in funny costumes prancing around and jabbing them with sticks, tiring them out in waves until the lead matador finally makes and appearance and taunts the bull a bit more before driving a sword into the base of his neck. And if he doesn't kill him with that thrust, a helper runs in with a dagger to deliver the death blow. Then they hook chains to the bull's horns and a team of horses drag his body across the arena, smearing his blood in the dirt. Not that cool at all and, while it was definitely an experience, I would encourage people not to support it any longer.

After the bullfight, we returned to the hostel to see if we could round up any troops for our last night in Sevilla - a night which also happened to be the opening night of the Feria de Abril, a huge Oktoberfest-esque festival that goes on for a couple weeks. We ended up setting off alone rather than go out for an expensive dinner with a few guys from the hostel and instead had some carnie food at the Feria, which was, unfortunately, a little disappointing. Definitely no Oktoberfest, though it was a similar set up with a carnival in one part and tents for partying in another part. The main difference was that these tents here were exclusive, invite only affairs, leaving us out in the cold. There were a couple public ones, but they didn't look that cool to be honest so we mostly just walked up and down the rows then went on a roller coaster and made it back to the entrance of the park for the official opening ceremony where they turn on the lights. That was cool... but then we had to literally do battle with the crowds streaming into the place as we were trying to get out. We probably should have stayed as it seemed to just be getting going around midnight with way too many people for just the tents coming in; it was a complete madhouse with everyone pushing and shoving everyone else and Kate was even lifted off her feet by the mob. But we made it out safely and trekked back to the hostel where we got a good night's sleep before bidding hasta luego to Spain, which is, of course, See you later in English, but Boof, done in Scottish patter...

Buen Vino and Aracena

Once we'd finally reached the airport in Mallorca, it was smooth sailing (or flying, whatever) over to Alicante on the mainland. We flew with RyanAir who are usually terrible but this was by far the easiest experience we've ever had with them. Plus, we got one of their ridiculous 1 cent flight deals... with no taxes and fees! To be fair, we did still have to pay some fees, but those were to check our bags as well as to pay with a credit card. Still, once everything was said and done, 20€/person for a flight still ain't bad.

What was, however, was that I started to feel a bit sick on the plane. Nothing too bad and it was still at a pretty low level throughout our layover in Alicante before catching the night bus. But after a couple hours on the bus, the sickness hit harder. The main thing was that gas kept building up in my stomach, making me extremely uncomfortable from the pressure. Alicante before catching the night bus. But after a couple hours on the bus, the sickness hit harder. The main thing was that gas kept building up in my stomach, making me extremely uncomfortable from the pressure. Eventually, it would reach a tipping point and a gigantic belch would issue forth, releasing the pressure. Momentarily. By the time we arrived in Sevilla around 9:30AM, I was pretty well beat and very exhausted, kind of useless for our day wandering around the city as the next bus to Aracena was at 4:30PM.

We finally arrived in Aracena where we were met by Jeannie who took us back to Finca Buen Vino to meet her husband, Sam, their daughter, Grania, and the other helpers: Trent (Australian), Mark, and Alan (both Scottish). I was still a little ill and we were both tired from the overnight bus so we excused ourselves after dinner and went to bed early while the others partied deep into the night.

But we'd get our partying in - oh yes, we would get our partying in.

First off, however, let's talk about the work we did there. Finca Buen Vino is a guesthouse and, as such, we were helping them get ready for the upcoming tourist season. We helped paint a cottage, waxed some tables, cleaned out the pool house, painted hallways, built a fence, cleared an old pool area, stocked firewood, etc... Kate did a lot more painting and weeding than I did - I was occupied with the Scots for a week + building this fence as we had to first dig the holes for the posts, then collect the posts, then hammer them in and fill in the holes with packed earth, then cut down trees for cross bars, then nail those in and secure them with wire. Quite a process, but a beautiful, rustic fence was the reward.

And what did we get out of this arrangement? Well, we got luxurious rooms in the guesthouse. We spent most of our stay in a room in the main house with our own bathroom and views over the property. But after a couple weeks, they had some guests who needed the room so we were moved out to the poolhouse. Not quite as luxurious as it was still under construction and it was a little inconvenient to "commute" to and from... but the views over the pool were unbeatable.

We also got delicious, gourmet food from Jeannie. She cooks a lot for the guesthouse but also prepared two huge meals a day (breakfast was self-service) for us... though when there were hotel guests dining, we got to eat the same food. Some of our favorite meals included the huge crab dinner, the incredible roast pork, the amazing curries, and the various pates. Not to mention the pig's leg they kept in the kitchen. This was jamon iberico, one of the finest types of ham in the world taking 4 years to smoke and cure the leg. Plus, there's a 3 year waiting list for a ham. And they cost €400 each. And they taste delicious.

We kept fairly busy in our off time, thanks mostly to the Scots who kept us quite entertained through their innovative patter. When, that is, we could understand them. We picked up such gems as jobby; big players play in the big games; take a bow, son, take a bow; wee dippy dip; helicopter-daft; and much, much more. Also, these guys were truly sports-daft. They loved every sport out there. Literally. Except for cricket. But outside of that... I mean, these crazy dudes ordered the American sports packages on for their TVs at home. They liked to watch golf. And snooker. And CURLING. I think you get the point.

