Barcelona- night 1 and day 2

15/05/2013
So I arrived Barcelona Wednesday night after a stress free flight. I arrived into El prat airport which was luxury in comparison to Paris Beauvais airport. I was later told that this was the old airport and the new one much nicer…can’t begin to imagine.
I was surprised that there was no immigration upon arrival. It turns out this is the case when traveling through the Schengen member areas, kind of like how you have the common border between Ireland and the UK.
My friend Alejandro picked me up from the airport and we drove through Barcelona city centre stopping to get tapas on the way, most memorable named ‘bikini’ in Spanish of course.We didn’t get to Igualada, a little town 45 mins outside Barcelona where Alejandro lived until 01:30am. I was knackered but ‘no room for lazy man’ as Fela would say so was up at 8am the next day trying to beat the traffic as we ran late for the discover walks Gaudi tour. I was really upset as we arrived at 10:40 instead of 10:30 thinking ‘there goes my intro to the city’, but as Gods favour will have it, I spotted Julia in the pink vest a couple yards down and made eye contact with her apologising for being late. There was an American couple who came after me so luckily I didn’t have to carry last.

 

We saw cassa batille and the two other buildings to the left of it, one of which is being used as an office today. Cassa batille now a tourist attraction was my favourite of the 3 even though it looks the most abnormal. Maybe it’s the doctor in me but I liked the symbolism of the bones and the half skulls-orbits and mandibles. It turns out Gaudi suffered from rheumatism hence wanting to depict his illness through his architecture. He designed the interiors as well and used a bit of color mostly through mosaics.
The buildings are named after the wealthy people who owned them and for most it was all about competition and trying to show off.

 

We then walked to playa de catalunya where we learnt more about the Catalan people and culture. The street on one end leads to the mountains and on the other the beach- pretty cool huh. The Catalan people are a very proud people who have their own language which is derived directly from Latin just as French and Spanish are. It is not an offshoot from Spanish and weirdly enough has some very French sounding words. Me thinks it easier to understand catalan than Spanish.

We then headed to le pradrera also know as Casa Mila, which was one of the largest houses Gaudi designed. As he was a very religious man he wanted to put a statue of Mary at the very top but the owners were not having it. He usually overspent on his budget and took more time than required when doing his work but on this occasion the owner refused to pay him for going over budget not caring that he was Gaudi and in the end took him to court where ironically Gaudi won the case and the full sum of the money. He however felt guilty and decided to give all the money to the church.La Pradrera

 

Next stop sagrada familia.

Simply breath taking. This was Gaudi’s last master peice which he was unable to finish before passing away. He planned to build a massive church in the centre of the city which could be seen from all corners of the city. He also wanted the church to be surrounded by parks on each side. Unfortunately, today only two parks exist to the north and south as residential homes have consumed the eastern and western scapes.
Very much like notre dame, the building depicts the story of Jesus the front displaying the nativity scene which he completed. At the back is the passion which was completed by another architect following Gaudi’s death. The towers at the back are a replica of Gaudi’s work however, the sculpted characters were unique to the new architects style.
I was curious as to how they were planning on finishing the building especially after reading that Gaudi usually designed from his mind and made small models before scaling them to the real thing. It turned out Gaudi did infact have a drawn out plan for this building however, his sketches were consumed in a fire and so no original plans exist. As he has been very well studied, the architects of today are able to extrapolate from his previous works in order to bring the building to completion which is billed for 2026- after almost two centuries of construction. I found out that the completion was actually being funded by tourists, grants and supposedly the church. Ironically, the city council was not involved in the contributions. As if that wasn’t bad enough, to the horror of most Catalonians, a high speed underground metro is being built under the cathedral. This is  following the collapse of another building post underground metro construction, and understandably so there are concerns that the no 1 tourist attraction of the city may not be able to withhold the stress… I guess time will tell.
Now about how Gaudi died *SPOILER ALERT* and I didn’t know this- he was run over by a Tram on his way to church and because of his piety and simple living, he was dressed in poor clothes and so wasn’t identified until a couple days later. Quite a horrible ending for such a great craftsman.

I later made my way to Picasso museum. Although he spent most of his adult life in France, he was born in Spain and as such, the museum had many of his earlier works as well a good number of pieces from the blue period. He was such an excellent artist, with an exquisite mastery of brush strokes.  my favourite being his oil paintings on canvas.

 

After Picasso, browsed through a couple shops and wasn’t really enjoying the city until Alejandro showed up from his conference and we walked la gracia, stopping at the cathedral and the bouqueira market which was all fun especially as the sun was out.

 

 

We then went to the port where they had the original sailing ship nou something (1950) on display. We walked to the end of the harbour and had a quick bite- Argentinian meat pie scrumptious, before meeting up with his girlfriend and eventually going to grab some tapas since the magic fountain was closed for a car show.

