Spanish cooking experience

Thursday 30th May

Last week when we went on the walking tour of Barcelona we found that the same company also holds a Spanish cooking experience lesson in one of their bars by the port. This was to be a lesson in cooking paella, tapas and learning how to make sangria. It cost about 20 euros each and we figured for the price of a meal out we could go and learn how to cook it properly, meet some people and take advantage of the many jugs of sangria.

We turned up at the bar a little early, just before 6pm. We made the most of the day in Barcelona and in the afternoon went to visit a few Gaudì buildings and the Segrada Familia. Which looks quite ugly and melted from a distance but when you get up close and see how much detail there is in the facades you can kinda see why it's taking over 100 years to build. We didn't go inside as it was quite expensive for our daily budget and also the queue looked like it snaked around the building site three times, but I'd like to see it again when it's finished, hopefully in my life time!

Gaudi building

Gaudi building

Segrada Familia

Back at the bar the chef hosting the evening came out to greet us, a group of about 24 (Adam being one of three males). He took us to Barcelona's old, famous market La Boqueria, which Adam and I had had a quick look round on our last visit but on his little tour gave us some information such as in the summer the fruit section is very bright with lots of colourful fruits but in the winter they sell loads of different kinds of mushrooms instead. I also found out that a kilo of saffron is around 6,000€ but this market is one of the cheapest places to buy it in Spain! Not that I'd ever need that much saffron but compared to 1€ for a kilo of onions that is quite expensive. We went past stalls selling every single piece of a cows insides including brain and stomach lining as well as a creepy skinned sheeps head with its little teeth smiling at you. The chef bought some fresh mussels and prawns for the paella and we headed back to the bar, pretty hungry at this point, a sheeps head and pig trotters won't put me off food!

Prawns at La Boqueria market

Cups of fruit

Gross sheep heads

From what I'd heard about the 'Spanish cooking experience' when we booked it I thought we might be cooking the paella or tapas ourselves but although that didn't turn out to be the case it wasn't a disappointing evening. When back at the bar we were seated at a few tables, us with a 20 year old Canadian on a 30 day backpacking tour of Europe with a friend, a slightly older South African couple living in Germany and on a short break, and a shy Thai lady in Barcelona for a medical conference but seeing the sights in the few days before. We were given our first jug of sangria and the tapas consisted of a plate of 'potatas bravas' (fried potato cubes with a spicy tomato sauce), a 'tortilla Espanola' (Spanish potato omelette), and some cooked green peppers which were really sweet and yummy. We were also given a plate of bread with some tomatoes chopped in half, a little pot of olive oil and a selection of salami, ham and cheese. The tapas lesson was pretty basic which I found quite funny. You pick up a piece of bread, rub the tomato on it, drizzle on some olive oil and then top it with salami, ham and cheese!

Tapas

Paella cooking

Sangria

Our Iranian chef was a little over qualified for the job we found out so I'm sure he found this quite amusing too. He lived in London for 4 years working in some pretty swanky hotels and restaurants but going back n forth to Iran to visit his mum every now n then didn't go down very well with the immigration at the airport so after 8 hours of questioning decides to move to Barcelona. He cooked the paella infront of us in a massive shallow pan and told us the right order to put everything in and that once the rice and water is added the biggest mistake it to keep stirring it. It takes about 40 minutes to cook so whilst the liquid was evaporating he showed us how to make sangria and then let us make our own jugs. Goes without saying that the jug Adam made was mostly brandy, rum and red wine and not a lot of lemonade or orange juice!

Once the paella was cooked there was plenty to go around and I even tried to get over my fear of sea food by pulling the head and tail off a massive prawn, it didn't even taste too bad! We ended up being the last table to leave and it was a really good night with a lot of different people. The Travellers Bar cooking experience is definitely worth checking out.

Barcelona and Gava

Monday 27th May

For the past week we've been staying in a town called Gava, Spain which is just outside of Barcelona. When we were in Le Boulou an older Belgian couple in a motorhome parked next to us and the woman started walking her very expensive cat on a lead around the van. It sparked up a conversation and they ended up recommending a great campsite to us when we said we were headed to Barcelona. It's in Gava right on the beach and a cheap bus goes from outside which takes about 20 minutes to get to Barcelona. We stayed here last Monday and today and inbetween we've been staying on the road right next to it and popping in to use the showers occasionally! Pretty cheeky but the campsite opens up right onto the beach and you can just stroll in. It's quite expensive as it's got loads of good facilities.