We also got to play a few sports with them. There were a couple days of soccer down in the fields, but many more days of ridiculous poolside watersports. Like diving headers into the pool. Diving catches into the pool. Diving bicycle kicks into the pool. And other classic Olympic sports. Indeed, you pretty much needed to be an Olympic caliber athlete to compete as the amount of pain suffered by simply getting into that ice-bath we so casually refer to as a "pool" would send lesser mortals wailing for their mums like wee weans (pronounced "waynes"). But how sweet was it to sit out in the baking sun, beer by your side, then get up to juggle the ball a bit, eventually leaping into the pool to get a touch and try to keep the juggling alive... pretty much perfect, if you ask me.

Though, as alluded to previously (see paragraph 4), we did a bit more partying than just the odd poolside beer. And most of the time, Mark ended up naked. The first and most memorable time was after we innocently walked into Aracena for the day, taking a lovely stroll through on a really hot afternoon. We got into town and had planned on going to the caves, but it was Easter weekend and the caves were mobbed by crowds so we decided to go into the center of town and watch the Premiership game at a local bar which was to become our local bar. A few drinks later and we decided to skip the bus home and just walk. Of course, we also decided we needed a few drinks for the two hour walk back, which turned it into a three hour walk back during which time we (read: Alan) lost the cap to our water bottle, Mark ran naked by a field, Kate took a nap in the middle of the road, and I watched as the Scots belted out drinking/football songs at the top of their lungs as we swept through a sleepy town.

Kate also tried to convince Mark and Alan not to jump in a reservoir we passed on the walk... and for some insane reason offered up a deal where we would all jump in the pool back at Finca Buen Vino when we arrived. So we all jumped in the icy water and then returned to the house itself. Jeannie welcomed back the first two through the door (Kate and Alan), saying she was so worried about us and asking if we got caught in the rain because we were so wet. I, meanwhile, was in the kitchen with Mark, trying to convince him to put some clothes on. He, of course, refused, saying that he didn't want to get his clothes wet. So he then walked in, giggling like a schoolgirl, and ran up the stairs as Jeannie deduced behind him, "Oh, you're all pissed and jumped in the pool."

We spent a few other afternoons in Aracena as well, finally making it to the Cave of Wonders (La Gruta de las Maravillas), but most of our time in Aracena was to watch the Semana Santa processions. Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is the week leading up to Easter, celebrated by parading massive floats through the streets. How do you move the floats? With up to 70 men carrying it on their shoulders. A sergeant of sorts calls out the marching beat, alerting the men below - whose vision is completely hidden by drapery - when there is a step up or step down, when to duck and when to lift to get the giant float out of the church. The scenes pictured on the floats are quite gruesome - Jesus on the cross, Mary mourning, soldiers with whips and flails... all the bloody, gory spectacle that Catholics love to remember.

And if the floats didn't grab your attention, the hoods would. The hoods were originally worn by penitents in the middle ages so they could keep their identities secret, but it was co-opted by the KKK as their iconic conehead thing. So with that secondary association in the common mind, it's a bit creepy to see hordes of sinisterly hooded - if well-meaning - townsfolk walking the streets like it ain't no thang. Especially when the super-dramatic, Imperial Deathmarch music is blaring out from the 50-strong town band. It's supposed to be an even bigger deal in Sevilla but we didn't feel like battling the hordes, neither to get a glimpse nor to find a place to stay.

What else? Well, there were the friends and family of Sam and Jeannie who lived in the neighborhood, including wealthy friends whose cousins own the Biltmore, as well as Jeannie's sister and brother-in-law - Henrietta and Sebastian - who built a vacation home next door. They were all lushes, Sebastian in particular - and all definitely characters as well... though I don't think I can repeat any of his hilarious quotes as they aren't appropriate for most readers. I can, however, say that Sebastian told us he once gave the name of his favorite antique shop in Edinburgh as a wedding gift. Just the name, nothing else. And he, of course, wouldn't deign to tell us what it was. Anyway, he and Henrietta invited us over to use their heated pool one afternoon, forcing beers on us whether we wanted them or not. They also came with us one afternoon when Sam and Jeannie took us all to another friend's farm for a picnic. We were thinking we'd sit out on the grass with a few people, some baguettes, maybe a bottle of wine... We ended up going on a huge trek with five other cars onto yet another farm, then hike out to the spot, literally carrying a grandmother in a wheelchair across a river and along some bumpy terrain before we reached the ruins. Pretty fun and very random... though what was even more random was that one of that other farm's helpers was a friend of a friend of mine from high school.

Lastly, I must give an honorable mention to Sam and Jeannie's dog, Bucky. They had two dogs - Maggie being the other one - but Bucky was their favorite despite the fact that she had an incredibly annoying habit of constantly wanting to play fetch with a stone. She never got tired of this game, ever. If you didn't kick or throw the rock, she'd put it on top of your shoe. If you were sitting down, she'd hop up and throw it on your lap. All day, every day. Oh, and she only had one eye after she lost the other in a fight with a CAT. But she was pretty cute at least.

