Europe with Paul and Allissa 2000

Europe 2000

Paul, Allissa and Gary
Europe

Paul’s 21st Birthday Trip and our reunion with Allissa
28/8/2000
Another holiday diary. Quite different from the last ones. This time it’s with Allissa and Paul, who are now both embarking on adulthood.
It’s a long time since 1079, a lot has changed….but you know, I still feel that life is essentially a huge adventure. More than ever in some ways. I now have a bit more flexibility than I did in the past.
Ahead we have Bangkok, Frankfurt, Spain, Morocco, Amsterdam, Paris, London and back home via Bangkok. The big excitement for me is seeing Allissa after all this time. Ten months ago she embarked on her European adventure. What a brave girl! She has done better than I ever expected. I’m so proud of her.
Paul is about to turn 21 and Allissa is almost 19.

Tuesday, August 29 2000
Monday is now history, Tuesday is almost gone. We have departed Melbourne and are on our way to “Siam”. One hundred years ago this trip would have been unheard of for an Australian. Even 48 years ago when I was born! A lot has changed.
Once again, flying amazes me. Up here in a cigar shaped projectile hurtling through open space many kilometres above our beloved Planet Earth.
This trip has not been easy to plan. But having said that the planning was easy, impromptu, laid back, it’s doing it that is the tricky part.
View from Riverfront Residence where we stayed
We arrived in Bangkok late. After the taxi trip to our hotel Paul announced that he was hungry. Where the hell do you get food on Rama III at 2.30am. We found another taxi and took of into the humid Thai night with our taxi driver who spoke no English beyond the pleasantries of hello. Here we were tired, hungry……. two westerners down some side street in the middle of a suburban Bangkok suburb. We found a cafe that was open, no-one spoke English. Why is it that us English speakers always think Asians will understand if we speak slowly and one word at a time? Our food came out after about 15 minutes of sitting at a shaky table on a ramshackle footpath. Not Bad! It had a certain potential for belly bugs but it would have been terribly inappropriate not to eat it.
Wednesday August 30 2000
Paul’s first day in Bangkok. I had breakfast on my own in the hotel restaurant and later Paul joined me for coffee. After breakfast we caught a taxi the the southern most River Ferry stop.
( I stopped writing here so there is no record of what we did in Bangkok over the next couple of days)
Barcelona

Monday, September 4 2000

We arrived in Barcelona via Frankfurt late on Saturday night. Joe was waiting for us at the airport, this was a pleasant surprise but secretly I had hoped that he would come. Having someone from your past to meet you is always comforting. We drove into Barcelona. God, I was so tired but at the same time so damn excited. We checked into our hotel and then Joe took us to his apartment which was simple but large. We were greeted by his wife Lucia. I had no idea what to expect, she is beautiful and even though there is a slight distance in her warmth I feel pretty comfortable with her. We sat around their dining table snacking on crisp bread, cheese, olives, drinking red wine and brandy until the early hours of Tuesday morning. Joe and I had a lot to catch up with and he is Paul’s Godfather. Paul was charming.
By the time we hot back to our hotel it was near 2 a.m. I crashed immediately and yes, of course…. Paul went out walking!