Last wednesday we took the bus into Barcelona and planned to spend the day there. We wondered round a bit before finding a bar where Adam knew there was a meeting point for a free walking tour. A blonde Finnish lady called Hanna introduced herself as the tour leader saying she first came on holiday to Barcelona 6 years ago, moved here 2 years ago and she now walks around telling people interesting things about the city and how much she loves it. The tour was around the Gothic Quarter of the city and about 3 hours long. I now know where Picasso supposedly lost his virginity, why and who the patron saint of Barcelona is and that the only cathedral in Barcelona (not the Segrada Familia, apparently that's not a cathedral), used to just be a big, blank rectangular brick wall with a door in the middle on the front but then about 100 years ago decided it needed to look more impressive like a proper cathedral and built a big sort of gothic front on the blank wall. She also told us that the people of Barcelona and Catalunia have a favourite sport other than football which is called Human Towers. Where they literally build a tower out of people by having a big base of muscley men and then a little 8 year old kid in a helmet about 9 people high swaying on the top. I'm not sure if the game is to have two teams competing to build the highest tower or if they just see how long they can stand in a tower form before toppling over. Catalunian people also don't believe in Santa Claus. Instead they believe in a little wooden log that they buy and give it a little hat and put a blanket over its 'bum', then feed it cookies and yummy things until Christmas where they hit the log with sticks and sing songs until it poops out their presents! Straaange. I also thought it was cool that every other couple or group on the tour was from a different country. Apart from two separate couples from Israel there were people from the Philippines, Iran, America, Ireland, Germany and Switzerland.

After the tour we booked for next Thursday to go on a Spanish cooking experience which is also hosted at the bar where you go to the really old famous market the Boqueria and buy some food with the chef, go learn how to cook paella and get fed some tapas and sangria.

The rest of the week we've been chilling on the beach in Gava and this weekend spent recovering from a night out in Barcelona where we went to a few bars and then a big club called Razzmatazz on Friday. Adam had been there before when he went on a lads piss up holiday and wanted to show me what it was like. We were there from about 2 til 6 in the morning and it was aaamazing. We had an hours walk back to the bus stop through the city when we left and we went past the 'Arc de Triomf' which was built in 1888 as a main access gate for a Universal Exhibition of Barcelona.

We'll probably stay in Gava for the rest of the week as we'll be going back into Barcelona on Thursday for the cooking and on the first Sunday of the month all the museums are free and we may take a look at some Gaudí buildings.

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, Barcelona

Tió de Nadal - Christmas Log or Caga Tió - Shitting log

Sandy beach in Gava near Barcelona

Girona, Spain

Sunday 19th May

For the past couple of days we've been staying in a French town called Le Boulou which is just a few miles away from the Spanish border. We've walked around the town and found that it's so close to Spain that they even have some Calalonian flags hanging from windows and a lot of the residents speak Spanish and Catalonian. Catalunya is a region of Spain, which includes Barcelona, and wants to be its own independent nation from Spain. We had lunch in the town, which meant just picking a cafe and ordering the 'Plat de Jour' without being able to read the menu or anyone being able to translate so it was a bit of a surprise  The waitress tried to get another local to translate for us but all he said was 'stop string'. It turned out to be calamari with some kind of meat stuffed inside and rice in a tomato and olive oil sauce. Yum. We also found a river quite near where we were parked and had a BBQ in part of the dried up river bed.

The next day we crossed the border into Spain and whilst trying to find a place to stay saw signs for some Roman ruins which was on the coast so went to have a look. We got there at 5pm so only had an hour to look round but it was free that day and pretty cool. You could see a mosaic which would have been on the floor of someones house and parts of pillars from public buildings and a really deep well.

Today we drove a little further and stopped in a city called Girona. It seems that where there is a river in France or Spain there is usually parking alongside it so we stopped there and went for a walk finding it was the last day of a week long flower festival all over the city. There were flower displays all through the old streets, giant ladybirds made out of flowers on the steps up to a church, flowers in hanging shoes in the alleyways in the streets and all the balcony's of people's houses had flowers. Down the older streets there were alcoves behind doors that flowers and potted plant displays had been installed, I'm not sure what the space would be used for when the festival was over, they were just empty public rooms throughout the streets. It's known as quite an arty city and you could tell just from how everything was put out for the festival with even most of the shops getting involved, changing their window displays to include flowers or having things made from flowers.

