I soooooo like New Orleans

Let's start with the obvious. I've always liked Harry Connick, Jr. (before he was a movie star!) and really, love anything swingin', especially old hot jazz. "With Imagination" has been on my good mood mix since my mixes were true mix tapes.

For as long as I can remember, people have told me I would love New Orleans and I've always been dying to go. I didn't even know exactly why, other than the city has a personality and flavor that I knew you had to experience in person. I finally went this year for Jazz and Heritage Fest and already can not wait to go back. I'd love to go every year.
People who know me were right: I just love it there. The color, the character, the buildings, the friendliness of everyone, the sweet iced drinks, the catchy swangy music everywhere you go... it's all so loveable and charming. I think if I had gone there for college, I would have stayed. My nickname is "LA", is it not?Chris isn't too mad about blues, jazz, funk or cajun so I went to New Orleans with my dad who had never really experienced the city either. For us, Jazz Fest was an absolute ball and staying in a bright pink guest house just a block off the French Quarter (in the now HBO-publicized "treme" neighborhood) allowed us to walk around beautiful, historic areas and take in live music and creole food in the evenings without needing a car.

I don't think I would have ever thought of "heritage" as being something witnessable, but Jazz Fest's longer title "and Heritage" really suits it. There is so much Louisiana culture represented in this fest. It has incredibly maintained individual flavor and features tons of local acts at what could have become another overrated Bonaroo or Coachella. I definitely got the heritage as well as the jazz (and blues and gospel and funk... there's a tent for everything) and I really took in a mix of each stage along with enjoying the bigger "names" Jonny Lang, Dr. John, Blind Boys of Alabama, Black Crowes.

The sense of hospitality you get in LA can be summed up by this story: About a year ago I heard a woman on the radio named Ingrid Lucia (right) who sounds a lot like the singer from Squirrel Nut Zippers, old style jazz. I visited her web site and noticed she was raising money for a future album, so I made a $20 donation in exchange for receiving the album when it comes out. She personally sent me an email thank you note, which I was already pretty surprised by.

When we got to New Orleans, I saw in the newspaper she was playing a small club on one of the nights, so Dad and I went to go see her in a little place called d.b.a. that seems to hold maybe 100 people. During her break she mentioned her new album had just come out that week, so I went up to the stage to say Hello, and she recognized my name from our emails and gave me my copy of the CD right there and then. Ingrid also managed to "slip in" to Jazz Fest when another act was canceled (due to the volcano), so we were thrilled to see her twice. I highly recommend her albums and will be sure to include her on mixmas this year~!

Needless to say, I came back from Louisiana with a huge grin and a fistful of CD's you can't find in Denver record stores. Also the obligatory coffee and beignet mix. Below is my favorite stage at Jazz Fest, the Fais Do Do, which featured Cajun music, unintelligible lyrics and tons and tons of fiddles.

No one informed me about bringing a glittery furry umbrella (to dance with, of course) ahead of time, but next time I'll come prepared (see the umbrella procession by the stage, below).

It's not what you think

My latest work for the Cheese Society is totally making me want to adopt some kids. How freakin' cute are they?!

fotográfia

Yesterday I figured out a much more practical and cooler way to blog my photos, though youtube and picasa took forEVer to upload this right. I wish I could have edited the photo changes to the music changes, but it was a very simple slideshow template. I need to do another one of these of my Russia photos sometime (Luba, music suggestions?)

Click on the 4 arrows on the bottom right to see the video in full screen and clicking on 1080p makes it crisp: here's a 4 minute vacation to Spain.

finalmente

I don't think I'll have time to upload photos this morning because this computer has a lot of issues, but here's an update...

We loved the town of Arcos deep in the "Frontera" of Andalucia which is both the rural part of Spain and the most touristed in the summer because the towns are so tiny, charming, and gorgeous, and in another month the casas will all have flowers flowing off their black iron terraces. Early March is still Winter here and too soon for tourists so in many ways we had the place to ourselves.

Driving on the hilly roads of Arcos was to put it modestly, challenging, and to put it realistically, like being on a rollercoaster that had gone off the tracks. Chris and I both could feel our sore knuckles the rest of the evening - me from clenching the steering wheel and him from the bottom of his seat, I guess.

To give you an idea, the cobblestone roads of the town had AT BEST six inches of space on either side of my car (and I have one of the smallest cars you can rent!!) with a lot of little archways where you can't see who's on the other side, plus there's always oncoming mopeds and other cars that seem to not use any kind of signal or system to decide who's turn it is to go... you just hold your breath and pray and curse all at once. There's also pedestrians everywhere. It was hard.