In short, we had a great time at Finca Buen Vino, made some great friends, and even picked up a wee bit of patter in between learning how snooker's played and watching some ridiculous movies, like Crank. In the end, we decided to go to the Netherlands a bit earlier than originally planned so we could be there for Queen's Day... but not before a couple days in Sevilla with Alan and Mark...

Oh, and one more thing... if you want any more pictures, feel free to check out Mark and Alan's photo blog here.

Son Rullan

Back to farming, back to Spain.

An early morning flight out of London landed us on the island of Mallorca, Spain, out in the Balearics. We flew into Palma, killed a couple hours waiting for our bus, finally got it only to find the bus driver didn't know our stop... only to find that he really did and just overcharged us for fun or something (?), then arrived at the gates of Son Rullan where we were greeted by some of the most horrific and vicious dogs alive. They look like some sort of wild hyena thing that kills just to watch things die. But we braved the beasts and passed through the gates to find we still had about a 15 minute uphill walk to Son Rullan itself.

Son Rullan is a monastery dating back to somewhere between the 12th and 15th centuries, depending on who you ask. It's perched atop a hill on the lush north coast of Mallorca and is now broken up into a few separate properties all under the banner of "Son Rullan" (which, by the way, is pronounced "Ru-lan" and not "Ruyan" as it has a hyphen between those double Ls). The property to which we were a-trekking has now been converted into some sort of weird guesthouse/arts center/day care/farm that isn't supposed to make any money and is, in fact, just losing hundreds of thousands of euros a year for the owner... who doesn't even live on the island.

Now, this absent owner was actually more of a problem than one might imagine. This was the first farm that we've done where the owner hasn't lived (and worked) with us and, indeed, the manager, Henar, neither lived nor worked with us either. I'm sure in other places we wouldn't have noticed... but Henar pretty much single-handedly made this the first negative volunteer experience we've had. And as much as it pains me to give her so much attention on the blog, I think she deserves a quick couple paragraphs. Though no photos.

First off, she's a liar. We were told we would be doing different work every day: weeding, planting, fixing stone walls, cleaning, construction, clearing paths... In actuality, I did heavy lifting (construction, but not really even construction as I literally was just a packhorse) almost every single day. The days I wasn't moving stuff back and forth, I was... no, wait - I was still moving stuff back and forth, just different stuff. Like this mountain of sandbags which weighed 20 kilos each. The closest I came to working in the garden was the one day that I sprayed down the garden with a hose for 5 minutes. Kate, on the other hand, got to work in the garden a little bit... when she wasn't cleaning, that is. As the only female volunteer, Kate was somehow co-opted as the default maid. Which was funny as there was a paid maid and plenty of other helpers. But Henar would not be dissuaded by our pleas; we spoke to her a few times about varying the work and she always said something to the effect of, "Yes, yes, of course you can do that. But not today."

Secondly, she has serious power issues. We were told we'd have a private room with a double bed. In actuality, we had a room that was screened off from a very public hallway by a wall of barely-opaque sheets (that allowed the cat, Fisty, to jump up on the bed at any hour, waking us up and giving me allergies) in two single beds... despite the dual facts that a) we were the only couple there and yet all the single men had private rooms with queen beds, and b) there were two perfectly good rooms with actual walls available that were just left empty. We were eventually moved into one of them after one of the other volunteers interceded on our behalf, but once that happened, we discovered that Henar likes to go into everyone's rooms and snoop around. Not sure how much actual snooping she did in our room, but she came in pretty much every day while we were at work, moved things around, opened windows, etc...

Third and finally, she's a bitch. Sorry, but there's no other word for it. The day before we left she offered to give us a ride into town so we didn't have to walk the 40 minutes to the bus stop in the rain with our bags. It was especially convenient as the bus only comes once every few hours so we would have had to wait for a few hours at the airport or the next bus would be too late. So we get ready, go to confirm what time we're leaving with Henar, and find out that she's already left to town but is coming back soon. Everyone else thought it was weird that she just left but they all knew she was taking us too so they said not to worry about it. We even turned down a ride into town as we could go later with her. Then, around 10:40, she calls the house and asks for Jorge, one of the volunteers who had just offered us a ride into town but just left and I couldn't catch him. Then when I come back to tell Henar that he's gone, she says, "Oh, by the way, I probably should have told you guys this earlier but I'm not going to give you a ride today. I'm already in town so I'm just going to stay." Uh, what? Our bus was leaving in 20 minutes. We were all packed but still needed like 5 minutes to get ready and then we were going to have to run to the bus stop and hope the bus was late. Her excuse was that "she thought we saw her leave" and figured that meant we would assume that she could no longer take us and we'd figure out our own transportation. What? Well, now we've missed the only bus that can get us to the airport because you promised us a ride. Her suggestion was to take a bus to another town as she figured they'd have more buses to Palma from there, but she didn't know the timetables or how often they ran. Obviously, we're freaking out a bit by this point but we were lucky enough to get in touch with the Jorges and get a ride to the airport after all.

