Two classy ladies: a Euro adventure

In the latter part of October, I worked sooooo hard for three weeks on my dissertation “stuff” that I really felt deserving of the 10 day holiday I had planned with one of my best buds from Edmonton. The plan was to meet in Paris, spend a couple days there and then slingshot ourselves every couple days through Spain and Portugal.

The first time I went to Paris was slightly pathetic. I was but a wee lass of 20 or so years old and had never traveled outside of the country by myself. Rewind to 2003, where the 21-year old version of myself was slightly lost, living in my parent’s basement and bartending 14 hours a day in a terrible little Northern Alberta town. My mother, worried I’d never ‘find my way’ said, in all of her wisdom, “maybe it’s time for you to go to Europe”. After years of dreaming of traveling in Europe, I agreed. I began insatiably saving my tip money, leaving it on the kitchen counter when I arrived home late at night where my father would then take it every morning and deposit it into a bank account for me.

Eight months later, I set off to Europe: first stop, PARIS! I arrived, alone and terrified, and after a middle-aged french man walked me to my hostel and asked me how much it would cost for me to have sex with him (my first learning moment that ditching Canadian politeness is important…and I’ve never looked back!), I checked in and climbed onto my upper hostel bunk and wept for an hour. And as a matter of fact, I happen to have access to an old journal entry from that forlorn day:

“…I arrived in Paris today. HOLY SHIT. I haven’t been this nervous in a long time….all I could think when I got here was ‘FUCK. I’M PRETTY STUPID TO HAVE COME HERE’… I wonder if this [travel thing] gets easier…”  -Adrienne Levay, November 9th, 2003, journal excerpt–emphasis is the authors

I grew more courageous by the day but when I went to leave Paris back then, I was still so scared that even though my train didn’t leave until 1:00 am I decided to camp out in the train station at dusk and wait, frightened of roaming the wild streets of Paris alone in the dark.

Here’s another inspired excerpt from that particular wonderful, chilly evening camped out on the floor of Gare Du Nord oh so long ago:

“So, I’m hanging out in this train station. I’m so bored and tired. I just got given a coffee from this loud drunk dude who is babbling at me in French…I feel so dirty. My fingernails are dirty, my face feels greasy. My hair feels greasy. I need to do laundry.”- Adrienne Levay, November 11th, 2003

…And shortly after I wrote this excerpt in my journal, a man in the coffee shop I was camped outside of beckoned me over and wanted to show my his scrap book of cake photographs he had allegedly made (yes, weird I know) and then he offered to show me more photographs but that they were just back at his hotel room so would I come with him to see them?

So yes. Having my travel-cherry popped in Paris was just like other kinds of cherry poppin’; scary, short, and greasy.

GUARANTEED that what has changed is not the city but me because this time I relished in the Paris-ness; a filthy, whimsical, and charming beast of a city. When I arrived, I made my way past some armed soldiers roaming the streets (apparently France has declared itself in a state of war) to a cafe near the train station to wait for Harmony to arrive from abroad. I settled in, ordered some wine and a three course lunch:

Harmony arrived a couple hours later and we were off to embark upon our excellent adventure!

Too much happened for me to spew out here to you but the basics of the trip included:

 

 

‘Romantic’  walks through Montrmartre with cups of hot wine up to see Le Sacre Coeur:

 

 

 

 

Doing the french thing at cafes where you sit side-by-side and people watch (but mostly just watch all the well-manicured men walk by) under vast quantities of heat lamps trying to heat up the outdoors, nestled under blankets, flirting with French waiters, smoking skinny cigarettes and drinking wine and eating French things in the shadow of the Eiffel tower:

…And catching glimpses of Christian Slater (seriously, he was there…it was cool and he is aging really well!) between glimpses of the Monets, Renoirs, Van Goghs, and Manets of the Musee D’orsay:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An existential lunch with JP Sartre (my inspiration to believe in nothing) in the Montparnasse cemetery:

After a saunter underground in the city of the dead, the catacombs of Paris:

 

Then off to Barcelona! Where we had no idea what to do so we went with our guts to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s ‘masterpiece’ (it’s weird):

We eyed-up some sort of gondola over the bay and took that:

 

 

 

 

 

Drank a beer on the beach watching one lone ranger go nude and just walk up and down the beach and stop at points and stand like a statue in the wind and watched a band making a music video:

Then off to Granada… where we hitched a ride with the most attractive, super-model caliber Spanish bus driver EVER and basically just ate meat, got a little day-buzzed, and wandered the streets:

…and visited the Alhambra:

 

 

 

 

 

 

…A 13th century Moorish fortress.

Written about extensively and romanticised by American author and diplomat Washington Irving:

“To the traveller imbued with a feeling for the historical and poetical, the Alhambra of Granada is as much an object of veneration as is the Kaaba or the sacred house of Mecca to all true Moslem pilgrims. How many legends and traditions, true and fabulous, how many songs and romances, Spanish and Arabian, of love and war and chivalry are associated with this romantic pile!” – Washington Irving, Tales of the Alhambra, 1832

I suppose HIS travel journal was a bit more eloquent than my 2003-self’s, huh?

…And street flamenco:

And tourist flamenco in a gypsy cave:

We then set off for a day in Seville, where we only thought the Alcazar, another palace that is less “Moorish”, per se, and more “white-guys-who-liked-the-architecture-of-their-conquered-peoples-and-thought-it-was- politically-correct-to-appropriate-it” style of architecture… was worth seeing (not just because it is inherently amazing but also because it is the Water Gardens of Dorne):

We quickly realised that Seville is an amazing city, especially following our bath at one of the Hamams… where we floated around in a series of beautiful ambient Turkish-style baths until beckoned by handsome Spanish men who took us to the massage room to give us massages, whisper in our ears sweet things like “could you please move down on the table a little bit”, undress us, and then dress us again… me and Harmony think that at one point they climbed on top of us to massage our backs better….but we’re not sure. It was nice.

We sadly, but also excitedly, headed off to Lisbon:

…got lost in the maze of cobblestone streets, ate uncountable numbers of pastry while being wooed by handsome fado singers:

..and we checked out Sintra, a weird park with rather spectacular structures:

Overlooking pretty much all of Portugal out to the sea:

And finally, our last stop, Porto, the home of Port wine:

…and what I imagine is a history of piracy as the Douro river that runs through the middle of the city runs right out to the sea (and the Portuguese were historically kind of pirate-y):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent our last day together at the beach getting a little day-drunk and eating fresh seafood:

We separated at the airport with the knowledge that we likely won’t see each other for at least another year and a half. My dear friend started her journey back to Edmonton and I to Budapest with a nice chest infection and a little hole in my heart as souvenirs.

It surely was a wonderful trip to share with my fellow classy lady. As a thirty-four year old woman entering the time of life when the chances of meeting a potential partner to do things like travel with continue to dwindle to something like I have more of a chance that I’ll be struck by lightening eating a pepperoni pizza made by a Bahai terrorist…or something like that… I must say, I am soooo incredibly fortunate to have, as one of my best friends in the world, a woman who despite being in a long-term partnership with a wonderful man (who of course we totally invited to come with us), desires to maintain her autonomy enough so that she is good with leaving him behind and coming to be my travel partner. Afterall, we’ll be left over after the men all die young anyway. It’s a good idea to keep these lady-partnerships alive.