The Road to Oaxaca

We flew into Cancun on the 23rd and had to be in Oaxaca on the 31st of October to make it for Day of the Dead. The next 7 days became all about getting there. When we had originally booked this from Australia I had not fully appreciated just how big Mexico is. This means we didn't end up spending as much time in the Yucatan as we would have liked but we made it to Oaxaca with a day to spare!

Cancun

Cancun didn't really feel like we were in Mexico. It's an insane place. There's a 20 km strip of just hotels, fittingly named the Hotel Zone. We had two nights booked in Cancun to get over the flight and hopefully adjust a bit. The very first thing we did when we got there was sleep for like 12 hours. The next day we decided to check out the Hotel Zone. It's full of beaches which are pretty nice, and I'm sure it's great if you're staying in one of the fancy hotels but we weren't so Cancun was kinda gross. The Hotel Zone is full of people yelling at you trying to sell you stuff and creepy people dressed as the mask. It was also too windy to enjoy the beach (we were getting pelted with sand at one point). We were glad we only had one more night left.

My first taste of Mexican wild life on the walk out to the Hotel Zone. I am ashamed to admit he actually frightened me when I first saw him.

I got to go to a Bubba Gump restaurant! I had only semi recently discovered that these even existed so when the chance came up to go to one I had to. I've now got it out of my system and yes, they do play Forest Gump on repeat.

The beach at Cancun

Merida

From Cancun we decided to head to Merida just because it was easy to get (4.5 hour bus ride) to and it was in the right direction. We ended up spending 3 nights there. We found a nice hostel to chill out in and met some nice people. It's a little colonial town and it was starting to feel a bit more like we were in Mexico. We caught the end of Mayan Festival while we were there so there was endless dancing in the streets.

The first little Street Party we went to. I got to try queso de bola ice-cream which literally translates to cheese ball ice-cream. It was pretty much bits of Edam Cheese in some Vanilla ice-cream. Not quite what I was expecting but it was alright.

We went on a tour about an hour's drive outside of Merida to learn about how people used to make ropes and bags out of agave plants and ride on a trolley pulled by a mule.

Making the rope

The mule whom I am very grateful to for pulling me around in the hot sun

The Agave crop

The best photo we got of the Cenote that we got to have a dip in as part of the tour. 

More dancing in the street!

There were even Disney Princesses there dancing to the Spanish version of "Be Out Guest" (from Beauty and the Beast). After this they were dancing with Ben Ten and some kind of version of Spiderman.

Palenque

After three nights in Merida we had to cover some distance so we caught a 9 hour bus to Palenque and stayed there for a night.

While we were in Merida we found it hard to find any fresh food, as strange as that seems. We had even heard other people talking about how hard it was for them to find some fruit to eat. In Merida we found one weird supermarket that only sold packaged stuff and cheese and meat. So when we came across this supermarket in Palenque I was pretty excited to find tomatoes, but to top it off they sold Prickly Pears!

During our one day in Palenque we went to the ruins close by. It was a hot muggy day broken up by a few showers of rain. While the ruins aren't the best I've seen (I think I've ruined myself for appreciating ruins after going to Ankor Wat) it was an atmospheric setting amongst a jungle. The howler monkeys screaming in the distance adding a bit of thrill.

After the Ruins we hopped on a bus that would leave us in Oaxaca for Day of the Dead.

Before Mexico there was London

Before heading to Mexico we had three days in London. Last time Alex and I were in the UK we had one crazy full day in London doing all the major site seeing so this time we got to do a bit of a different trip. 

We saw a show. Definitely go see the Book of Mormon if you get a chance. 

We were like an hour away from getting to see Daniel Radcliffe!

I finally got to go the the Museum of Natural History! Yay!

We went on a walking tour of the West End and heard lots of great stories, like the back story of this pub. There was a rich man who owned a warehouse. He was happy and in love and about to be married. He was so excited that he prepared the big wedding feast the night before the wedding, beautifully laid out. Then tragedy struck and  his fiance died the night before the wedding. Dick was distraught and refused to see the point in it all. He declared that from now on he would refuse to bath or clean anything ever because it would just get dirty again. From this point on until the day he died he change his clothes once, out of necessity, because they had rotted off him. He left the great feast to warehouse animals and whenever he found one of them dead he would nail it to the wall. He became known as the dirtiest man in London (which was saying something in those days) and had the dirties warehouse in all of London. People would flock to see him for themselves. Eventually he died and his friends kept his warehouse the way it was. This pub is named after him, Dirty Dick.

We also saw heaps of street art on this tour, even the street artists themselves, promoting their work. (Or this might be some kind of Rap/Urban artist using it as a backdrop.... I don't really know!)

Last but not least we had the chance to catch up with friends, but I don't have any photos of this so you'll just have to believe me that it happened. 

OMG We're in Mexico!

That is all

The Netherlands - A Food Tour

The Netherlands isn't really known for its food.  When we told a few Dutch people that we'd booked onto a food tour they looked a bit confused and asked "What are you going to eat?" It turned out to be a lovely afternoon with an adorable guide.

