One degree of separation between me and Rick Steves

                                           
                                    View of Sevilla from the Giralda Tower

Let's get one thing straight.  I am not obsessed with the Steve Jobs of travel (and boy do they look alike - both geeks!).  I do not check the PBS television schedule to find out when "Travel with Rick Steves" will be on.  If I ever watch it, I have stumbled upon it accidentally.  I realize that this is the second time I have mentioned him on this blog so it might appear differently.

I actually did want to bring his guidebook to Spain with me on this trip but Brad nixed it in the packing process (remember I mentioned on the first blog post that he was packing like Rick Steves so what did that mean - don't bring any guidebooks!  Hah - Rick Steves is shooting himself in the foot without knowing it!).

Anyway - as a compromise I tore out the section on Sevilla and Andulsia from his guidebook and stashed the pages  in some other book I brought along (this has proven to be exceedingly inconvenient and we have found stray pages in the oddest of places).  I have managed to actually use his guide and followed some of his advice which mainly goes like this:

Brad:  We should go on a boat tour.
Me:  Nah, Rick says it's dull.

OR

Brad:  Isn't the royal palace closed on Sundays?
Me:  No, Rick says it's open seven days a week.

So when I found one of his pages endorsing a certain Concepcion who gives great tours here in Sevilla, I wanted in.  I actually recognized a picture of her that he had in his book from one of his episodes on Sevilla.  I remember them strolling along the avenues, chatting away while Rick Steves tried to appear casual while asking his scripted questions.  

I called Concepcion and she told me that the tour was full for Saturday.  A rare event apparently.  But she told us to show up in case there were cancellations.  So show up I did with Lucas.  There were other people there who showed up too but I knew I was first on the list.  In the end, she took us all and it was a very pleasant two hour tour which covered Sevilla through the ages and modern Sevillan life.  Her pacing was perfect and in no way did it feel like information overload.  Lucas even gave her the thumbs up.  

                   Concepcion using a small microphone in the center.

Turns out there were lots of Rick Steves fans on the tour and you could tell that they were a bit star struck.  Not me though!

         
                          Lucas pretending not to be interested.  
                      Concepcion is somewhere on the left.

                              Lucas in front of a Moorish fountain that used
              to be part of a Mosque as explained by Concepcion.

      Concepcion on the right leading the group down a narrow alley.

Yeah so the moral is this story is I basically met Rick Steves.  I did.  Really.  How?  There was just one degree of separation between us and Concepcion was it.  So yeah.  I'm not obsessed at all with Rick Steves. You guys have it all wrong.  Completely wrong.  :)

Adios!
Nancy

Hitting Spain's Sweet Spot

                                             Isn't Brad muy guapo in his hat??

Honestly, when we landed in Sevilla, we exited the plane like naked mole rats, squinting after living for months and months under heavy cool gray skies (honestly the weather in London was just like the weather in Portland in June).  

We had had an uneventful flight to Sevilla from Gatwick despite all of Brad's premonitions.  He had been preparing for his encounter with Ryan Air (the UK's budget airline) for months - ready to spar if they were going to charge us for overweight bags or any other incidental fine.  He had been on several forums during our research and picked up some tips along the way so he had that "bring it on" attitude all the way.  Except nothing happened.  They weighed our bags, put on the tags, and off we went.  We even got the red carpet service at the gate since we had paid extra for assigned seats (another tip Brad had picked up) -- we had our waiting area with the few other assigned seat passengers while the rest of the crowd elbowed their way to the front of the line.  When it was time to board, the flight attendant scolded the crowd and told them no one would be boarding if everyone did not step back.  One passenger tried to wrangle the crowd into place but it took a good fifteen minutes for the crowd to get into place (note to Ryan Air - follow Southwest Airline's model of seating passengers without assigned seats - crowds need to be reassured that someone is in charge and everything is going to be okay).  Anyway - we are all grateful hat Brad had done his homework.  It made the trip a lot less stressful! Plus we did meet two Americans who were charged $150 because their bags were five pounds overweight so the myths are true!