Also the rules of a normal road don't apply, people park on sidewalks and squeeze by each other on what clearly is one, long, one-way street until another car comes in the opposite direction. I really wanted to see Arcos because there's no reliable way to get there on train or bus but geesh, maybe a taxi would have been sufficient.

Thank heaven we managed to land a parking space on the plaza outside our hotel at the very top of the town, and left the car for 2 days while we walked around in a little rain and ducked into pubs for wine and tapas. One tapas bar we found with only 6 tables and 2 other guests on my birthday was SO nice to us when we ordered tons of food and dipping sauces (we were starving by the time anything opened for dinner at 9:30 p.m.) that they brought us two rounds of caramel vodka from the freezer "a la casa" after dinner. I am not a vodka person but it was a really good desert! Plus when you're hotel is three blocks away on foot, it's all good.

The drive through the rest of the frontera towns was one of the prettiest places on Earth, reminded me of the drive to Big Sur, and I will post some pictures when I can. We saw lots of furry mountain goats and sheep with long un-bobbed tails on the side of the road, as well as pretty beige bulls with long horns grazing gracefully. There were few cars, so going around 30 mph tight hairpin bends wasn't so bad, and we listened to Van Morrison, Newton Faulkner, Ray LaMontagne and David Gray and chilled.

Finally our last night here was in Malaga, a big vacationer's city that looks a lot like Miami, only newer and still being developed. There's condos and villas on steep mountains overlooking the ocean and our parador here is beautiful, though less quaint than everywhere else we've been. It also was up a steep, not well marked hill -- I'm starting to realize the reason that our hotels are always up a long, winding, steep driveway, is because they ARE real castles and had to be up above so they could be fortified from attackers. The drive here was also rough at times but because it's a big city on a major highway in rush hour and the hotel had lousy directions on their web site, but we managed. We're here for the airport, so we can catch a cheap flight back to Barcelona tonight and fly back to the States tomorrow.

Hasta Luego.

feliz compleanos

Today we got to Arcos de la Frontera, deep in white wine and olive growing country, where it's gone from warm & light jacket weather to sporadically down pouring and blowing us away with high winds, but it's fine for walking around and ducking into shops and cafes as the weather turns. The roads are extremely pequeño and cobbled which feels like a car commercial, only terrifying. I can't imagine how the delivery trucks do it. I managed to just barely squeak up the hill without hitting anything or anyone. We just finished two little birthday tarts from a bakery in town. Instead of a parador, we're in one of those family pensions that Rick Steves always recommends highly called La Convento with the freshly made breakfast, and funnily enough, our room was named "The Rick Steves Room" since he visits a lot and probably has given them tons of business with his books. Chris can't stop cracking up about it.

Here´s a video of the balcony from our room... admittedly a little gray and rainy but the scenery is gorgeous and green.

in Zafra, saw Cuenca, on to Arcos mañana

Etamos bueno! All's well!

Our first day on the road was a little rocky in more ways than one: the car kept sticking in gears (probably my fault) especially when we were stuck at a stop light, on a hill, with another car breathing down my neck a few inches behind me...which it's fair to say made Chris just about ready to jump out the window and hop on the next plane home. But he handled it pretty well and I´m proud of us for getting through that, really. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Our first of the paradores (historic castles that were turned into hotels) took about 7 hours from Barcelona! It was only 5 hours based on the map but there was getting out of Barcelona that took an hour (thank God it was a quiet Sunday morning) plus we had eaten dinner around midnight the night before, so we were beat, plus the roads we took crossed SIERRAS or a 3,000 foot mountain range with little switchbacks.

So it was 7 hours in the put-put-putting car but on very well-maintained highways and the scenery looked like a combination of Tuscan vineyards, Montana or Yosemite (mountainy forests), and Wyoming (dusty one-street towns) along the way. I think in just these two days we´ve driven through 12 Spanish provinces and four major regions (La Mancha, Catalonia, Aragon, Castilla and now Extremadura) so I am so glad we rented a car. Our highest concern is that no one steals it and we generally just pay 4 euros a day for parking in a garage with a policia watching it.