FEBO! It's this crazy chain that's all over The Netherlands (65 stores) and this is the original store. Apparently they do the worst chips, but their croquettes are pretty good (we were surprised).  Early in the day their meatballs were selling out too fast and they didn't know how to keep enough hot to keep up with the demand so they came up with the fun system you can see behind me. They put the food in it's own warm little cubicle and you just put money in the wall and open the slot you want. You never have to speak to anyone!

Next on the stop was a yoghurt store. Maybe not traditionally Dutch but we were told Dutch people love yoghurt. It was pretty damn nice and a bit different since it wasn't frozen yoghurt.

It may not look tasty but it was. Surinamese Sandwich. 

Stroopwafle! :)

Herring - it was surprisingly good, very fresh. 

Of course there was cheese! Red cheese, blue cheese, green cheese

Second to cheese is Chips with Sauce. I always through the classic was chips with mayonnaise but we were told the original is mayonnaise, peanut sauce and fresh onion. Would recommend. 

Then there was dessert. Not really Dutch but it's made by Dutch people and it was amazing. A beautiful little cookie from a little shop that only sells this one type of cookie

To top it all off we got a traditional shot. It was like gin but it has an aftertaste of whiskey. Apparently you can't use your hands to drink it, you have to suck it up from the table. 

The Netherlands - A History Lesson

The Netherlands is a very interesting and beautiful place full of cheese. We spent a total of 8 nights there, 4 in Amsterdam and 4 in Rotterdam.

Some fun facts I learnt while I was there:

• The Dutch traded New Amsterdam (the British renamed it New York) for Suriname (a little country in South America that no one has really heard of). I'm not totally sure why they swapped, we were told it was because of a truce between the two countries. With hind sight it seems a pretty lame swap. 
• So Suriname became a Dutch Colony. When they "released" them (I am not confident that this is the right term) locals were given the option to get a Dutch passport and move to the Netherlands. A lot of them did and there's Surinamese shops everywhere. 
• Indonesia was also a Dutch Colony so you can get a lot of Indonesian food in The Netherlands
• The name of the country is The Netherlands, not Holland. Holland is made up of two provinces - North and South Holland. These provinces were very successful which lead Holland to be the well known name world wide.  
• There's a really nice, somewhat hidden court yard in Amsterdam surrounded by flats. During the war it was dangerous for woman to be living on their own while their men were away so the government put them in this housing for free. The only catch was that they had to do the washing for the whole Jordaan area. Above the entrance to the court yard it has an inscription "HUYS ZITTEN WEDUWEN HOFE" which translates to "HOUSE SITTING WIDOWS COURT". They are a literal people. The flats are now used as government subsidised housing and it was the nicest government subsidised housing I've seen.
• Rotterdam was bombed during the war, most of it was destroyed. They now have the most spread out and newest city centre in The Netherlands. One guy we briefly met said they were even a little bit thankful to Hitler because it meant they got the chance to build a modern city. They really did go a bit crazy with the modern buildings, Rotterdam is full of weird, "modern" buildings. The place has a totally different feel to the rest of the country. 
• Surprisingly the Dutch haven't always been so liberal, before Napoleon brought freedom of religion to The Netherlands there were a lot of secret churches throughout Amsterdam (we got to visit one on a tour)
• If The Netherlands stopped their water management after about 3 months 40% of the country would be under water

But it wasn't all history. We had heaps of fun exploring and cycling around in the rain.

After 3 days in the city we finally found the sign that we'd seen so many pictures of

The Smallest Flat in Amsterdam

Amazing new market place that's just opened up in Rotterdam. There's delicious food stalls through the middle of it and flats all around the outside. I would be huge if I lived there.

The inside of the new fancy market place.

On the ferry to Kinderdijk. I don't think this photo does justice to how wet I actually am. This was after riding about 13km in the rain. 

Kinderdijk - all the pain was worth it to get to see the all the windmills

Rotterdam Skyline 

So Dutch

Cube Houses in Rotterdam. People actually live these!

Delft - small place famous for pottery

Three Story Parking Facility for Bikes in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeese

The City of Light and Love

Paris. We spent 5 nights in Paris, staying in a couple's spare room in Montmartre. Before this trip all I had known about Paris was the fairy tale stuff that gets sold to you from every possible angle. The Reject Shop is plastered with images of the Eiffel Tower and it's all designed to make you feel a certain way. A wistful romantic way. Like all those paintings of Paris in the rain, in reality, the rain isn't romantic, especially when it happens all the time. It's just annoying.


For me Paris feels a lot different to those pillow cases in 15 year olds bedrooms. It's still amazing to see all those iconic images and it can't be denied that when the Eiffel Tower glistens at night it's beautiful. But there's also that metro ride seething with people that you had to take to get to the Eiffel Tower, there's the line you had to stand in to get up there, there's the really tiny expensive apartment you just came from with the crazy stairs and there's the ghetto that surrounds the city, where you can see economic divide either side of a street. But you can't put that on a pillow case.