It rained quite a bit most of the afternoon we were walking around but it was still really busy and brightly coloured. We had a look round the History of Girona museum and the Jewish museum and had a look in the cathedral which has the biggest vaulted Gothic ceiling in the world. It was maaaassive. We went and chilled in the van for a bit late in the afternoon until it stopped raining then went back out to walk on the wall that goes around the city. It's a really old, high wall that you can walk between at the top to have a view over the city and the views were pretty awesome. It ended just behind the cathedral where there were a few little walled gardens.

I think Girona has been my favourite place that we've been to so far. Tomorrow we're heading for Barcelona!

BBQ in the river, Le Boulou

Roman mosaic, Spain

Giant ladybird flowers, Girona

Tried to get a Panoramic shot of the cathedral walls, Girona

The wall around Girona

Colourful view of Girona from a bridge

Flowers hanging in white shoes, Girona

Pyrenees & the Mediterranean

Sunday 12th May

We are currently in Montpellier, a city on the south coast of France. On thursday we did a bit of driving and whilst trying to find an Aire to stop for the night that we had found in our French Aire book we accidentally found a better one right next to a river which was really pretty, even though it was raining. We used the drizzly weather as an opportunity to try out the hob inside our van as we didn't fancy cooking outside. We cooked some pasta and all went well!

On Friday we reached a tiny medieval town called Martel. We parked up at a campsite and had a walk round the town and inside a veery old church that had bright patterns all over the stone walls and pillars inside. I'm not really one for religion and I don't know anything about architecture but I love old buildings! It was a very cute town. It was also soo nice to have showers and toilets on the campsite!

Whilst leaving Martel yesterday we saw signs for a place called Rocamadour and decided to have a visit and it was a town with a big church and castle built into a cliff face. The whole town was just sort of leaning off the edge a rock. We walked up hundreds of stone steps that apparently a lot of famous dead religious people had climbed on their knees as a pilgrimage and looked around the buildings. Very cool place.

We spent the rest of the day driving quite far as we wanted to reach the coast before the evening. The roads through the Pyrenees had amazing scenery. Through gorges and around mountains. We passed through Milau which has the biggest bridge I've ever seen. It was cloudy all day and sometimes raining but as soon as we left the Pyrenees and we were nearing the Mediterranean sea it got a lot warmer and sunnier. We drove through Montpellier until we were at the beach and we stayed along a road sheltered from the sea by sand dunes where a few other camper vans were staying over night.

Today was mostly spent chilling on the beach reading and walking in the sea. Adam got his mermaid on and collected loads of sea shells. He wants to make necklaces out of them. This evening as we were driving round looking for some free parking we stopped in an empty supermarket carpark to watch a group of 4 or 5 guys doing stunts on their motorbikes, like wheelies whilst standing on the seats or standing on the seat driving backwards. Then when we'd parked up just outside the center of the city we heard the echo of a guy on a microphone and a massive crowd cheering, went to have a look and caught the end of a big televised sports competition. They were just doing the mens BMX finals but we passed them doing wake boarding yesterday.

We'll probably have another look round here tomorrow before driving a bit further down the coast.

Giant bridge over a mile long in Milau

Fise Worldwide BMX winners

Driving through the Pyrenees

Sandy beach south of Montpellier

Medieval city of Martel 

Church built into the cliff in Rocamadour

Big skies

Wednesday 8th May

Woke up to rain today. The van stays really warm and I think the carpety type insulation that's on the walls and ceiling blot out most of the rain noise which is good.

We were gonna look around the town and get some milk for my crunchy nut but decided to have a banana, get ready and go. The (hopefully) sunnier south of France calling!

The rain didn't really last long, there were clouds all day but really cool clouds not just a flat grey sky. I'm a little obsessed with clouds! We didn't do much today other than drive. We're not taking the toll roads to save money so we get taken all through the countryside which is beauuutiful. When I was bursting for a wee we stopped at a café and had a drink and made sandwiches in the van.

We drove around 230 miles to La Mans today. Didn't see any races though! Then stopped just outside La Mans to find a place to park. We did find a place and we planned to go out and buy dinner but every single place was closed and all had signs on the door saying they re open in a few days. Couldn't figure out why though.

