Having found myself with a week off work in the spring of 2002, I bought a ticket to Madrid and travelled from there to Salamanca and Lisbon. Salamanca had always been a must-see spot for me, being as it was where Miguel de Cervantes had studied, and where Miguel de Unamuno, the great Basque philosopher rose up against the fascists in 1936, saying "You will succeed, but not convince". Lisbon was warm and lush. I met some girls from Sydney whose parents were East Timorese, and a girl from Brazil. They all spoke Portuguese. I went with them to Sintra - A UNESCO world heritage site. Both countryside and architecture in Andalucia felt more exotic than anything I had experienced, yet the arid land and the gum trees near Porto almost made me believe I was in country New South Wales. Madrid, with its vibrant cultural beat, its vast open squares and lazy cafe culture, captured my heart.
Salamanca, 2002
"To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be."
[Miguel de Unamuno from The Tragic Sense of Life]
Lisbon, 2002
I thought I could smell Africa across the sea
Sintra, 2002
The long picturesque walk to the Sintra National Palace [more]
france
I was lucky enough to be reunited with Angela, my friend from choir days, in the summer of 2002. We drove to Paris for a long weekend with her friends Kevin and Michel, keeping ourselves amused with much debate and laughter. We stayed near the Rue d'Auteuil, and dined on petits pains au chocolat, moules frites, creme brulee and coffee. But then it wasn't all about food. We climbed the Eiffel Tower, read De Gaulle's speech [more] at the foot of the Champs Elysees, ambled through Montmartre, marvelled at Sacre Coeur and ingested the emotion at the Musee d'Orsay. We drove to the Palace of Versailles, and spent a misty day in its gardens and mazes. At Calais, on our return, we left our car in the queue to board the ferry and wandered down to the beach. We were gazing out to sea when someone noticed the front of the queue was moving. If you had been watching you wouldn't have been able to see us for sand.
Pondering Paris, Notre Dame
Montmartre is like a room full of mirrors
The gardens of the Palace of Versailles
