Happy Canada Day (tomorrow)!

Tomorrow is Canada Day and I think I will feel a bit lonely over here then as this is the first year I can remember not having fellow Canadians (or at least honourary Canadians) around to celebrate with. Instead, I will be working . . . maybe I will find something red to wear though!

So to all of you out celebrating back home - I wish you a lovely and safe day. Send me a message and let me know what you did!

Happy 143rd Birthday Canada!

Granada, Spain (pop 300,000)

I will now attempt to blog about Granada once more!

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GoogleMap of Granada, Spain

For me, there are two highlights that stick out in my mind from my visit to Granada. The first, the Alhambra – an amazing old fort/palace on top of a hill overlooking the city of Granada. The second, free tapas with every drink you order. Apparently, Granada is one of the few places in Spain that still does this. At first, we weren't sure if the food would be free or not – perhaps they were just bringing us food and if we ate it we would be charged? No! It turns out they just like to make sure you have something delicious to eat while you consume a soothing and refreshingly cold beer. I only have three words to say about this: I like Granada.

Alhambra outside walls

The Alhambra was first built in the 9^th century, when it was a fortress. Since then, several palaces, hotels, beautiful gardens and even bookshops have been added! The first area we visited was the rose garden. It was simply beautiful and we had some pretty spectacular views to the snow capped mountains in the Sierra Nevada as well.

Prettiest rose ever in the rose garden + buildings

Snow capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada

From there, off we went to explore the different buildings and palaces. There were so many different buildings to look at that we ended up spending an easy 4 hours checking out the Alhambra, and we didn't even make it to the other set of gardens at Generalife. It was definitely worth it though! The views over the city and the Sierra Nevada, as well as the detailing of the mosaics and tiles in one of the palaces were simply breathtaking.

Buildings inside the Alhambra

View through archway over Granada

Beautiful archways

Marco?

Polo! Well, Polo was the name of the wee car I hired this past weekend when my friend Brandon came to visit from Edinburgh. Finally, I was able to drive a manual car in the UK completely on my own. In Canada, driving a manual (aka standard) car is pretty uncommon. Most people drive automatics while in the UK pretty much everyone drives a manual car. Apparently, automatics are considered "old people's cars" - who knew???

I successfully drove around in my wee Polo for 3 whole days. Well, "success" is a relative term I suppose. It didn't start off so well - I couldn't figure out how to shift the car into reverse. The "R" for reverse was next to the "1" for Gear 1, but for some reason I couldn't get the gear shift to, um, shift to that position. Brandon didn't know either . . . luckily we had yet to leave the car park of the car hire place, so I went inside and did the dumb blond routine. We then discovered that the only way to get the gear shift into the reverse position was to press down on the gear shift first and then push it to the left. Oh, technology, how you mock me.

Upon finally leaving the car dealership, I managed to stall on the very first roundabout we came to (about 30 m from the dealership). It was the first of many stalls over our weekend together. Poor Brandon was a bit of a guinea pig for my driving abilities! I think he'd get back into a car with me, but maybe not for a while . . .

So, success wise . . . well, the good news is that no one was killed or injured in the driving of this vehicle.

A pretty picture

Rif Mountains, Chefchouen, Morocco.

This was the view we had from our restaurant's rooftop terrace one night in Morocco. It was a really lovely evening.

Last night, I wrote a long blog about Granada, but when I went to save it, it disappeared! So, due to more technical errors, you will need to content yourself with this wee photo for now!

Delayed due to Technical Difficulties

I know I promised that I would upload photos and blog about my trip this past weekend, but my plans have been curtailed by a major technical difficulty: power outage. When I lived in PEI, the power would frequently go out for a couple of hours or so, especially in the winter when storms caused havoc on the power lines. Since moving to the UK, I don't think I have experienced a single power outage. Well, okay, there has been the occasional power "blink" - you know what I mean: off for a few seconds and then back on again. Nothing major at all. However, this weekend the power went off at 10:30 am on Sunday and remained off for several hours. By 3pm I was getting curious (and a bit tired of reading my book!). This had never happened before. Was it just me???

Sure enough, it was just me! Apparently, I had somehow blown a fuse which resulted in a switch being flipped in the wrong direction and the power had gone out in my flat only. All I had to do was flip the switch back in the opposite direction and the miracle of electrical power was back in place. Too bad I had already wasted most of the day. The good news is that I got power back just in time to watch Ghana win it's match in the the World Cup. I haven't decided who I want to cheer for yet overall, but I have to say I was impressed by Germany's side last night too. Of course, here in the UK, all the adverts are linked to England's attempt to win this year! Even the recent number one song on the UK charts is all about shouting to support England at this year's World Cup! Yeah, they're pretty into their football (aka soccer) over here. You can watch a video of the recent number 1 here:

Back in the NI

Firstly, I think I owe a huge thank you to Volcanic Ash - it stayed away during my holidays and all my flights were blissfully ash-free. I also successfully avoided the British Airways strike and the rail strike in Spain. All in all, it could have been a pretty stressful trip with travel issues, but it wasn't! Success!

So, I am back in Northern Ireland . . . straight back into work, and already staying late again in order to prepare for tomorrow. I am hoping to have time to blog properly about my trip this weekend (highlights to include: Granada, Spain; Chefchouen, Morocco; and Malaga, Spain) but in the mean time here a few highlights:

• Morocco was my first time in Africa and I really enjoyed it!
• Both me and Karen were proposed to in Morocco (we said no) and we were told we were beautiful several times a day by random men on the street
• I enjoyed many sangrias while in Spain
• The weather was HOT - too hot in Morocco (37 degrees!) yuck!
• I spent a day at a spa in Chefchouen and had my first massage - I now understand why people go on spa breaks. When can I go on my next one?
  
• Karen got robbed at our hostel on our second last night in Malaga - they took all her money (BOO) . . . but, at least it was only money. Passports, credit cards, etc are all in tact
• Swimming in the Mediterranean again = HEAVEN
• When I arrived in Malaga, Spain to start my holiday, the customs guy forgot to stamp my passport. I lived in constant fear for the rest of the trip that this might come back to haunt me. Luckily, it didn't.
• I got a total of 7 new stamps in my passport. I heart passport stamps.
• We made a point of eating ice cream at least once a day. Yum. I introduced Karen to Magnum ice cream. So. Good.
  
• This trip made me realise how much I love to travel - I want to go backpacking again soon! Luckily, I am heading to both Iceland and Canada in August: Two more months!
  

Now, back to work! :-)