So we've ended up at a picnic place next to a quiet road and near some fields. We cooked some rice and a can of curry on Adams little stove and it worked really well! This always surprises me for some reason! Now just chilling in the van and tomorrow we'll probably reach the coast and see what there is around!

Viva la France!

Today (Tuesday 7th May, not sure when I'll get wifi to post this) we left our home town of Horsham in our big blue van to start our road trip. We had booked ourselves onto a ferry from Dover to Calais and that was the only thing we had planned in advance. We got to Dover a little early but when checking in we were asked if we wanted to get on the earlier ferry and we accepted, giving us more time to drive south when we get to the other side (that was one other thing we planned, drive south!)

We got to France about 6pm and set the sat nav on Adams phone to navigate us to Abbeville as it was south and a few hours away and then we'd start looking around for somewhere to park up for the night. We figured we'd make use of the french Aires which are mostly free places to park especially for motorhomes. You can't camp there and you have to be able to cook and sleep in your vehicle, so no tents or BBQs, and they usually have drinking water and places to empty toilets! Then when we need a shower we'll pay to stay on a campsite where we can hopefully do some clothes washing as well.

We drove through massive grassy sand dunes, big green fields with wind turbines in them, big yellow fields, through little villages with really nice brick buildings and houses with shutters and really neat gardens and ducks chilling by the side of the road. Lots of cows too!

Tonight we've ended up at a quiet little seaside town called Ault. We got here as the sun was setting and it was pink and pretty over the sea :) We're parked in an Aire that's a 2 minute walk from the sea and with a view of a red and white lighthouse. There are about 12 other motorhomes parked nearby,  all massive and white, we're the only bright blue van!

Tomorrow we're gonna have a lie in and look around this town then keep driving south. We have to be back in England near the end of July as we're going to my dads 50th birthday (also my two aunties birthdays because they're tripets! Big partaay!) We're also going to Global Gathering the weekend after that. So we have two months and we're gonna blast our way south then make our way slowly back up. We want to go along the south west coastline and hopefully get some good sunny weather and see what we can do on the way. After we've had our little England visit we'll be making our way over to a place just outside of Amsterdam for another festival (this time not a music one, a making things one!) and we'll be away til Christmas this time!

A good start so far :)

A sneaky holiday and van prep

Olaaa! Yesterday Adam and I touched down on English soil for the second time in a few weeks. We spent a week in a gorgeous hotel in the Puerto de Santiago region of Tenerife. There's not much to say about the week really! We spent all day by or in the pool, I read precisely 6 and a half books (some were quite short), I got freckely arms and Adam got mostly burnt all over. We spent the evening's eating dinner, having a few drinks and watching the hotels cheesy entertainment! We left the hotel once one evening for 10 minutes to check out the beach down the road. Usually not my idea of a great holiday as I like to do things and see the places around us but this was perfect for relaxing after 5 crazy months in the Alps.

Adam and a friend of ours have been busy for a couple of days making repairs to the van and getting it ready to MOT. It doesn't really feel like we'll be leaving in it in a week or so. I've still never been in it whilst it's being driven! Hopefully it'll pass the MOT so we can move it closer to where we're staying at the moment so we can sort out what we're taking and tint the windows and fix up some other little moderation's. Adam's been in his element buying up maps and Heynes manuals!

Soon we'll start planning a route of where we're going to head for, and we've got a few things to buy like a little portable toilet and solar panels! I can't wait for this next bit! 

One week of home

It's awesome being home but a couple of times a day I still get an urge to strap one or two planks to my feet and fling myself down something steep. Bed slats and a set of stairs ain't the same! 

It was really nice and sunny when we landed last Sunday afternoon and Adam and I spent the afternoon at my parents where we are staying at the moment. In the evening we went out for a curry with both our families and it was sooo good. We ordered nearly everything on the menu and I had to be wheelbarrowed out the place to get home. We missed curry! 

I've also been chillin' with my stinky dogs and saw Identity Thief at the cinema, quite funny. I missed watching films in the cinema because if I watch them at home I usually fall asleep or get distracted and in the cinema I can watch the whole thing :)

I had dinner at Giraffe with two looovely friends, great seeing their smiley faces again. Two of my cousins had their 11th and 17th birthdays in the week so I've eaten loadsa cake and ice cream! Met a friend in town for a cuppa tea and a good old chat and met two more friends at a pub for a giant pint of coke and a chat! It's been awesome catching up with everyone and it feels like I was never away.