It was around 8 pm when we landed and about 95 degrees.  It was lovely and we were all overcome with this feeling that our vacation had just begun.  Sure - London was great but let's face it - it was work navigating open and closing times, tubes, crowds, and everyone's needs.  It especially felt like vacation when we got to the roof of our apartment and it had this:

Elliot's first words out of his mouth was "I love Spain!" (translation: why have we been huffing around cloudy and cool London looking at gravestones?)

(He's right in that we did spend an hour in Highgate Graveyard hunting down the gravestones of various famous people including ...)

(... Karl Marx.  In all seriousness, this graveyard merits a visit so put it on your list but Elliot was all ......)

(.... are you kidding Mom and Dad??  You have been holding out on me ... I could have been on this rooftop with our very own pool all along!!).  Our apartment is pretty swanky too (needless to say, we have been very happy so far with our acommodations through Air B and B!)

So that night, we meandered towards town and found a restaurant.  We were all giddy to be there and to finally be in a culture where food is front and center (we basically starved in London).

We finished dinner around 11 pm - kind of early for Sevilla!  We found a great playground crowded with kids in a square buzzing with people and let the kids play until 12 am.  I think we got to bed around 1.  So yeah, we were pretty much living like Sevillans.

But then, of course, we woke around 11 and got out of house around 12.  We made our way towards the center of town and hit the cathedral with the intention of making it back to our apartment for siesta around 2.  We overshot that goal and made it back around 5 - at the peak of the intense heat and about the time when siesta is wrapping up.  So yeah, we were pretty much living like tourists.

Luckily we have more days ahead of us to hit Spain's sweet spot and find that balance between living like Spainards and living like tourists.  Does it exist?  
(did I mention we are in love with Sevilla?)

Adios!
Nancy

P.S.

Lucas and crew found a Bansky ...(while I was laughing my head off at the Book of Mormon)

                                              It's called "Shop til you drop"

Still no bagels though!

XO
Nancy

Fancy meeting you here

What do you know, our dear friends and neighbors, the Willeys, were in London during the same time.  Patrick, their son, is Lucas's brother from another mother so they were tickled to have this time together.  Little tricksters though.  They met a group of school kids from Wales near the London Eye and told them that they were from Mexico and that Lucas's name was Pablo and that he didn't speak a word of English.  Then Elliot came along and they told them that he had a lot of allergies and he could only eat bread and cheese.  This made Elliot mad and he may have blown their cover.

We had a great time with them at the Harry Potter Studios (more on that down the line) and exploring a few sites.  They even huffed it out to our flat in Northern London for an afternoon lunch (on a day when the Northern Line Tube was down for repair) so three cheers for the Willey's!  We love you!

On a boat tour in front of the Tower Bridge

Heater, me Hayley, and Patrick

(if we look cold it is because we were)

                                        Hayley on the train to Harry Potter
                                      (picture creds Nadia)

                                          At our flat in London -  with John

                                           At our flat with Hayley and Patrick

XO
Nancy

Handstands Around the World

                                             National Museum Handstand

                                    Princess Diana Playground Handstand

Queen's Guard Handstand

                                              Buckingham Palace Handstand

Introducing a new blog series: One Word Wednesdays

Yep.  Time to strip down the tourist experience into one word.
Here goes:

The Queen's Guards:  Fuzzy

                      The Londoners on the Tube During Rush Hour:  Polite

                          The Book of Mormon:  Hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        The traffic in London:  Nightmare

                                                       Taxi Rides:  Relaxing?

                                                      The Thames:  Muddy

                                                             The Mummies:  Dead

                        Renting one of the London Street Bikes:  Sketchy

                                                         Lawn Bowling:  Dull

                                                            Tea Time:  Lovely

                                       The view from our flat:  Charming

                                                              The Kids:  Bored :)

XO
Nancy

In Search of Bagels and Banksy

I love a good mission when traveling.  And I don't mean a mission to reach a tourist destination.  That is more of, well, a destination.  I remember our friends Kecia, Tyler, and Henry going on a mission in France to find this specialty store that sold salted caramels.  If I remember correctly, it was an out of the way place that turned out to be closed.  Somehow, miraculously, the store owner was nearby and able to open her store for them.  Do I have this right Kecia?

