Some photos from France

A cave in Minerve

I love French pastries

The Pompidou center fountains were turned off for the winter

England

Well, we have been having a lovely break relaxing with our family in England. I am finished my Christmas shopping and cannot wait until the big day. My sister went to a physio appointment the other day, she is allowed to take off the brace, move it around, and do a bit of walking with crutches. Generally good news. Today I went sledding with my cousin Adam, or "sledging" as it is called here. We went to two hills, the first was less crowded, but the second was twice as big and very steep and icy. At the the top of the second hill there was a garbage bin full of broken sleds, very eery. It reminded me of scenes in Indiana Jones movies where he steps into a cave or something and looks down and sees a skeleton. We have been getting a lot of snow here (a lot of snow for England anyways) and having a good time.

Paris and back to England

Well if you have read my parents' blog you will know that we had a hard time getting into Paris. I'm not going to talk too much about it, but basically there was a big snow storm and we were stuck in the worst traffic jam in the history of Greater Paris. Read my parents blog for details. Other than that our time in Paris was good. Some of the highlights were, visiting the Louvre, the Museum of Modern Art and the Christmas market on the Champs Elysees. With a few days to spare before our ferry to England we headed to Arras. If you have been following the blog you will know that the last time we were in Arras we did not have the best time. It was no different this time. We tried to find a computer to use but were told we had to come back with our Mastercard in 2 hours. So we went to the Christmas market and decided to go skating on the rink that they had set up. The skating was fun but when we were done and undoing our skates, Mhari forgot that her skates were undone, stood up and hurt her knee. At first it hurt a lot and then it slowly got a bit better she could put a bit of weight on it during the walk to the car but then it just slowly got worse. That night it was so bad that we took her to the hospital. The doctor said that she thought it was a fracture but she had to come back tomorrow to visit the specialist. He said that it was not a fracture but that she had popped her knee out instead and should imobolize it for three weeks. Then he looked at it further and said that in three weeks time she should get an MRI because of possible ligament damage. Luckily, we are in England now, safe and sound with our family.

Brive

Last night we stayed in a hostel in Brive. Today we were driving out of Brive, when I opened the Lonely Planet and read that Brive had a big market today. When we turned our heads we could see the market just over the river so we decided to go. We didn t buy much, just some pears, some apples and two pain aux raisins. Then we went to the center of town and my dad and I walked around a bit while my mom and sister bought slippers.

Toulouse

Before we left Carcassonne, we went to the skating rink downtown for an hour of skating. Despite being Canadians we were not the best skaters there. That afternoon, we drove to Toulouse, the fourth largest city in France. We went to the huge Christmas market that was full of people and had lots of tasty treats. I got a hot chocolate that was super thick, and a hot sandwhich with lots of onions. Later we went to the Capitole which had tons of paintings on the ceiling and lots of paintings by Henri Martin which were good too. There was a huge romanesque basilica that I wanted to see but it was getting late so we went back to the hotel. Today we drove through the Dordogne and stopped at a town called Rocamadour that is built into the side of a cliff. My parents said that when they went before I was born and there were tourists everywhere and you could barely move. We had the place to ourselves.(By the way, I have put a new recipe on the recipes page)

Barcelona to Carcassonne

Last day in Barcelona
Today we went to the science museum. They had all sorts of cool stuff and I am not even going to try to explain how they worked. The section on illusions was good and the section about Issaac Newtons laws was nice because I understood how it worked.

Goodbye Barcelona
On our way back up through France we were passing through Languedoc anyways so we figured we might as well stop and get back some of our photos (they are on the computer). We stopped at Queribus and Peyrepertuse and had a quick visit (read about Queribus and Peyrepertuse on my parents or my sisters blog. I had a blog about them all typed out but it is on the computer that the baddies got).

We stayed the night in Carcassonne and found out that they were having a big festival this weekend so we booked an extra two nights. Last night there was a big torch walk. We and about 1000 other people held big torches and walked through the city. Lots of people were dressed in Medival costumes and we got the best spot, right behind the percussion band playing samba music. It was tons of fun. Today we will see if we can go skating on the rink they have in the center of town. Of all the things I thought I might do in southern France, skating was not one of them. There was also a fire show last night. There was one guy who just walked around with a flaming torch and every once in a while he would fill his mouth with gas and spray it on the flame creating a big fire ball. I couldn t believe he was doing this, especially at 1.50€ a litre.

Gaudi and Picasso

Monday

Today we started the day off with a visit to the Canadian Consulate where we met more people who had been robbed. On our way to the metro stop we saw Casa Batllo, a famous building designed by Gaudi, a world famous architect and Barcelonian superstar.(click on the word "Gaudi" or the word "Casa Batllo" for more info). We took the metro to Gaudi most famous work, "La Sagrada Familia". The architecture is so advanced and so detailed that it has been under construction since 1882 and is only between half and three quarters of the way done. Every inch of the outside is covered in statues; from a distance it looks as if it is melting. The inside is not as detailed but it is vast and innovative in design. Fully worth the small fortune it cost to get in. In continuing with our Gaudi theme we went to Parc Guell. Designed to be a suburb community for the wealthy, the project was scrapped and turned into a public park. Very impressive and a nice place for a stroll.

Tuesday

We woke up to pouring rain and decided to stay indoors and visit some museums. We spent about 30 minutes looking for the Picasso Museum, so much for our staying indoors plan. They had hid it in a small alley. Despite all that it was only 9 euros for the entire family and well worth the money. When you think Picasso you think cubism, it turns out that he was much more than that and Cubism was only one of his phases. One of my favourite parts was a room full of variations of a single painting. For the rest of the day we wandered around, went to two different markets, ate Tapas for lunch and, following their 5-0 win against real Madrid, I bought an FC Barcelona cap.

Barcelona day 2

After that bad start to Barcelona and a bad nights sleep (the rooms were boiling hot), we were not very inclined to wake. But we had to eat and be out of the rooms by 10 am. We took the suburban train to Plaça de Catalunya. We found the Canadian consulate but it was Sunday and therefore closed. We headed to La Rambla, a world famous boulevard. It was crowded and we had heard that there were lots of pickpockets. Despite this it still retained a fun atmosphere. There were human statues all over the place and souvenir shops full of keychains, postcards and various FC Barcelona products. When the street ended at the port we took a little break, watched a boat try to park and soaked in the atmosphere a bit. We walked back up through Barri Gotic (the old quarter) and went back to the hostel to relax.