Finally we arrived at the parador around 10 at night and it was was up a steep, steep hill on a cliff overlooking a gorge in Cuenca and we´re talking about a 15th century road, ain´t no guide rails. We parked and checked in, only to find out that you have to cross a little pedestrian bridge OVER the gorge on foot to get to the town and restaurants and Chris is terrified of heights. Oh Lord. So we ate in the castle (bleh) and the next morning I crossed the bridge while Chris took the long way around (down the long hill, back up a long hill). I seriously can´t believe they don´t mention that rickety bridge in any of the books or brochures or photos I had seen of that town.

Yesterday we left Cuenca for Zafra, another few hours drive, which is a tiny little hill town in Andalucia (the culturally rich region of Spain) which turns out to be a little sleepy and gray and rainy even -- we've hardly seen any tourists -- but it was just what we needed. Less sites, more putting our feet up and sleeping in.

Meat is pretty much 80% of the diet in Spain, so we tend to look or ask for well rounded restaurants that the locals like. The restaurant we found for lunch today was the most savory goat cheese salad I´ve ever had in my life and plenty of vino tinto (red wine) which is cheap and local, so very fresh.

The castle we´re at here in Zafra is from 1443 and extremely romantic and gorgeous. The room has enormous dark brown double doored windows that open to the plaza below.

Zafra:

Cuenca:

view from our hotel room:

little village of Albaraccin along the way:

Ack!

Well we rented a mini cooper tonight and I´m a bit petrified of the fact that it´s so shiny and new, I really don't want anyone to want to steal this baby. I love it, but couldn´t we just have a dusty old yugo or something??

I certainly broke it in some tonight, re-learning to drive stick shift and learning for the FIRST time ever to finagle through one of those huge inter-city rotary things that usually go around a big arc de triomphe or something. And I got lost perdido a few times and wasn't ready to do an illegal "you-ey" here! Thankfully I do have that inner demon of being able to drive like hell in a city but the stalling and clutching and breaking and just finding the darn gears took some practice. Let´s put it this way: the rental car security guy who was letting me out the gate was like "Please... your car is smoking like a bomb. Can´t you just take the METRO or WALK!?!" (in spanish). That´s where I say thank you and charge it please, and I´ll be on my way.

It should be much easier to navigate major highways to the cities we´re going to and then just park it by the hotel and walk around but I am worried (as I say here, estoy muy nerviosa) about the theft risk. Cross your fingers por favor.

Here´s a few recent photos below. Sorry in advance that if you click on them, they´re going to be huge, I don´t have a way to compress ém here.

Believe it or not these first 2 photos of La Sagrada Familia were taken within 2 minutes of each other -- same amount of darkness in the sky, but different facades (sides of the building) with different shutter speeds and a little twirling of the lens (and craning of your neck since the computer won't let me post my photos right-side-up) made two different entire views.
typical view of a restaurant or market in Spain. lotsa carne.interiors of Casa Battlo, dozens more photos where these came from:"Apt. G" in Casa Battlo. G is for Gaudi, that's good enough for me...A very typical iron gate on an apartment in Valencia. Loads more photos coming later.

dia dos

It's day two in Spain (there was no Day Uno blog) and we've literally covered a lot of ground, walking many miles and climbing many metro stairs... I'm a bit exhausted, having had only about 4 1/2 hours of sleep on the plane, but not letting that sink in and spoil anything. You've got to just go and do when you're someplace like Barcelona. Our hotel is kind of in the boonies for Barcelona (it´s actually called Badalona...not kidding... hmm...) but it´s just a hop, skip, and a jump to the metro.

Last night Chris and I took in a show at Palau de la Musica Catalana and it wasn't exactly what I hoped: the very famous Spanish singer was fantastic (Rosario), but as part of "La Festival de Flamenco" she wasn't flamenco at all, she was completely Pop. And very it was a very lively, sold-out, unairconditioned crowd. The theater seems a lot smaller when everyone's packed in and although I had selected orchestra seats, the messanine above us blocked our view of most of the mosaics and stained glass up celing (see below) so we just walked around to take pictures afterwards.
Today I spent a chunk of the day along Passeig de Gracia and in Casa Battlo (below), the one Guadi building I skipped in 2006, and oh my gosh, that place a photographer's playground. My new camera actually ran out of batteries after 150 photos or so.

The thing that amazed me the most was I had seen photos of the house from Kate going there in 2006, but I had imagined everything to be about a quarter the size of what it really is... (like the mosaic that's on my Visa card is really as pictured below, about 12 feet tall, I always thought it was a close up of a small detail!) I´ll post more pictures luego. ¡Off to dinner! I love using that upside down exclamation point, just 'cause I can. ¡?¿!