The Jorges, now that I'm done ranting, were two middle-aged Argentineans also volunteering at Son Rullan, but for very long stays. Getting to know the Jorge's was easily one of the best parts of our month there. Jorge 1, as we called him, left Argentina 30 years ago and moved to France where he's been working as an artist ever since. He was actually the only paid "volunteer" who lived with us and was there to do some renovations/sculptures/redesigns of the place with his biggest project being to completely redo the tafona, or the old olive press room, making it into a big open space for parties, as a studio/workshop, or whatever. Jorge 2, also Argentinian, used to own a construction company so he oversaw our building projects. He'd been at Son Rullan for 2 years and had built himself a little (and I mean little) one room cottage on the property so that he didn't have to move in the summers when the place was rented out, though we were building a ridiculously overbuilt chicken coop complete with human bathroom and olive press room. Jorge also was an avowed carnivore in addition to being completely unintelligible.

In Spanish, of course, as that's all that was spoken on the farm. Henar spoke good English, but we tried not to talk to her unless it was absolutely necessary but the others there really didn't speak much English at all - and all spoke fluent Spanish. Those others, in alphabetical order, were: Anita (Ecuadorian, our cook and maid), Ariel (Argentinean, has dreadlocks, makes herbal draughts, and is trying to get Spanish citizenship), Carlos (Spanish, paid gardener, extremely...spanish), Everisto (Nigerian, jolly head handyman, had his first child while we were there, real name is Emeka but Spaniards call him Everest as he's a giant),Hugo (from near Madrid, loves the island of Formentera, vegetarian), Kati (Pep's wife, sometimes had to go into town to work after our own work, made some Mallorquin specialties), Manu (Italian, Henar's boyfriend who was actually decently cool though he had an annoying habit of taking the good jobs and disappearing when we had to do something difficult), Pep (from Mallorca, middle aged, getting his massage therapy certification), and Tony (British, only there for our last week, very experienced WWOOFer who also couldn't stand Henar and thought the place was run terribly, the only other one who didn't speak Spanish).

So yeah, we got a lot of Spanish practice which was pretty intense. It's just really tiring to only hear another language all day every day but I think we improved quite a bit, especially with construction vocabulary - though my lack of specialized vocab was probably part of why I was usually just told to move something rather than actually do anything interesting. Listening, however, was more difficult as there was such a mix of accents and when native speakers speak to each other, they use a lot more slang and speak a lot quicker than when they talk to us. Still, we could always follow the basic conversation and were able to participate quite a bit and Jorge1 went out of his way to speak clearly and explain things for us. But those talks were one of the best things about Son Rullan. Indeed, all the people we lived with were great and once Henar left for the day (after lunch) we had a great time.

What did we do in our down time? Well, we went on a few hikes, for starters. Son Rullan is situated in one of the most spectacular settings we've ever experienced and there are trails everywhere. One leads to the town of Deía on one side and Valdemosa on the other, but then there are literally thousands of proper trails/goat tracks that take you all over the place. And by place, I mean gorgeous island with craggy cliffs to one side and sparkling sea to the other. Plus there are all sorts of little surprises along the trails, like ancient cisterns for the animals, old Moorish stone walls, ruins of cottages, and wild goats.

In fact, we caught a wild goat. It was scared by Rita, Henar's dog, and then trapped by Ariel and Everisto. Everisto wanted to eat it, but the goat was too small (only a baby) and it was terrified so after a day or two, Ariel let it go again. And that wasn't why he earned the nickname of Houdini - no, that was because in the 4 months that Jorge 1 had been there, he claimed he'd never seen Ariel cook or clean in the house and that he always disappeared at the right times. That mostly held true, but he did make some delicious pizza and several loaves of scrumptious homemade bread while we were there, though we ourselves did not do much cooking. That was because breakfast was just a buffet, lunch was cooked by Anita, and dinner was usually whipped up by Jorge who loved to cook (meat). We did make a couple things, however, and our recipe for carrot cake was a particular favorite that we probably made about 6 times as it usually didn't last for more than an hour or two.

Pep and Kati did a bit of cooking during their week at Son Rullan and, through them, we got a taste of real Mallorquin cuisine. I can't say that we're huge fans, however. The Arroz Brut (or "Dirty Rice") was tasty (though an experience to eat as you had to gnaw on rabbit bones and periodically pause to work a snail out of it's shell) but the Frito Mallorquin... I feel bad saying this, but it was a struggle. I feel especially bad as they were so excited about it and everyone was talking about it for days, both before and after. But we Americans just don't have stomachs accustomed to eating that kind of thing. That kind of thing is, by the way, a hearty stir fry of peas, potatoes, artichoke hearts, red peppers... all good so far... plus lamb lungs, heart, liver, and coagulated blood. Lots of very spongy sweetmeats, especially the lung. And the blood was just disgusting. Kati brought it out while cooking - it looks like a weirdly textured meat loaf - then sliced and diced it into cubes for the frito. We weren't thrilled but assumed it would cook down into part of the sauce... but no, it just warms up but stays in little springy chunks, kind of like tofu. Only made of blood.