Anyway. Today our mission began on our comfortable couch in our homey flat.  It was about 12:30 pm and the kids had only woken up an hour before.  Brad was long gone, wondering the aisles of Egyptian mummies in the British Museum.  I told the kids to get their shoes on - we were going to find bagels in the East End of London.  I kept it loose.  I had read in a guide book the night before that good bagels could be found somewhere along Brick Lane - where Jewish immigrants settled at one point in the early twentieth century.  My kids are suckers for a good bagel and we are all still mourning the loss of Kettleman's Bagels down the street from our house in Portland - the closest thing to a NY bagel.

So off we went.  An 8 minute walk to the Tube station.  Black line headed south to Bank station.  Transfer at Bank to the red line and onto the Mile End stop.  Lots of stairs and escalators in between.  We finally emerged at the Mile End stop only to discover we had overshot Brick Lane by a lot.

So we hopped on a bus.  We asked the driver to alert us when to get off for Brick Lane.  At this point, we were deep in the heart of East London.  Far from the throngs of tourists that crowd the top 10 sites.  Women in burkas.  Men headed into mosques. Indian eateries.  Women in long flowing skirts pushing prams.  It was a place where people had come on their own mission. A much, much bigger one.  

Finally the bus driver gave us the signal and we got off and headed towards Brick Lane.  Lucas was skeptical.  Brick Lane was lined with curry shops and restaurants.  "I don't see any bagels Mom" Lucas repeated on and off.  We were now easily an hour into our journey.  Curry house after curry house, Brick Lane meandered on and on.  We called Brad on the cell and he went on his own journey to reach us. The vibe on Brick Lane started to shift after several blocks.  Suddenly it felt like we were in Portland.  Art galleries.  Funky shops.  It was a mini Portlandia but grittier.  And there it was.  A food cart advertising bagels.  We felt right at home - they were just like the food carts that crowd every nook and cranny of Portland. 

So mission accomplished?  Well sort of. The bagels were served with burgers in between and a special sauce. As Lucas put it, the food cart was hardly a Kosher Deli selling bagels made from the same recipe brought over from the old country.  The burger bagels were tasty but we continued to keep an eye out for the real thing.

At this point, Brad joined us with a new mission.  We had innocently stumbled upon Bansky's stomping ground so off we went to find his graffiti art (FYI - Bansky was a famous street artist here in London in the early 2000's - a lot of his work has been painted over).  We picked up a guide book, hoping to follow a map that would lead us to his work.  Lucas was thrilled as he has been a long time fan.  We saw this car he once painted on but has been defaced and enclosed in glass.  I don't think Banksy would be very happy about this:

We saw many others by various street artists.  Each time we discovered a street plastered with art it made us hungry for more.

And more.

And more.

And more.

Hah Hah.  We even came across the London headquarters of Weiden and Kennedy (advertising firm).  Shoutz out to the Weiden folk reading this blog!

It was kind of addicting. 

Lucas became intent on finding a real Bansky but with each turn of the page and corner, we realized they had been covered up long ago.

But the mission along the way was pure delight.

Energizing and inspiring.

We sort of fell in love with this part of London.

Especially when stopped for tea here and gobbled up several slices of cake.

We have one more day in London.  And its okay if we don't find a real bagel or Bansky!  There is so so much to savor along the way.

xo
Nancy

The Modern Tate Museum ... through the bleary eyes of Nadia and Elliot

It seemed like a great idea.  Stroll down to the Tate from the overcrowded London Eye and take in a little Giacometti, Pollack, and DeChirico.  In fact, this has been on my must see list for ages. Plus it is free!  But the stroll was more of a haul and by the time we made it inside, Nadia was gimping along and Elliot was happily asleep in the stroller.  We thought we could easily put Nadia into the stroller and transfer Elliot into her lap.  Kind of like the old days.  But they both have grown and Elliot woke up in a jet lag haze.  I handed them my I-phone and told them to take pictures of their favorite pictures.  This is the result: