Magical Mystery Tour comes to an end

                      Just as each day ends, so does our gallivanting    

                   

A night in London 

We couldn't leave "the other side of the world" without a farewell to Emma and Stuart in London.

We arrived at our Hilton at Heathrow after a bit of a rigmarole from Seville:

•  early flight from Seville to Paris (Orly) with Vueling;
•  wait in Orly for BA flight to London Heathrow terminal 5;
• train from terminal 5 to terminal 4 ( no cost but terminal 4 is not on same line as other terminals); 
• Six minutes walk from terminal 4 to Hilton ( covered walkway from upper floor of terminal 4). Six minutes is not long but it seemed like being "suspended from reality" as it was a walkway high above ground level, fully enclosed from the elements, no way to look out, devoid of anything except the cladding of the enclosure and had only one entry and one exit.

So after a dinner with the Londoners, overnight at the Hotel, we then ambled onto our Melbourne bound plane.

It was hard to believe that we had been to so many places and experienced so many things.

We had such a fun time with "the kids" in Paris (i.e. Emma and Michael and the "other ones" - the wonderful Stuart, Ruth and Carla who were with us at various times.  No photo of the lovely Carla but Google created the following animation of strange behaviour in the Paris apartment.

More sedate Fab Four

Before we left London, Emma gave us the following farewell gifts that were so appropriate:

• for Jonathan - a drink coaster  " I drink coffee because I need it and wine because I deserve it";
• for me - a drink coaster " All I need is coffee and free wifi"; and
• for both of us with a beautiful farewell message inside the card "life is a cabaret"

So true!

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A special thanks to family and friends who have shared our travels with us through the blog and with emails while we were on our travels.  We loved having you "with us".

Over and out dear family and friends.  

End of MMT - our Gallivanting in Europe

BODY - 4 of 4 JOHN'S RECOLLECTIONS OF THE TRIP.

If travel broadens the mind so it should the palate (as well as the waist line).

                                  

                     

Although I am known to eat just about anything (except celery!) I had some very set views about my likes and dislikes about food and beverages. Was the chance to experience so much new and beautiful taste sensations wasted on me?  Let's see.

FOOD. Food in terms of travel can be categorised in different ways. Firstly, travel can give you a chance to taste the authentic stuff in the regions that it is associated with. l have had genuine cassoulet in France,

real paella in Spain, and traditional black pudding in London. Secondly, in terms of travel food can be categoried as food you have never liked, or tried before. 

For example, it has taken me two trips to Spain to get to like tapas. This was because, before the journey, I looked like a plate of food to look like one. Such as a big plate of pizza, or meat and three veg.Tapas didn't look like this. My dislike of tapas also probably came from the fact that before, we had only had poor quality ones. They looked like small, fried, overpriced, overooked finger food. But with Julie's determined "food safari," to find the really good ones, I have now been converted.  Also, I have never been a soup fan. 

Although I eat them, the only ones I've really liked, are the ones Julie, Emma, or Michael cook. If you had told me before going to Stockholm that I would choose soup, especially one made out of fish?!  I wouldn't have believed you. But I tried it, and liked it.

German/Berlin food. Was a new style of cooking to me. I discovered that meal sizes come in three different sizes, big, bigger, and industrial! You have to be really hungry to finish a German serve.

 I was talking to a young Berlin woman who believed that in Berlin there are only two vegetables, cabbage and potatoes. I still don't like sourkraut, (German cabbage) but what Berliners can do with a basic "boiled spud" is unbelievable. Beautiful! All good hearty and appetising food and LOTS of it!

Beer. 

Thanks to our Belin visit I have started to really like beer again. My favourite is a light Pilsner beer called Berliner. German beer comes with a big foaming frothy head. I asked for a small beer, and got one a glass the size of a small vase.

                            

So, that's what I learnt about food, and my changing likes and dislikes having been on the Magical Mystery Tour. Now that it has just clicked over into Happy Hour here in Melbourne, it might be a good time to close this final entry in our Magical Mystery Tour blog.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about our special overseas adventure. Many thanks for your interest and comments relating to the blog. Most of all I really hope that every now and again, you felt as if you were actually standing beside Julie and I sharing the wonder of it all.

Cheers, 

John, the "other" J.

MIND - 3 of 4 JOHN'S REFLECTIONS OF THE TRIP.

We all know that well known saying that travel broadens the mind. I know the magical mystery tour has changed my views on things, hopefully made me a little more tolerant. I think I have also learnt a few things and made a bit of progress in a few areas. I thought it might be interesting to see how the mind has responded to the thiings I experienced, to see if the mind has actually grown and where.

MUSIC. I have heard so much beautiful guitar music that I have been reinspired to take my music studies seriously. Another reason to drop the languages. 

                                      

At the other end of the scale, the trip to the big show in Berlin gave us contemporary razzle dazzle music in spades. Pure energy music to match the dancing!

BOOKS. It will be nice to go back to reading for pleasure instead of reading just to learn, because I saw so much that inspires reading. There are different categories of books just waiting to be read. There are books that I've read before, but now that I have the places that the books describe I can read them again with greater insight. Having seen Barcelona, I can reread George Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia" Because I have stood in the locations he writes about,  I can see places and events better. 

As the guide said,

"When Orwell wrote that he walked into this building, it's more evidence that when he arrived, the worst of that period was over. Had he turned up a week earlier and tried to get in, he would have been shot."

Now you don't get that sort of stuff from study aids.

It will be good to reread "Les Miserable" again. The story that includes the French Revolution. I stayed just just down the road from The Bastille and walked down roads where some of the action took place. I've actually been to where Victor Hugo wrote it.