Joe invited Paul and me to a Sunday lunch at Lucia’s brother’s house outside Barcelona. Unfortunately, Paul had stayed out far too late and I couldn’t wake him at 2 pm on Sunday when it was time to leave. I really wish he could have made it. The house turned out to be somewhat more impressive than I could have ever imagined. It was a piece of Catalonian history. Built in the 1500s when the Spanish Armada was on its way to free England of Henry’s heretical new religion. The house sat perched on a hill in a village about 30 minutes out of Barcelona. Every room was a work of art, full of a past that until visiting Spain I had never thought about. Little stairways running off in all directions leading to rooms that were full of wonders. They smelt old, the furniture was old as were the tapestries and paintings. Hundreds of years older than European settlement in Australia!
When we arrived at around 3.00 p.m we were ushered into an entry hall full of taxidermy, stuffed animals, mounted stag heads and off to the left a billiard room with a huge table and a fireplace that was so big you could cook a cow in it. By this stage I had made acquaintance with Joe and Lucia’s daughter…also Lucia (pronounced Luthia). She’s is eleven months old and is a beautiful young girl. I met Lucia’s sister the bottom of the stairs and went up. I swear, it was like walking into a movie. The kitchen was huge and full of good looking men and beautiful women. The greeting in Spain from woman to man is enough to wake the dead. The woman puts her face right next to yours and you kiss her on both cheeks, whether you know them or not. It somehow creates an instant affinity.
On the stove, a huge paella was simmering away. The cellar was bigger than an average Australian home and was full of ancient olive presses and other equipment which either had some use on the farm or was maybe instruments of torture dating back to the Holy Inquisition. All the rooms were gargantuan, full of antiques and rich smells from the distant past. The Chapel (Capella), yes they did have their own chapel! The chapel was small but complete. Full of Catholic paraphernalia and dead Christs on ornate crucifixes.
By the time we sat down to eat I felt comfortable even though the air was ringing with fast Spanish words but Lucia’s brothers Lalo, and Marcos spoke good English as does Lucia. Her younger sister Cora was extremely good looking and also extremely quiet. Lucia’s mother is probably in her late 50s and looks a bit like Sophia Loren. The mum’s conversation was full of Spanish impersonations of Scarface and Life of Brian! Lucia’s Father died in a car accident around 1990.
This seems to be a close family.
We left the gathering at around 8.30 p.m to return to Barcelona so by the time I got back to our room it was quite late. When I returned Paul was a bit groggy and it was impossible to work out whether his blood sugar was low or whether he was jet lagged or even possibility drunk! I eventually got some food into him and we dropped off to sleep. Monday morning dawned. Joe had told me to come down to his house so he could give us some ideas and directions. I had breakfast outside in the hotel courtyard, a little patch of glass with white tables. After breakfast, Paul and I set off to Joe’s place where we checked e-mails, chatted and made a few plans.
Our hotel is only a few kilometres from the Mediterranean. It is in a small street off Gran De Gracia which is a bit like the city centre, a grand boulevard which goes down to the Placa de Catalunya and then to Los Rambla which is sort of like a cross between Fitzroy St and the Bourke St Mall. We visited the Gothic Quarter and walked through back alleys occasionally ending up in a square or near a cathedral.
We returned to our hotel on the Metro which reminded me of being in Paris and after a short siesta headed off again on the Metro up north. We ended the day with a pleasant meal with Joe and Lucia.

Tuesday September 5 2000

The best thing about today is that it’s going to end!
Why did I say that?
Well, Allissa is returning home tonight. Not quite home really but she is coming to Barcelona. It’s been almost 10 months since she left Melbourne on her adventure. We have to wait until late because of a slight misunderstanding. I e-mailed her from Bangkok and gave her the wrong date or day (actually the right date but the wrong day) so she took off to San Sebastion in the Basque region. She arrives at 10.30 this evening.
Paula and I are just about to head off to the Gaudi Cathedral and the Barcelona Bullring.
The Temple de la Sagrada Familia was nothing short of a wonder.