But we did choke it down and put on a fairly convincing show of liking it, especially as Jorge 1 filmed an impromptu short film titled "Frito Mallorquin," turning the whole kitchen into a soundstage in the process. And let me assure you that this kitchen deserved to be on film. As I said, the house dates back to the... well, several hundred years and, as such, it includes one feature of old Mallorcan homes that's gone out of fashion but sorely needs to be reintroduced: giant fireplaces. The one in the kitchen was enormous - the size of a bedroom. It could seat about 10 people inside it's walls and turned that part of the kitchen into an eternal campfire.

Which was necessary as the house, being old and drafty and made out of stone, was really cold, especially at night. And that's despite the fact that we had mostly good weather. The days that it wasn't so great were spent inside writing and napping while the good days were spent out walking and in nearby towns, including a day trip to the port town of Soller, though we actually ended up missing the port as we took too long to start heading that direction. But we did see the rest of the town, including a little exhibition on former resident Joan Miro. We also got some tasty tapas and saw one of the more interesting churches we've seen in a while.

Another day trip was in to Palma itself. We got a lift from Pep and Kati as they had business in town and were dropping off Hugo anyway. So Hugo gave us a mini tour then we wandered around for a few hours, checking out the port, the huge castle/cathedral on the hill, and the winding streets of the old town. We unfortunately arrived at a rather awkward time so most everything was closed but we got a good basic overview of the city's touristic center. For the non-touristy tour, we went with the Jorges to run a few errands on the way to the airport. They took us to the industrial part of the city, stopping in a hardware store, a pipes store, a thrift store, a massive used wooden beams shop, and an antiques store as they shopped for new things for the to-be-built bathrooms as well as the tafona project.

In the end, we were very conflicted about leaving. On the one hand, we'd met some really great people and worked a lot on our Spanish.. but on the other hand, the work was really hard on our bodies (I'm pretty sure I broke the tip of my finger in addition to straining some muscles and burning myself pretty badly twice while burning dead olive branches), fairly thankless, and we had to put up with Henar. Still, we made it through a month and looking back, I'm definitely glad we did.

Day trips in England

We had two day trips while in Britain. The first was from Cardiff back into London for a day as we had tickets to the Arsenal game. We got this amazing hook up from Kate's dad who works for Mitsubishi Electric, a company that installs the giant screens in stadiums, and they put in the screens at the new Emirates stadium.

We took the morning bus into London and headed straight to the game as we were to meet Sandra - the company's representative - and her friend Sian for lunch in the stadium's club level. We met them outside of the merchandise store then showed our little VIP passes to get up and into the restaurant where we shown to our table for the match. We picked out our three-course meals and selected our half-time complimentary drink preferences as we would be coming back to this same table for a little half-time cheese and wine soiree. While introducing ourselves and dining away on the gourmet cuisine, I noticed that our VIP cards listed the price for the meal we were having: £72.50 a person, or a very expensive lunch. Our waitress then worried us further when she asked if we'd like to pay our bill before the game or at half-time. We said half-time and were left wondering if we'd mistakenly assumed the lunch was free, but the bill was just for the extra wine we'd ordered with the meal.

When we finished, we headed down to our seats which, I think you can agree, are quite spectacular. First row in the section, right on the halfway line, just elevated enough to see everything better... which reminds me, we'd worn our Sunday best as we were in the club level and didn't know what to expect; we were fine where we were sitting but right across the way, you could easily tell which box was the owner's - everyone was wearing suits.

The game ended up being little disappointing - 0-0 draw against Sunderland - but it was notable as being the Arsenal debut of Andrei Arshavin, the Russian who helped spearhead their run in last year's Euro 2008 Cup. He had a couple good shots but nothing went in and play got a bit sloppy at the end. I think we can all agree that the the real stars of the game were the DiamondVision™ screens with their incredible high-definition LED display solutions.

Day trip number two was actually from London when we went back for our last couple nights with Theo before flying off to Spain. We decided to splurge for the £50 package tour to Stonehenge and Bath. I'd been to both before on an 8th grade trip but it'd been about 13 years and Kate had never been so we hopped on our tour bus at 8AM and cruised on out the plains of Salisbury where we encountered the megalithic marvel of Stonehenge.

The site provides free audio guides that explain the whole thing according to numbers beside the walkway... but while informative, it led to us being forced to jam these wands to our ears, alternating hands every 10 seconds or so due to the icy wind whipping through the place. But we braved it and have now seen the giant stones and the nearby burial mounds scattered throughout the plains. It's impressive, but Stonehenge for us isn't one of those must-see things that's better in life than in the pictures. You can't really imagine the space being used. And it probably doesn't help that the circle of stones is now in a rather random field with sheep grazing nearby. Just seemed a bit anti-climactic.