Saturday night is a blur of drinks and tiny bars and a tiny club in our tiny town. Is it lame to get excited about painting my nails for the first time in 5 months? Well I did. I'm lame. But it was a great night and we ended up playing Just dance on the Wii til 5am after our one and only *probably* worst club in the world closed. Crazy that I used to start work at that time before we went away. I am certainly ok with being jobless and technically homeless at the moment! 

Tomorrow we're going to Thorpe Park, yaaayyy adrenalin! Then wednesday afternoon flying to Tenerife for my first ever all inclusive holiday to sit by the pool in the sun and read all day. I could probably do the same in my garden under a heat lamp with my feet in a paddling pool but that's not the point. I've never really done a sit still by the pool holiday before and might get ants in my pants after the first day and want to look around. Even though Adam is adamant he is just going to lie still and get crispy I'm expecting him to be the same so we'll probably have a look around the place and see what's there. Bring on the all you can eat food and vodka lemonades and someone else making my bed! 

We plan on leaving in our van for the countries of Europe at the beginning of May. Just gotta fix up some bits on the van and get it MOT'd and decide on what to take with us. Maybe I can sneak the dogs in with us :)

Tignes - Take II & goodbye St Foy!

First things first, I'm hooomeeee! Currently sitting in my mum and dad's living room with a cup of tea, a sandwich with CHEDDAR cheese in it and one of my dogs has just puked under the dining room table. I'm assuming because he is overcome with happiness at my return. Ahh home sweet home!

We finished our season in Sainte Foy with a night out and a little bit of boarding but it was too icy to do much. We then packed up, closed down the chalet and were dropped off in Tignes where they still have guests booked in for a couple of weeks and we were to help out for the last 3 days before getting on the transfer bus with the guests and flying back to the UK. To say working in the chalet in Tignes was a pleasant experience would be like saying having a toothless, slobbery gummy bulldog chew on your foot is relaxing. I don't wanna moan on about it because I don't want it to overshadow the rest of the amazing season but let's just say disgustingly filthy kitchen, lazy useless staff and very poor management from higher up.
 

Leaving our mark on our dodgy indoor tree house ladder

The good thing though is that it did change my opinion of Tignes as a resort. When I wrote about it before I was a bit moany and said the skiing was crap. Just shows what a fussy skier I am probably as this time when it was sunny, I could see where I was going and it wasn't as busy it was awesome! I was boarding this time so was a bit slower to get around but I really liked that the runs were a bit longer than they are in Sainte Foy so you could go longer without having to stop and get on a lift again. No complaints this time and the resort wasn't even that ugly when the sun was out! I would even go back to do the bits I didn't have time to do :)

So now we're home I can't believe how quick the season has gone. But we skied and boarded our little hearts out and now we're ready for something different. We were planning on staying home for a couple of weeks, getting the van ready and catching up with friends. That will still happen but before our van dwelling adventure begins we might do a bit of cheating and book a cheap last minute all inclusive holiday using our wages from the season (managed to live off tips so got a little bit saved) to chill out a bit first. Working a season might sound like it's easy work and lot's of free time to see the mountain but it was hard work and lot's of mountain time which is quite exhausting! So we just wanna sit by a pool somewhere hot for a week until we have to deal with driving and maps and finding places to park and finding a beach somewhere hot where we can chill some more ;) It's a tough lifestyle!

Birthday in the Alps

It was my birthday on Monday 25th March and it was awesome to spend it on a mountain! We had to work Monday but that was ok, we had really cool guests and two of them, aged 6 and 9 were so excited about it! They ran around playing with balloons, making birthday cards, asking what cake we were having, eating loadsa cake and generally acting like it was their own birthday. I liked it as it reminded me of being at home with loads of crazy cousins having eaten their body weight in sugar and running around like headless chickens.

When our friends Claire and Phil came over a few weeks before, my mum had given Claire a little bag of presents to bring out and loads of cards from my friends and family at home which was looovely. 

The plan was to go out for a few drinks that evening and wait til Tuesday night to celebrate properly as we have Wednesdays off, but plans never go to plan and we ended up meeting some friends at the bar and staying out/drinking til pretty late anyway. I very much appreciated the fry up the next morning and the giant Easter egg our manager got me, which I ate whilst in bed, where I stayed nearly all day watching Austin Powers and napping before cooking dinner :)

 Boarding all day on a sunny mountain isn't a bad way to spend a birthday!