(This is a Wikipedia entry on Gaudi’s Cathedral for a bit of general info : The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (Catalan pronunciation: [səˈɣɾaðə fəˈmiɫiə]; English: Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family) is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain), designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). Although incomplete, the church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site,[5] and in November 2010 Pope Benedict XVI consecrated and proclaimed it a minor basilica,[6][7][8] as distinct from a cathedral, which must be the seat of a bishop.
Construction of Sagrada Família had commenced in 1882 and Gaudí became involved in 1883,[5] taking over the project and transforming it with his architectural and engineering style, combining Gothic and curvilinear Art Nouveau forms. Gaudí devoted his last years to the project, and at the time of his death at age 73 in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete.[9] Sagrada Família’s construction progressed slowly, as it relied on private donations and was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War, only to resume intermittent progress in the 1950s. Construction passed the midpoint in 2010 with some of the project’s greatest challenges remaining[9] and an anticipated completion date of 2026, the centenary of Gaudí’s death.
The basílica has a long history of dividing the citizens of Barcelona: over the initial possibility it might compete with Barcelona’s cathedral, over Gaudí’s design itself,[10] over the possibility that work after Gaudí’s death disregarded his design,[10] and the recent proposal to build an underground tunnel of Spain’s high-speed rail link to France which could disturb its stability.[11] Describing Sagrada Família, art critic Rainer Zerbst said, “It is probably impossible to find a church building anything like it in the entire history of art”[12] and Paul Goldberger called it, “The most extraordinary personal interpretation of Gothic architecture since the Middle Ages.”[13]
The church shares its site with the Sagrada Família Schools building, a school originally designed by Gaudí in 1909 for the children of the construction workers. Relocated in 2002 from the eastern corner of the site to the southern corner, the building now houses an exhibition.”

The Gaudi Cathedral was really nothing short of one of the earth’s wonders. I have never experienced architecture like it. It is a work in progress, Gaudi started working on it in 1883 when he was 30 years old.! The foundation stone was laid in 1882.
Gaudi was born in 1852, 100 years before me, he died in 1926 at 74 years of age and exactly 74 years before 2000. As of 2000 the project has been evolving for 118 years. Beyond contemporary, it is a huge masterpiece that leaves you breathless. Paul was equally impressed.
After we had gone up to the top of the new spires and taken in the spectacular views of Barcelona we walked back to Joe’s place. Today was a special day for Paul.

Allissa arrived from San Sebastion at 10.30 pm. Joe drove us to the bus stop, we arrived just before she did. Lis arrived with an Australian friend in tow, her name was Bel. We all war out to have a late meal.

Wow, it’s great to see Lis again. The only drawback is that Paul needs lots of one on one and now that there are three of us it’s become a bit tense. I’d give anything to have him be happy.
Allissa is so independent, if she said she was going to South America tomorrow I’d know that she would be OK and I wouldn’t worry.
I’d like to be here on my own so I could explore the city and see as much as possible but that isn’t and won’t be the case. I’m really hoping that paul and Allissa will go out on their own today and spend time together. Tomorrow Allissa and I are going south. First stop is Granada and then a ferry trip to Morocco. Paul has decided not to come with us. The thing we have to work out today is where he is going.

Change of plan! We went to Sants Railway Station and discovered that all the trains were booked until Sunday morning. I was secretly pleased to be able to stay in Barcelona for a while longer. Jo and Lucia have gone to Tarragona, a beach town south of Barcelona. They left on Friday afternoon and were gracious enough to offer us their apartment until they returned on Sunday afternoon. Paul and I went out and bought a gift for little Lucia, a sort of kid’s keyboard which went down really well.

Our last couple of days were relatively non-eventful but pleasant. We went to a great Japanese restaurant on the last night and as you would expect, Paul was in Heaven.

Spain was even better than I realised while I was there.
It’s cheap, the Spanish are friendly, I find it visually superior top Paris, much to my disbelief. Big cities are always a challenge, it’s the little country towns or suburbs that give me the flavour of the country.

When we left Barcelona, Paul stayed with Joe and Lucia. Paul liked Joe very much and bonded with him
On the Train To Granada
The train trip was a wonderful experience. We had sleepers but could not get seats in the same carriage. I ended up with a Spanish family who had brought copious amounts of food on the train and it ended up smelling like a Spanish deli in the carriage. The train travelled along the coast and somewhere after Valencia it went inland and I understood why all the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns were made there. I wish that I had a better sense of the geography of Spain, for some reason I didn’t give that much thought at the time.

Monday September 11 2000

Granada

TO BE CONTINUED……..

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