Basically as soon as the audio tour was finished, we were whisked back onto the bus for another hour or two long drive out to Bath. Bath got it's name, appropriately enough, from the Roman baths founded on top of the local hot springs way back in the early ADs. But while Bath was important in ancient times, it wasn't until Georgian Britain that it had it's resurgence thanks to about 100 years of ongoing facelifts to make the town into a beautiful little homogenous tourist city based on the latest architectural principles. Encouraged, of course, by the owner of the nearby quarry of eponymous Bath Stone who was able to pass an edict stating that every building in town needed a Bath Stone facade. Unfortunately, Bath Stone is porous and dirties and is expensive to upkeep... but the town is beautiful, as is their abbey which you can see in the background.

As are the Roman baths. They're extremely impressive - probably the best preserved structure from antiquity that we've seen on our trip, though it is, admittedly, a little hard to tell as there has been some restoration throughout the millennia as the bath's have been in use for over 1500 years. The whole complex is, to some degree, still preserved; you have the main baths, of course, plus parts of the nearby temples, the changing rooms, the saunas, the plumbing... really an interesting site where you can see exactly how things once were. Again, you get a free audio guide but this one is supplemented with commentary from author Bill Bryson who adds a bit of flavor through his imagination of what life would have been like for those at the baths.

For 50 pence, you can also have a glass of the sulfurous miracle water that cures most ailments at the fancy restaurant upstairs. It doesn't taste great but not that bad either... though it doesn't fill you up. For that crucial sustenance, we headed to Sally Lunns Buns, the oldest restaurant in an old town dating back to the 16th century. They're known for what are apparently very famous and certainly very giant buns. We split three orders: salmon and cream cheese, brie and cranberry, and for the dessert course, buns with clotted cream and jam. So delicious, though the clotted cream is intensely rich and while I really liked it, you probably want to stay away from it if you place a high priority on arterial functionality.

Then it was back on the bus. We slept most of the way back to London as I'd been up all night dealing with cleaning off and preparing our old, cracked screen computer for sale - which was much more difficult than normal as I couldn't see the buttons I needed to click. But I sold it at 7AM before the trip. Which is completely unrelated to this post and an awkward point to end on.

Cardiff

One of the first things we did when we realized we were heading to the UK was to get in touch with our friend Pippa who we met right at the beginning of our trip in Buenos Aires. Pippa was also at the beginning of her own round-the-world trip and had told us then about the house she'd just bought in Cardiff that was being rented for the year or so that she was on the road. This time around, she invited us to come check out the house into which she'd just moved.

Timing was perfect, actually, and we even got a ride with Pippa from London as she lives half-time in a company apartment there. So we met up, hopped in the car, and began the road trip to Wales, stopping only for some fast food and bathrooms, before getting into Cardiff just in time for a quick dinner and drinks shopping trip to the supermarket where we helped Pippa stock up and get her liquor cabinet into a respectable state. Then we went home and got to see Pippa's cute "new" townhouse that's only 100 years old, which is nothing in Britain - and especially nothing in Pippa's family - as we were to find out soon. But it's a cool place, right on the corner with it's own garden and three bedrooms upstairs, one of which we were lucky enough to snag. Pippa's parents, Brian and Allison, then came over and we arranged to go to their house the next day as a base to do some hill walking through the castles along the Welsh border as Pippa had to go to work.

She dropped us off at her parents' house in the country and we got the tour... of the 14th century farmhouse. Indeed, the core of the property dates back to the 14th century with the most recent additions coming as late as the 18th century. The house is, therefore, pretty incredible, rambling, and beautiful. There are all sorts of little accents - like crests from the town church as the preacher used to live here - as well old Victorian iron hitching posts in the adjacent stables. Plus, huge gardens outside - though we didn't see a ton of those as it was raining pretty steadily throughout the day. So rather than go on our walk, we went into the town of Monmouth with Allison; she went to run errands, we went to wander through the cobblestoned streets, over the bridge, and into going out of business sales at bookshops. And, once back at their own "castle," we continued the chats over tea and while helping to build some bookshelfs for their sprawling library.

But we did get to see our Welsh castles eventually, though we were driven there as the weather was still too bad. But Brian and Allison took us around both Skenfrith Castle as well as Grosmont Castle. We missed out on the White Castle - the third in this triad of Norman fortifications - but what we saw was still pretty cool. These castles date back to the 11th century, built along the border of England and Wales as Norman fortresses protecting the borders of their realm. At Skenfrith, we also got to peek around an old church with a really interesting bell tower where we picked up some delicious cakes in between getting the tour from Brian and Allison, both history buffs. Soon, however, it was time to go home as Pippa was done with work...

But our Welsh-castle-viewing days were not over yet. We also went to one in Cardiff, appropriately if unimaginatively titled, "Cardiff Castle." Excellent tour of an interesting historical site with free audio guides (with the £9 entry fee) that take you through the history of the grounds, including much harping upon the most recent major landscape gardener on the site who made some rather drastic changes in the 18th century - Lancelot "Capability" Brown. The castle itself is extremely well preserved and you really can see the different time periods in the buildings. I particularly enjoyed the Norman keep on the raised mound with the classic moat around it. Definitely the ideal image of a stereotypical medieval castle.