The Eiffel Tower as you know it

The Eiffel Tower as I know it (I think this
is my favourite photo from Paris)

Hanging out with Lisa

My favourite thing about Paris was the art. You can visit some of the most famous pieces of art in the world for a decent price. We also discovered White Night. A night once a year where they put on a big arts type festival throughout the city that goes from 7pm to 7am, (I think we made it until about 2am). There's heaps of different stuff going on, street art, bands, performances, shows - all for free. Wandering through Paris at night discovering the next piece of art was probably the best thing we did there.

White Night Street Art

My second favourtie thing was the bike tour of "Hidden Paris". We learnt heaps about the history of the city (which I've already forgotten - but I know it was interesting), we got to see lots of somewhat famous street artist's work, like Invader, and we got to ride cute bikes that matched my hair.

Paris is also famous for its food and this also didn't quite live up to my expectations. I was picturing very grand meals but French food seems to actually be pretty plain. Onion soup, steak with fries, baguettes, croque monsieurs. Theses are the things we ate, and while very French, maybe not super exciting. One night I did end up trying snails though - they were ok, had a very earthy taste. It maybe didn't help that both of us ended up getting sick in Paris. You also can't afford to dine in nice Parisian restaurants when you're backpacking for a year and the price of that meal just took a week off your holiday in South America.







The first time you go to Paris you obviously have to participate in all the cliches and I was actually excited to put our "love lock" (Shout out to Darco for the awesome present!) on the famous bridge. Turns out there's campaigns to stop people doing this because it's destroying the bridge. They are slowly replacing all the lock covered wire panels on the bridge with perspex. Obviously we still put our lock on... because you have to, but we have no idea how long it's going to be there or where it's going to end up. Maybe not the best symbol of eternal love, good thing we were given two.

The Broken Bridge

When we initially got into Paris I was worried that 5 days wouldn't be enough but I think I was happy to leave by the end. It really is a massive city and that can be quite tiring. Although I'm sure if you can afford to stay in a nice hotel, take taxi's everywhere and splash some cash about the city you'd be seeing a completely different place. I hope that next time I'll be able to see some country side France.

Disclaimer: It may look like this post contains lots of complaining, but I did enjoy myself!

Barcelona!

We spent a full on 48 hours in Barcelona. It's the capital of Catalonia and they are currently fighting for their independence from Spain. This mean that all the locals were interested in Alex being Scottish, as they were all watching the Scottish vote keenly, and offered their condolences. At one point we found ourselves in the middle of an Independence rally in the pouring rain surrounded by a chant we couldn't understand.

Throughout the city there are people proudly hanging either Catalan Flags (the one in the middle) or Catalan Independence Flags (the ones either side)

Pardon the water blur - it was hammering down.

Spain had awesome food. As mentioned previously, I am in love with Tapas. We found a crazy market full of amazing meats (every part of the animal), fruits, chocolates, mushrooms and shakes. I finally had an empanada! (The gross thing I had in Mallorca doesn't count)

This was some real fancy ham that we tried upon recommendation. This pig was mostly just fed acorns. It's melt in your mouth ham. 

The architecture in Barcelona is amazing. It's full of beautiful apartments and Gaudi's creations, who was briefly mentioned in Mallorca. Antoni Gaudi is a famous Spanish architect who has designed some incredible buildings, most notably La Sagrada Familia (AKA Gaudi's Cathedral). La Sagrada Familia has been under construction since 1882 and I think they are planning to have it finished by 2030. The place is insane. You can tell what was first constructed on the cathedral due to the huge differences in colour. The thought and detail that have gone into it are amazing, the photos really don't capture it. I think the craziest thing is that it's already so huge and the tallest tower is still to be built. I hope that I'll be able to come visit it again when it's complete.

Just a typical street

This is one of Gaudi's other creations - Casa Batllo. I think the balconies are supposed to represent skulls and some of the pillars are supposed to represent bones. The hostel we stayed in was just up the street from here. 

La Sagrada Familia

Beautiful stained glass inside

Inside - these columns represent trees

We were told the other must see cathedral in Barcelona is the Gothic Cathedral. We visited it the same day we saw La Sagrada Familia which dwarfed it a bit in comparison, but it's impressive in it's own right. There's a lovely courtyard to one side of the church where 13 white geese live, something to do with a local legend.  

Barcelona also had some interesting night life to offer. We watched a Barcelona vs Paris soccer (football) match in a small bar filled with some very passionate locals nibbling at tapas as they watched. It was a pretty different vibe from watching a match back home (UK or Oz)!

Note the bar is named after La Masia.

I had absinthe in what we were told is the oldest bar in Barcelona (it really looks it). Apparently Hemingway would often hang out here drinking absinthe (that is the bar's specialty).  It's called Marsella if you ever want to give it a try. I'd say it's worth one drink in there, but only one. It looked to be mostly tourists in there on our visit.

I was a little bit excited when I was told there was a 90s Grunge bar called Nevermind in the city. Obviously we had to check it out. Good Music. Free Popcorn. Indoor Skate Ramp.

Barcelona might just be the coolest city I've been to. It has a really nice vibe and I very much hope to visit it again, fingers crossed I won't be staying in a hostel.