La casa de paja y livin' la viva loca

We left Sri Lanka over two weeks ago and have subsequently been livin' la viva loca in Spain. We arrived exhausted after 48 hours in transit- some very bad planning on our part- but spent our first 2 days in the country in style, staying with the rich family Iz was nannying for in a very fancy suburb of the northern city of Bilbao. We ate some churros (deep fried stcks of dough with sugar...the healthiest of snacks) with beer in the park, went for a spin in the family boat and ate paella and pastries.
Then it was time to leave and head for the country, where we would spend our next two weeks helping 2 hippies build a house out of straw.

The day we arrived happened to be the day of the town fiesta, which meant everybody in town had the day off and went to the park for a long lunch of shrimp, paella and wine. And bread, of course (I defy anybody to come to Spain and not put on weight from the sheer amount of bread that is eaten, at every meal). It was a little overwhelming as we didn't speak Spanish and not a lot of English was spoken at the rowdy luncheon table- and we had just met at least 15 people who's names we had to remember. But it was a very Spanish introduction to the village...at least until a horrible DJ came on and started playing Gangnam Style.

After this first day of eating, playing squash and more eating, we got down to the real business of building a "casa de paja"...(house of straw). We, with the other volunteers comprising a few local Spaniards, an American who lived in Spain (and was fluent in Spanish so became our translator for the time he was there), a very Parisian Frenchman and an Italian vegetarian, were helping two lovely people finish their house built of straw, mud and a concrete mix which we are on intimate terms with now after spending two weeks smearing it on the walls trying to make them flat. And that was basically our whole job. So if you ever neeed anything smoothed into flatness, you know who to call. We are experts. It was very interesting though and gave Will another opportunity to refine his surfing skills- the guy we were working for was a very keen surfer and took every opportunity to head to the beach. I think he also ran a surf shop- it was a little hard to have complex conversations, everyone except us being fluent in Spanish and varying degrees of competent in English. Even though the waters of the Basque Country were freezing- I know, I swam in them without a wetsuit- the boys went out whenever they had a chance.

It was a lovely part of Spain to begin our journey in. A lot cooler than the rest of the country- I now know, as I am writing this from the stewpot that is Madrid at this time of year-, beautifully green and hilly, with a lot of lovely walks for us to do. And lots of blackberries to pick and munch on- they don't get sprayed here, much to our delight.

We left Basque Country- I think it is actually as separate as you can get from the rest of Spain without leaving the country; they have their own police force and all- two days ago and headed south to Madrid. It was a little sad saying goodbye to the lovely people we had spent 2 weeks getting to know and the house we were on such intimate terms with- the outside walls at least- and the wonderful coolth of northern Spain but we only have 3 months; the journey must go on.

So, as I said, we are now in Madrid. With my sister, on the last leg of her journey before she returns to Australia and her creature comforts and on nearly the last leg of what we have planned so far. As in, we have no idea what we are going to do when we have to leave Spain. It's very different from the down to earth vibe of where we were staying before. Everybody speaks English- in Artzentales (where we wwoofed) everyone spoke Spanish and some people even conversed in Basque, which is a whole other language we have no hope of comprehending-, everybody is well dressed and the city is host to a whole troupe of tourists. In comparison to the village we were just staying in where I think we were the only native English speakers. It did great things for our Spanish though.

Yesterday Will and I left Iz to her shopping and went to look at some really old paintings at the Museo Del Prado, which is, apparently, a must for all culture vultures in Madrid. Madrid is full of culture...chockers. We saw a lot of paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries, when people loved to paint pictures of Jesus it seems. Also there were a lot of paintings inspired by the mythological writings of the Roman poet Ovid, which we preferred.

