This week: not-work, and Spain

[juliet]

I have spent the week in Spain with dogrando, which has been very nice. If quite chilly & often damp. The sleeper train to Barcelona from Paris is terribly civilised, with a restaurant (albeit not vegan-friendly) & a bar. Barcelona itself has awesome Modernist stuff (all Gaudi all the time!) and a market where you can get exciting mushrooms for very small quantities of money. We also spent a day at Figueres visiting the Teatro-Museo Dali, which is absolutely awesome, especially if like me you are v fond of Dali. It lives up to the 'Teatro' part of the name with the humour & the attention to setting. I'd love to see some of the more famous Dali paintings in that context.

Then we caught another train down to Cordoba, which is very Moorish and has ludicrously narrow streets which are great for wandering round. Only had a couple of days there before a few hours in Madrid (cold, had lunch at awesome veggie restaurant) & train back to Paris last night.

(I may write more of this later; or I may not. It was all very lovely, anyway.)

The other event of the week was that I was made redundant on Monday, which was at least not a surprise. I am at least still a qualified cycling instructor, so if you (or ppl you know) want cycling-in-London-safely lessons feel free to get in touch for rates!

Comments

[pauamma]

Next time you pass within 100 miles of me (or, as it happens, within 10 miles), let me know in advance? :-)

[juliet]

I did not know you were based in any of the above places! Will do, then :)

[ewan]

Oh we are going to Cordoba in a few weeks! Really looking forward to it, so if you have any top recommendations let me know. Otherwise it sounds like wandering around will be just fine.

[juliet]

The mosque is awesome & well worth visiting; and I liked the little Sephardic Judaism museum.

If you want to borrow our Spain Lonely Planet, let me know! NB it has had some of the pages cut out, but they're still there (just detached) so this is actually a bonus because you can put them in a plastic bag & stick them in yr pocket & not have to drag the whole damn book around with you! (Which is why I sliced them out in the first place, obv. Always take a penknife on holiday with you, that's my recommendation; you never know when it may come in handy.) Also we have the LP Spanish phrasebook which is pretty good.

[taimatsu]

I want some cycling-for-terrified-and-wobbly-beginners lessons, and if I could afford it would come to London to learn from someone I know is friendly and reassuring. :) But I don't have a bike, which might be a problem.

[juliet]

How tall are you? Currently the Bermondsey Collective have a spare hybrid, but I think it might be too big for you.

I can teach adult beginners, even at the "never sat on a bike before" stage!

[taimatsu]

Five foot four. I have sat on a bike but not made it go anywhere! :)

[juliet]

Bah, no, that bike won't fit you then :(

Starting from scratch, I reckon as an adult beginner you should be cycling on quiet roads within a couple of 2-hr lessons, fwiw.

(For Informational Purposes comment: if you're currently in paid work, & you want a bike, it is possible to get a bike at 33% off by getting it through the Cycle to Work scheme, which is a pretty good deal. Finding a borrowable bike would probably be a better start, though, unless you have fairly clear cycling plans already, if you see what I mean.)

[taimatsu]

I will hunt for one I can borrow :) I am a very very nervous adult beginner who doesn't drive either and has no road-sense. I also have very poor balance, a hearing impairment, and some slight visual weirdness. It's all a very scary prospect - but it would be good for me!

I would be interested in the cycle-to-work scheme later on, assuming I manage to ride at all, but for beginning, no, it won't help, you're right.

[juliet]

This may sound a little odd, but a bike balances by steering rather than by you balancing it, so in fact a dodgy sense of balance isn't a major issue :) Hearing impairment is no problem, & I regularly teach 10-yr-olds who don't drive either & often have only minimal road-sense ('can cross road without being run over' is about it :) ). Visual weirdness: as long as you can see other traffic coming, you'll be OK (it might need some adaptation, & it's certainly something that anyone teaching you would prefer to know about, but they're your eyes & you already know about how to work with them!).

So even if it is a scary prospect, it's not a crazy one :)

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind me asking, how straight are the tracks for Paris-Madrid on the whole? (i.e. how much does the train bend over as it goes round corners?) I've been put off sleeper trains by our trip up to Inverness a couple of years back, and need convincing that it's worth another go in a country where straight tracks aren't guaranteed by a communist history and lots of space.

[juliet]

There was noticable bending on the corners as we came through the Pyrenees (also, unsurprisingly, noticeable climbing!), but otherwise I didn't notice much if any. Having said that, I've been to Glasgow on the sleeper & wasn't bothered by that, so I may be the wrong person to ask.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

No worries. Only one way to find out I guess. I think the thing that was hard going up to Inverness especially was having to wait for our hotel room when we arrived having not had any sleep all night. Weird that leaning bothers me but bumpiness doesn't :)

[silkyraven.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear they laid you off in the end. :-/ But yay for dog (I just saw your Tweet) and did you see there is a new vegetarian restaurant in town? http://www.zillirestaurants.co.uk/green/

[juliet]

Ooh, no, I had not. That looks fabulous. I must go try it out forthwith!

(dog photos upcoming once I get them off camera! Currently she is having a little snooze on her bed after playing exciting fetch-in-the-hallway game.)