More recent, however, was the living quarters in the Victorian Mansion added by the eccentric architect William Burges under the patronage of the Bute family, a family name which seems to be synonymous with Cardiff. The mansion is "a 19th century fantasy of a medieval palace," complete with crazy spires outside and dramatic staircases and banquet halls within. There's also a library with all sorts of little creatures carved into every surface, most of them poking fun at Darwin, whom Lord Bute evidently thought was ludicrously wrong. Still, the most impressive room was probably the gorgeous Arab Room you see pictured here. I forget the history of this room, but if you go, the friendly stewards scattered throughout will be more than happy to discuss the significance of the coats of arms on the walls or the wooden newts climbing the table legs....

Castles were not all we did in Cardiff, though, upon reflection, they were sort of the focus. But we also did a lot of our standard hangout/wander/devour routine, whipping up a few tasty meals with Pippa including pancakes on Pancake Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, which is, of course, 46 days before Easter Sunday, itself a solid two days after Good Friday, all of which is only tangentially related to the main topic at hand: pancake feasts. The idea is that you want to use up all your rich foodstuffs like eggs, milk, and sugar before the fasting of Lent. So you gorge yourself silly (or at least that's how we interpreted it) on thousands (well, at least tens) of pancakes/crepes. Mmm mmm good. And you can continue that pre-self-denial excess by going to the Indian restaurant on City Road where you can get a lunch buffet for £2.50. That is ridiculously cheap for anything, much less a huge all-you-can-eat buffet, especially when the food was actually pretty delicious. This was probably the budget find of the trip... seriously, £2.50? That's like a single samosa at most Indian restaurants. And you know I'm not lying cause you can see the flyer up on the wall behind me... though it doesn't give the name of the restaurant and I can't remember it. Damn!

As you might also be able to tell from the above picture, Kate finally got around to cutting my hair, a more difficult proposition than you might imagine as we usually do this sort of thing outside with my shirt off... but as it was near-freezing outside... well, we ended up cutting it in the kitchen one day so that I could get spiffed up for a night out on the town checking out the local bars with Pippa, also a newbie herself on the Splott bar scene. The first place we went was a local place where everyone seemed to know each other and everyone really was doing kareoke. Next stop was the Vulcan, a bit more central and a Cardiff institution in danger of being shut down and demolished to make way for a parking lot. First bar was just OK, but the Vulcan was pretty cool and we got to finish catching up with Pippa after her year of four continents and get the lowdown on what it's like to return to the Real World.

Outside of all that... well, we also took a day trip back into London during the middle of our week in Cardiff... but that's for the next blog...

London

We flew to London with EasyJet - a welcome change from RyanAir, which is terrible. The flight was relatively unexcpetional... except Kate was struck by the Pharaoh's Revenge about halfway through, something which carried over into the night and the following day, keeping her basically bedbound after meeting our host, Theo, an Aussie living in Elephant and Castle in London who was between roommates and, as such, threw the spare bedroom over to us. We got in a bit late and really only had time to say goodnight before bed and work for Theo the next day, which worked out alright as Kate couldn't really leave anyway and I had some research to do on Gumtree, an online classifieds website that we were using to locate a new used computer, which we did eventually find and buy for a bargain price of only £350, or about $520 for a Macbook. Nice... We also used Gumtree to then sell our beloved if broken iBook for a cool £90, making back the price difference between what we would have spent on another iBook and what we did spend.

Now, as we did so much stuff in London, this blog is going to follow a different outline than they usually do and we'll start with a paragraph on our most munificent HOST who ended up letting us stay for about two weeks, then again for three days at the end of our time in the UK. Definitely the host with the most as far as we're concerned, Theo worked long hours during the week so we didn't see him too much during the day, but we'd meet up with him at night for some drinks with his work pals (or Pippa, a friend from Argentina, but we'll get to that later) or just stay in and make some dinner and watch a movie or an episode of Generation Kill, a really intense and well-made show about the Iraq war. Theo also invited us to a good ol' house party one night, which was a lot of fun and gave us all the opportunity to wear some goofy hats and discuss Danish guys.

We also went to quite a few MARKETS, including the famous Saturday Portobello Road market for a stroll past antiques, cheap clothes, boutique eateries, and more. Kate picked up a few gifts and we munched some street food, but the antique maps we were looking at were a bit out of our price range unfortunately and the cold kept us from lingering too long as we just so happened to be in town following the coldest week in London with the most snow they've had in 18 years.

Nevertheless, we braved a few other markets, like Spitalfields, Brick Lane, nearby Walworth Road, and, most interestingly, the Borough Market. I had visited it way back in 2001, but it was closed when I came with Kate on our 05 trip as we showed up on a Sunday. Unfortunately, we made the same mistake again. But we did finally make it the following Friday and it was well worth it. The place overflows with stalls of everything and anything delicious. You've got your standard organic veg, of course, but also unpasteurized blue cheese, fresh game hanging at the butchers, kangaroo burgers (which I indulged in), and more. We picked up some wild boar sausages to go with our pasta dinner that night (delectable) and had such a good time that we decided to go back on Saturday, which just so happened to be Valentine's Day. It was miserable. You literally couldn't move and every food line was 30 people deep. Not fun.