Paris- Day 3

So it turns out I went to bed without setting my alarm to 7:30am as such I was in for a rude ‘awakening’ when I eventually woke up at 8:30. At least I finally came to a conclusion on where to have a good French breakfast after what seemed like an aha moment when I looked at the metro map.

Now I had woken at 5:30 am both out of anxiety and to use the loo and my researching  on google led me to 2 favorites for breakfast- Eric Kayser and Laduree . I chose Eric Kayser.

I realised that Commerce was on my way to Blanche and so made the brave decision to stop at the Eric Kayser boulangerie there (which lies right in front of the metro exit). I grabbed a croissant and pain au raisins knowing fully well that it would mean having to jump the clock to arrive Blanche on time. But it was soo worth every second of it- the croissant was so soft and crumbled in your mouth whilst the pain au raisin was ohlala – you could literally taste the soft custard as it melted with the bread and in your mouth.

Time of arrival- 10:50 am (am I a don or what?…lol)

Saw the moulin rouge right in front of the station, and was happy I hadn’t dragged myself over the night before.

Olivier our tour guide arrived after 5 mins and by 11 we were good to go the grp of 19 with a Brazilian guy from Rio who had a quasi american accent joining us a few mins later. Ok tmi…lol

We made a few stops the first being in front of a restaurant, cafe des 2 moulins where the movie, Amelie was shot.

Apparently the staff there don’t like when non-Montmartre people come in and can be quite rude (kilo ko mi).

He then showed us the few organic stores highlighting that the locals tend to be very boubou-bourjour and bohemian at the same time. U know the mind of ppl who are rich but don’t show it and like to wear save the planet t-shirts, eat organic food and act all artsy. We then went on a quest to find a real boubou as well as distinguish the homes between the real Arists and the boubou people the simarities being the front if the Houses covered in leaves and the difference being the north facing windows, somewhat messy apartments and paintings on the walls in the houses of the real artists.

We then stopped to see picassos former studio which had been burnt down and replaced with a facade as well as the actual former house of a singer called Dalida- a half Egyptian and half Italian lady who grew up in France and committed suicide at age 25 after 3 of her lovers had died young. Her former residence, although clocking 1million euros is fairly cheap for the area, the reason being the superstition of death that surrounds the house’s history.

Besides Dalida, there were a bunch of other artists/musicians who lived in the area. Unfortunately, a lot of them had drug problems and some wise doctor decided to cash in on the situation and build a psychiatric hospital which eventually closed up after all the patients died.

We visited a few more sites but don’t want to bore you with the details or put discover walks out of business. What I’d say however was that the tour ended at  the spectacular basilica de sacre cour which is quite the fusion of architecture from different time periods.

Now Olivier was a very good tour guide but sometimes you had to wonder if he had an excess of oxygen or total lung capacity  as he spoke in 20 sentences at a time sans break as if he had memorised the whole tour. But that being said I still feel he was original; I totally enjoyed the tour and would recommend it/him.

I was really famished at the end of the tour and so went back to the Latin Qaurter where I had some lunch, blogged and eventually caught the bus back to the airport for part 2 of the tour.

Paris- Day 2

Started today with some petit dejuneur at a local boulangerie. Had a weird encounter with the lady who probably wasn’t so happy I asked if she spoke English. I had started to head towards the table I wanted before paying when I looked back and saw a bewildered look on her face. I don’t know if she thought if I was making a runner but I explained that I thought she was bringing the tray outside. After eating, praying and returning the tray she became nicer all of a sudden and said a few words in French, egging me on to speak/learn the said French words. Point taken 🙂

I then headed to L’Opera to change dress sizes of a gorgeous dress I had gotten at pro mod the day before, determined to make it to the walking tour on time even though I knew deep down that I was taking the piss.

As luck would have it, I arrived bang on time but didn’t see anyone there, so walked around the area and by the time I returned the tour had started. As I didn’t want to attract any negative attention, I decided to explore the nearby latin quarter and return for the later timed tour. My explorations of the latin quarter took me through Place St. Michael, Sorbonne university and St Chapelle (below respectively), in addition to Luxembourg gardens and the pantheon, to mention a few.

As I was running late again (oh Lord help me), I decided to take a taxi and as usual tried to converse in French to the taxi driver who later found me out to be an English speaker when he handed me less change than I expected (you cannot take the ijebu out of the girl). He explained that there was a minimum fare , so I guess that explained that.

Luckily, I was the first to show up for the Notredame tour and had a bit of chit-chat with the tour guide (timothy from discover walks) who was incredibly lovely.  It seriously felt like you were going on a tour with your friend and would totally recommend him. What impressed me most about the Notre dame cathedral was the teaching of the gospel through artistic sculpting. I thought it was real genius as I had never quite imagined the gospel preached in such a non-traditional way.  We made a stop at the house where Heloise and Abelard met and fell in love before walking through the ‘love locks’ bridge (to do list…lol) and the bouquinistes.