Today we all went to the Caixa Forum, the centre of cinema and moving image in Madrid, and had a look at an exhibition celebrating the inspiration and genius of Georges Melies, an early master of the fantasy genre and cinematic tricks. We learnt about his inpsiration- some of which was phantasmorphia (I think), the precursor to the modern horror film and all about spooky drawings and scary noises. It was very cool, all the early "special effects" and tricks that were used to confound and amaze audiences. Actually far more amazing than the special effects we have today becauuse back then- in the late 19th century- it was all done by slight of hand and physical tricks. None of this computer business of today. Our introduction to Georges Melies was the film Hugo, so watch that for more in depth information of this cinematographer who started his creative life as a magician and later used these skills to amaze audiences with his films.

So we are being so totally cultured and educated. Totes. We still haven't managed to crack the 'legendary' night life of Madrid though- we all get a bit tired by 1am which is when everybody is just starting to head out. But it is our last night here tonight so we are going to give it our best shot. Wish us luck...

sigh...gone.

From the very punny title of this post you would be right in guessing we decided to come straight to Saigon and spend our last week in the city.

Although we did have an extra day in Can Tho and spent it riding around the town on bicycles, having a little look around. And as a welcome to the south we found a little cafe in a little corner of Can Tho where the proprietors were extremely friendly and eager for us to enjoy our coffees and even brought us some odd peanut/chilli/salt mix to go with our strawberries. We found real Vietnamese people! After being in Asia for 2 months that is way more exciting than it sounds on paper.

Anyway, Saigon.

We thought we would get really bored being here for 8 days but actually the time has flown by....and we leave tomorrow!

On our first day we dove straight into war history with visits to the Reunification Palace (the building whose gates were crashed through by North Vietnamese tanks when the South surrendered on April 30th 1975) and had a look around the 70's decor that hasn't changed since that historical day. We then visited the War Remnants Museum, which holds a horrifying photographical account of the war (from the side of the North Vietnamese, so a little biased against the Americans). That was depressing.

The control rooms of the 1970's.

The next day we concluded the war tourism aspect of the city with a trip to Cu Chi tunnels, one part of the VietCong tunnel system that stretched on for more than 200km (when you remember this was dug completely by hand and mostly at night, it becomes more incredible). We looked at some booby traps and listened to the stories of a veteran from the South. Will fired an AK-47 and crawled through the claustrophobic tunnel for 120m (I opted to stay above ground because I definitely would have had some sort of major freak out being in a tiny, cramped, boiling hot nightmare...I'm a wuss).

I can't really remember exactly what else we did this week....but I know we had a look at the Fine Arts Museum, which was lovely even though we were hungover. We did a lot of sitting by the river and sitting in cafes. We elevatored to the top of a large new financial building to gaze at Saigon from the Sky Deck.

We were ripped off at the tourist market, had a picnic in the park and met some young Vietnamese students who were eager to practice English. We were told by a policeman that we shouldn't sit underneath a tree in the park in case a branch fell down and hit us. After which we had to cross the road by wading straight into two busy lanes of traffic speeding in both directions. Ahhh, Asia.

We ate a lot of delicious soup. We drank a lot of cheap beer. We did some shopping and a lot of walking. We visited the zoo and we went to the movies- go see Tower Heist, it's hilarious. Like this photo...this is what happens when you are constantly being harrassed by people selling things you reall don't want to buy.

Yesterday we decided to have a break from the pace of the city so we caught a bus out to the closest beach (2 hours away). It was nice though, to have a swim and escape the heat and the noise of Saigon- Will and I were walking down a road the other day talking, and we were halfway through a conversation before we realised we were both yelling in order to be heard above the noise of constant traffic. We caught a boat back to Saigon after a long walk along the ocean in and being quickly transported to Rio de Janiero via the giant Jesus atop the small coastal mountain in Vung Tau.

And that about brings us to now....our last minute shopping is finished, we have visited all we want to visit and we are having a bit of a relax before going back to work next week. Ugh.

This is the end of our Turkish/Asia story of 2011, but I think to cap things off nicely I will write one more post explaining our favourite trip in jokes, so when we come home and crack up over bizarro things, you won't think we are idiots.