We're in Switzerland: a more efficient version of Germany, if that's possible. In the lounge we have settled in for drinks, the Wings Lounge along the Limmatquai, we are surrounded by different accents: German, French, even some English; but mostly, German. India is squarely in our sights, as tomorrow morning, we will board a flight that will take us the better part of the day, and land us in Delhi.
The last few weeks have been helpful in preparing us for India. Crossing the border into Spain, nothing was familiar, but after a few days (weeks?) we picked up the words and sense of the country to get by just fine. We figure we will have a bit of culture shock in India, but we'll adjust.
I skipped over Madrid quite quickly in the last dispatch, and we did do some fun things there: a few people have asked how we spent Christmas, and the truth of it is that it was a bit lonesome. The city shut down a bit as people went home to celebrate with their families, and of course, you think of yours when you're away for times like Christmas.
But we made up for it in style: our Christmas present to ourselves was a day at the spa, wandering from different steam rooms and baths, getting pounded by different jets of water to untie knots that muscles had formed themselves into by carrying our packs across Europe.
The tourist visa experience improved dramatically on our return: we were recognized immediately by the girl who had served us the first time, and she processed "part-two" application very efficiently. I felt a little trepidation in handing over the passport for a couple of days, but when we returned a few days later as required, the passports were waiting for us with equal enthusiasm.
So we were able to catch our flight to Faro, in the Algarve - the sunny southern province of Portugal. Apart from being the airport gateway into the Algarve, Faro isn't much to write home about, but it did form a good base for us to hang out over New Year's before heading further west to Lagos for a few more days. We actually spent most of the four days we slept in Faro, making day trips to beaches accessed by taking a ferry from nearby Olhao. The temperature didn't drop below seventeen for the time we were there... I could get used to this.
When we arrived in Lagos, we were greeted at the train station by Manuel, a native to the area who was wondering if we were interested in a place to sleep for the night. Normally I'm a bit skeptical of people who meet you at the station, but after some discussion we figured it would be worth a look. And indeed it was: an upper-floor apartment with a roof-top terrace, a kitchen, for an extremely reasonable price. It turns out that Manuel and his wife Marie live in the ground floor with their two young boys and two dogs, so they're very particular about who they offer the apartments to: we must have looked respectable enough.
The real highlight in Lagos are the grottos. The city is built on the coast of the Atlantic ocean, and the ocean has created some interesting rock formations as a result of thousands of years of erosion. The resulting grottos and beaches look like impossible carvings, mountains of multi-hued rock towering hundreds of feet into the air, surrounded by turquoise-green ocean. On a boat tour of the coast (the pilot gave us the "tour" by announcing the name of each beach as we passed it) I think I filled up every flash card I took with photographs.
After spending a few more sun-soaked days in Lagos we made our way east, back into Spain, to meet up with Amy's mum who came to visit us in Seville. It was a great visit, as we spent a few days in Seville, and then a few days in Granada, to visit the Al'hambra. Interestingly, in Seville, there exists a Moorish castle called the Real Alcazar (royal palace) which exhibits what I might call exactly the same carving styles, amazing architecture, and peaceful serenity. Not that we didn't appreciate the tour of the Al'hambra, which is indeed as awe-inspiring as its reputation would suggest it should have, but if you only had a chance to visit Seville, you'd get a pretty good sense of what was in store at the Al'hambra.
We also got a chance to see a Flamenco dance performance, which was pretty stunning: a guitarist, a singer, and a dancer, all working in coordination. By chance we would happen to speak to a Flamenco guitar student, who could answer my main questions about Flamenco: who takes the lead? The music is so rhythmically difficult (they operate in time signatures like 13/7 or some such) that if you're not extremely well-versed in the rhythm, you'll mess everything up. In the show we watched, everything was in perfect sync. As it happens, the songs are generally well-known among all Flamenco performers, so any couple of professionals can get together and put on a show without any practice (the better ones would put on a better show, I imagine). But like a jazz performance, they take cues from one another: for example, if the singer is extending his rendition of a verse, the guitarist will just have to repeat the stanza he was playing until he gets the sense the singer is done. As well, the dancer can influence the beat of the song by the way she taps her feet, at times, moving the song along onto its next direction.
The oranges, and fresh-squeezed orange juice in Seville (if not all of Andalucia) were and was amazing. They have a special machine for cutting and pressing the oranges which probably jacks up the price, but really, it's worth every penny.
We bid our goodbyes to Margaret back in Seville, spent the night and moved on to Malaga, another sunny part of the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain, and found enough neat places to eat and visit to almost regret not spending more time there - almost - but India was calling. We had bumped up our schedule by a few days in order to spend more time in India. We've spent a fair chunk of time in what has become a familiar place, Europe: time for something new, or at least as new as Europe was when we first got off the plane in Paris.
So perhaps it's appropriate that we're counting down the hours in a lounge inspired by aviation: some of the chairs are actually reclining airplane seats and the whole area has the feel of a 70's-era first class airport waiting lounge. We probably won't see anything like this for a while in India.
I'm not sure what kind of connectivity we'll have in India, so if a post doesn't show up in your email for a few weeks, it's probably either because there's no internet to take advantage of, or I've been felled by a case of Delhi belly!
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