Madrid

As usual it has been a while since I last updated this blog and a fair bit of stuff has been happening.

A few weeks ago I went to madrid for 4 days. It was a bit of a last minute decision. I just realised I had a weekend free and plenty of RTT days (kind of like flexi days) available so I decided to take a couple of days off and go to Madrid.

I spent most of my time in Madrid wandering the streets, checking out the beautiful parks, squares and buildings and eating tapas and other local specialities like churros. I really loved the big squares and the architecture is great - a real mix of styles, which is a change from Paris. The metro is really good, and it is nice, clean, easy city to get around, and the central part is really quite small.

I also went to two fantastic museums - Reina Sofia and Thyssen-Bornemisza. Both of which had large modern art collections including works by Dali, Picasso, Miro, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and heaps of others. The Prado is supposed to be one of the best art galleries in Spain, but I decided to give it a miss as I am not too interested in classic art.

The hostel I stayed in was gorgeous and right in the middle of Madrid and I met some friendly french girls there there and we went out to a few bars together.

Madrid

Last weekend an old friend of mine, Bec, and her husband Peter came to visit me in Paris. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and warm (you know you are living in Europe when you refer to 15 as gorgeous) . Bec had never been to Paris before so we spent most of the weekend walking around showing off the sites of Paris and hanging out in cafés and eating gorgeous food. It made me realise all over again that Paris really is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

It was really good to catch up with Bec and Peter, they have just moved to London after several months of travelling through north and South America, so it was great to hear all their stories. While the weather was great from wandering around Paris, unfortunately it wasn't too good for photos but anyway I have included all the photos from the weekend here, as Bec and Peter had a problem with their camera so they wanted to copy some of them.

Bec and Peter in Paris

Apart from all that, I have been just hanging around Paris as usual. Hanging out a lot with VikiLee, and my other friends here. I am planning to go to Amsterdam for easter with Nick and Pauli (other friends from Australia who live in the UK now) but we haven't book anything yet so that could still change.

Other than that I don't have anything else planned as I don't know what is going to happen with my visa. My dossier for the visa is finished and has been lodged with the appropriate department, so now I just have to wait for a response. If all goes well I have to go back to Australia to get my visa (it is a crazy rule but I have to return to Australia to get it) , so I am planning to go back to Australia in early may for about 3 weeks or so and also hopefully go via Beijing to visit Sitt on the way over. But all of that depends on my visa and how long it all takes, and I probably won't know for sure until a week or two before I am supposed to leave. So everything is a bit up in the air at the moment and it is kind of hard to plan anything.