London MUSEUMS are world-renowned for both their collections as well as the fact that they are largely free. And free warmth equals good so we checked out quite a few of those, beginning with the Science Museum, an epic, multi storied building the size of a city block dedicated to all things science. We only hit the first floor that day, checking out early forms of power generation, the history of space exploration and the debate over genetically engineered foods. The museum closed at 6PM and we didn't get to see too much of it, but we did eventually return a few weeks later for some more awesome knowledge. My favorite exhibit in the end was one of plastics - they have a ton of applications and will soon have a ton more. Some pretty interesting stuff, including biodegradable, compostable plastic.

Also on the list was the Natural History Museum, another free, geeky and oh so fun treat that we ended up visiting three times. Our first visit took us through the side entrance and up through a sculpture of the earth, through three floors of volcanos, simulated earthquakes and an impressive collection of rocks and gems. But by the time we figured out how to get to the life science section it was time to go so we went back the next day - a Monday - only to find the place overrun. Turns out it was the first day of a week long school holiday and thousands of parents who didn't know what to do with their sticky, snotty, screaming children mobbed the museum in desperation. We walked through what we could but were unwilling to wait an hour to shuffle through the dinosaurs and decided to come back a couple weeks later to see the rest of the place, which is really just an excuse to check out the beautiful building. And the scary dinosaurs.

The British Museum is probably the king of all museums ever. It's massive and informative and well done and one of the first. We'd been before but they'd made some changes this time around, like closing the famous Reading Room for renovations, which was particularly annoying as it was the main reason we went in the first place. We did go to a smaller library in the museum as well, but it really wasn't that great so we left and explored the collections, finding that they'd introduced a touching history thing where certain actual historical objects were displayed by docents who explained them and allowed them to be handled by anyone who wanted. There was also a really interesting little exhibit on Roman Britain as well as a room on the Enlightenment. Excellent stuff, of course.

Also counted in the museum section is the British Library which we decided to check out to see if we could get some work done. Turned out you needed to request a viewing of a specific item in their extensive collection and, as we'd done tons of research already, we chose to just wander the museum section, which has three parts: a temporary standing exhibit dedicated to Darwin's life and research, a rotating exhibit about rights and laws with a great history of UK and world politics as well as offered an interactive section which allowed you to vote on a variety of different issues which concern us today, and the permanent exhibition such treasures as the Magna Carta, Gutenberg Bible and other beautiful books, scrolls and documents. They also have recordings of poetry readings, music, a collection of Beatles paraphernalia and a computer program which allows you to examine books and documents on display in detail with explanations. But as we didn't have any pictures of it, we snuck in a random.

We also checked out a couple of CHURCHES, like St. Paul's Cathedral, which is massive and has some admission fees. But we, being sneaky, avoided these charges by going on a Sunday when you can enter the cathedral for free but cannot go to the crypts or tour the full thing. Still, we've seen enough churches that we really didn't care and we still got to check out the dome from within and the altar and all that stuff. It's a church.

We also went to the awesomely named All-Hallows-Barking-by-the-Tower church (yes, that is it's real name). This one is free all the time and is awesome. It's an old church, some parts of which date back to the Romans, but has been gutted by fire and rebuilt and added onto many times. There's a brass rubbings center located within, a crypt with a museum below, and some interesting woodwork in the main nave as well. Definitely worth a peek in our humble opinions, even if it is just another church.

Another pleasant interlude of culture was a night spent with an old friend from home I hadn't seen in several years, Kiera O'Brien. Kiera's had quite an intense few years since leaving high school, including university in Australia, getting married and divorced, learning Norwegian, and moving to London where she now works at a magazine. She took us on the famous THAMES WALK where we braved the cold to get some fabulous views over to the Tower Bridge (as well as getting caught up and eating some pizza along the walk). It's a pretty stroll through some revitalized neighborhoods, past the Tate Modern and the mayor's office and the only thing that would have made it better would be if it had been warmer.

But lest you think we only did cultural things in London, think again. We also checked out HARROD'S, the department store to end all department stores. Endless rooms, thousands of sections... If they don't have it, they can get it for you - at an fair markup, of course. But most of the stuff they've got there is too high end for us anyway, like the computer's designed by Bentley that look like chic handbags and cost about £10,000. A little out of our budget, but we could still look for free so we wandered through the vast space, checking out each differently designed room, like the Egypt room or the tiled/glass ceiling deli room...

And we also got some haircuts. Or at least Kate did. It had been about a year since her last chop (not counting my admirable if uneven attempt on Kea) so she sought out London's Vidal Sasoon Academy where, for £5 and 4 hours, Kate got a super-stylish haircut from a gifted student on her exam day. The haircut earned high marks from the teacher and another model even complained that her haircut wasn't as nice. So if you've got a few hours to spare in London (and/or LA or NY), check out the Academies and just tell them to make you beautiful as they know what they're doing.

There was more, of course, but this post is already enormous and we're not gonna get to everything anyway. But we will get to some daytrips, both to and from London. So stay tuned for those and enjoy this obligatory Big Ben photo...