After the tour I stopped at Hotel Dieu and my passion for medicine was reborn as I walked through the same halls as medical greats such as Dieulafoy, Trosseau, Dupuytren and Gilbert. I was literally smiling like a child in a candy store.

As I had some spare time, before my evening cruise, I did what I do best…shopping…well window shopping on this occasion. I headed to Printemps (the french version of Harrods) and checked the high street stores around L’Opera. Of the french high street stores, naf naf and pro mod were my favorite.

Once it was 8pm, I went to café du point neuf where I had dinner before heading for the sienne  river cruise at dawn. It was such a beautiful and relaxing experience. There were multiple other cruises taking place, some of which had dinner and another a dancing class (how awesome). We passed through the lit up Eiffel tower, which was way more gorgeous in the night time. Other places of interest included the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, Place de la Concorde and Alexander III bridge, to mention a few.

I was really tired by the time I arrived home, but man, what a day. Had a great time.

Paris- Day 1

As it was my turn to walk forward to the ‘all passports’ immigration officer at the Paris Beauvais airport following the chinese guy, I had to tell myself to get a grip as I was developing a slight sinus tachycardia. I don’t know if it’s just me but bearing your country’s bad reputation on your passport makes one feel like a criminal even when you haven’t done anything wrong. After scolding myself, I felt my heart rate come down to normal from 120bpm.

I don’t know what it is with these officers not saying a word to you particularly in Schengen countries and so I sometimes suspect that their command of English Language is limited. This guy pressed, flicked, shone my passport in the light…remaining small he should have licked it to know if it was real paper or candy paper. Anyway without saying a word, after what seemed like the longest one minute, he stamped it and handed it back to me.

I have to say thank God because those stupid French people stamped my passport to say my application was declined. After what it took me to get that new passport (tears et al), they decided to waste one whole page of my precious book.

 

Anyways, I went outside and waited in line for the next bus. As I didn’t print my bus pass (due to lack of ink…e go better), I was the last to board as the driver had to type in my reference number. Luckily I got to seat next to a nice old French man who would later advise on places to visit, told me about the different areas we drove through and with whom I practiced my little French. Talk about a nice intro.

Upon arriving Paris I was so reminded of New York , with the way the city ‘rose in the east’. I wished I have waited for the old man to get his luggage and so find the metro together, having him speak French to passers by (so I don’t have to do the work), but I didn’t know if it was appropriate and so I went all little red riding hood on my own. After a few one sided convos (me speaking but not understanding), and using a bit of common sense, I found my way to the metro and arrived Champs d’Elysees.

 

In front of me was the Arc du triumph where I set up (don’t mind me oh, its not like I’m carrying a tripod) and took a few pics.

As I was famished, I stopped at McD’s and bought a meal deal for a whopping 7.50 euros. (Na wa oh..even the chips speak French too?).

 

Anyways, as I had fuelled up, I stopped at a few stores before heading to the virgin megastore where I waited in line for one hour just to realise I was in the wrong queue and they didn’t have any tickets for the louvre. (Apparently it is advised to buy your ticket online and collect from a select list of stores- virgin being one of them). The store attendant then directed me to another virgin store but thanks to intuition, as I didn’t plan on getting lost, I took the metro to the louvre myself and instead of seeing the long queues I had read about, it was just me and the ticket machine. 12 euros broker, I made my entry and enjoyed what I must say was the best collection of Egyptian archaeology. I then quickly headed to the Arts quarter where I saw the much overhyped mona lisa painting; yes, I was disappointed as I didn’t realise how small it was.

 

 

 

Satisfied none the less, I headed back to the champs d’Elysee station and took the L’Open tour bus of the city. Once again, I didn’t print off my ticket but thanks to God the ticket scanner was able to read the barcode off my phone. (iphone rocks man, and yes I know all smartphones can open pages with barcodes).

I hopped off at the Eiffel tower where a man who was trying to jump the queue literally fell on me, forgetting that his acrobatic days were long gone. Luckily no one got injured and we made it to the top safely.

Oh my, what an amazing view. I instantly fell in love with Paris at this moment. The uniform white/off white colour of most of the buildings was as pure as love itself. Of course you had the brownish river seine flowing through it as well as a good few patches of green land, creating opportunities for cruising through life and sun worshiping respectively. 

I hastily rushed toward the bus and finished the tour before it was dark. It so happened that the PSG despite having won their first French league title in 19 years had its fans rioting against the police after the players were led away by security officials from the trocadero plaza after only a few minutes void of a victory speech. There were loads of cars blaring their horns with what sounded like gunshots in the distance, broken bottles and a fleet of police cars. As I had safely arrived back at Champs d’elysee, I visited/ hid in a couple shops whilst the storm outside calmed down before going home with a couple buys from promod.

Found the hotel with relative ease and loved my cute little attic room.

Visa palava

 

No travel experience is complete without a visa story. As some of you may know, most Africans wishing to travel abroad have to pass through the hoop of obtaining a travel visa since it is assumed most of us will never return to our homes, jobs, family and friends if given the chance to travel visa free, (which may be the case in some but definitely not ALL instances). On the plus side however, it encourages planning ahead and so for people like me who are prone to procrastination, it is a good thing in the sense that it saves me the extra expense of purchasing last minute flight tickets.

Needless to say, this trip was some sort of miracle. For all you EU/US passport holders, who are always told ‘welcome to …… country’, you can go chop garri for now. Well being a proud and glorious holder *shifts gele* of the infamous (soon to be famous, as I plan on making it so) green book, I need a visa for almost every country I visit with the exception of West African ones and a few in the Caribbean (I hope that our people don’t make them change the laws there again…. I BEG UNA OH).

 

So after planning and re-planning, I decided to change the itinerary of my trip and make Paris the first stop as it was easiest to get an appointment from the French embassy at short notice, whereas Spain and Germany had longer waiting times. 

After gushing at the accent and nice demeanour of the guy at the French embassy, I was later greeted with the unfortunate news 3 weeks later that my visa application had been denied as I was spending longer in Spain and ought to apply from their embassy instead. Instead of them to have kuku told me when I first applied, they decided to hold my docs for 3 weeks just to tell me this nonsense. In my nothing you say can challenge me attitude, I didn’t show any remorse and simply sang ‘ coolio, I’ll just apply from there then’. In my minds eye, I couldn’t see any further as I was submerged in a pool of tears.

 

After contacting the Spanish embassy I was scheduled for an appointment 8-10 days later and was left wondering if to go ahead with it as time wasn’t on my side but in the words of Aaliyah, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again’ and that I did. I’m sure many Nigerians have that mantra imprinted on their hearts, especially after reading Chimamanda’s ‘Americanah’ and seeing the resilience of some people even after facing deportation, the human spirit or should I say Nigerian spirit sha.

 

Anyways, glory be to God, after many days of praying. (Yes oh some of us pray and even fast for common rights as other citizens of the world just to be able to enjoy the same past time of travel)…this world sha…thank God there is a new heaven and a new earth coming.

Instead of the normal 3 weeks processing time, my visa was processed on the day I arrived to collect it , ONE WEEK later. In other words I received my visa on Friday, and travelled on Monday.

In hind sight I should have planned my trip to the tiniest detail but as you’ll soon see I didn’t and had to suffer some repercussions. 

Anyways, that’s all the preamble, If you read it all, clap for yourself. As a Yoruba girl, I like to hear myself talk, but for those of you who don’t like story, I plan on doing a short summary at the end of each country. Enjoy!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of adventure.

I decided to start this blog to fill in a void I noticed while doing some research prior to my latest trip. I decided it was better to be safe than sorry and so wanted to know fellow black peoples experiences when traveling to certain countries. It sucks that we have a history that dehumanized us and even though slavery and colonialism are gone, its effects are still being felt today and that’s why it isn’t always easy to ‘let it go, it was all in the past anyway’. Despite the fact that I refuse to let other peoples uninformed attitudes prevent me from living my life to the fullest, I’d sure want to know if visiting certain areas will be a threat to my livelihood.

I was very grateful to have come across a number of African American bloggers during my searches which I found very useful. However, although we are ‘cousins’ and I can relate to some of the issues they talk about the most common being the reaction to melanin, differences still ensue being a tourist from Africa in comparison to the U.S. and so it was my search for fellow African travellers that caused me to document my journeys.

Africans DO travel for leisure and not just for economic reasons (never mind that 1 in 3 africans belongs to the middle class). However, we tend to prefer countries where English (or other post colonial languages) are spoken and where we have a relative (or someone we know, even more so when English / (*insert colonial language*) is not the spoken language in a said country).

For African Americans on the other hand, facing racism in their home countries and the perceived notion of greater racism abroad, causes people to stay put or at most travel to the carribean instead of venturing out.

So I suppose for us two groups there is the common element of not wanting to leave our comfort zones.

But we have to realise that the world is such a larger place and yes, there are douchebags everywhere but we cannot continue to live our lives in fear of idiots and let great opportunities pass us by. Think of all the amazing people you could meet, great experiences you could encounter and all the colorful cultures you could learn about that make up this amazing mosaic of our current world. We all know that we live life once, how about we start to live it differently?