                              

There are also books that I didn't know existed but relate to a particular place that I saw. I didn't know Carmen the Opera was based on a book that was set in Seville. 

                              

There is also another famous book that the people of Córdoba are very proud of called "The Ring Of The Dove." 

              

On our Berlin Caberet Walk I heard about a couple of books based on a real life cabaret performer named Anita Berber. Anita was a bit like Amy Winehouse and Janis Joplin rolled up in to one. A real wild child but ten times worse. 

                                                   

As our guide said,

"Details about the books about this lady are on the web site, because I've found from experience, EVERYONE wants to know about Anita!"

VISUAL ARTS - PAINTING AND CERAMICS. 

The classical paintings I'm O.K. With. The Impressionist paintings are still beautiful but perhaps by now a bit too familiar. Before the journey  that was how I felt but I wasn't sure what should come next. As I wrote in the blog Julie and I have seen so much of Picasso's work in all his styles and "periods" that I think I am starting to understand it, and even like some of it. 

So perhaps this is a good place to start with the modern stuff, then move on. Before we went on our journey, ceramics to me meant either decorative plates to put fruit on, or nice vases to put flowers in. Ceramic tiles were something that I thought only people thought about when redecorating the kitchen. Now I can apprecIate that ceramics are an art form in themselves and I can see why people enjoy looking at them as pieces of art.

                                  

So in summary, the mind has broadened as a result of our travel. But what about the body? That's the next part in the assessment.

PEOPLE 2 of 4 JOHN'S REFLECTIONS OF THE TRIP.

PEOPLE

In any trip it's always the people you meet that stick in your memory, because people are generally interesting in thier own way. On this trip there were so many people that I will remember.

On the guided tour I met an American named Sam, who had been a pilot all his life. Sam was a constant source of wonder and admiration to me as he could tell at any given time which direction we were heading in, or should be heading in, and roughly how long it would take to get there, all with no navigational aids at all. 

To someone like me, who has absolutely no sense of direction, this was something akin to a God given gift of black magic. Jurgan was another person I met and whose company I enjoyed. Although German, Jurgen had lved in  Melbourne for so long, that he had picked up the Aussie sense of humour with a touch of the larriken. You might say he was a bit of a character. 

Some of the most important people on our trip were the guides.  Our Insight Tour guide Tim, always 

seemed just as enthusiastic about seeing places as if it were his first time, instead of who knows how many. 

There were all the other guides, especially the walking tour guides who were both knowledgeable and delighted to share their knowledge with us. They ranged from Nigel, old school British military, to Beatrice, our guide in Seville. 

A young lady full of confidence who seemed to use her job as perhaps the way of meeting the man in her life! "People call me Honey Bee because I am so sweet, but I don't care what you call me!"

                                    

It was worth doing all the walking just to hear her tell the story of Carmen, the opera character in the opera set in Seville, told in the Spanish way with a thick Spanish accent.

"Carmen was a beautiful woman, like me. Spanish, long black hair, beautiful big brown eyes, and her lover said to her he would follow her wherever she went. ... I don't have a boy friend so I just stay home nights."

"And after all the years, he sees Carmen again. He is so angry that he kills her ... Knife ... Stab ... Dead."

And while we are on the subject of Carmen's there was Carmen the waitress in our hotel breakfast room who seemed just as firey as her opera namesake. With her almost non existent English, and my dodgy Spanish we got along really well! In "chatting " with Carmen, I learnt that tryng to speak in the other person's native language is sometimes not a good idea. Carmen always insisted that I forget standard Spanish which she seemed to regard as an inferior language, and learn to speak "correctly" with an Andalucian accent.

"No No, in Andalu(cain) habla (you say) benty say," Buenos dias, no. Andalu Bwen D" However, Julie and I got a hug and a smile when we left. 

While we are on the subject of languages in future I might just stick to English. In France, they thought I was French if I really tried hard. In Italy when I spoke Italian they thought I was English, and when I spoke Spanish, the Spanish thought I was Italian!

However on this trip, as in life, the most impotant people are family, and friends of family. It was nice to say hello to Ruth again after such a long time, and It was delightful to meet Staurt at last after hearing so much about him (all good). 

On the trip we met many lonely people. It goes without saying (but  I'll say it anyway) that the trip would not have been much more than a pleasant jaunt had I not had the company of Julie. Without her the trip (as in life) would not have been so enjoyable and fulfilling.

PLACES - 1 OF 4 JOHN'S REFLECTIONS OF TRIP.

Places

Some were new, some we had seen before. One or two were so familiar, that it was like, as I wrote in the blog, feeling right at home. Julie and I have seen places of great beauty, great sorrow, and great historical significance, sometimes the same place is all three - for example, Carcasson near Toulouse in the South of France.

Around this area lived a group of Catholics called the Cathers (The Good Men) whose beliefs within the Cathoic framework I admired so much that even I could go along with them. Remember, I am not a Catholic. 

 Sadly, the hard liners in Rome sent the Crusaders down to destroy them, which they did. The good news  s that these peoples beliefs never really went away, and so live on today. 

 Another nice reason for returning to a place apart from the feeling of being "at home", is that you can actually do what you promise yourself.   When you say "If ever I go back to... I will ". For me it was returning to the mosque/cathedral In Cordoba. This time I actually did pluck up courage to touch a building that is over thirteen hundred years old, i.e. over ONE THOUSAND!!! yeears old, and retake a photo that didn't come out on the last trip of a little room that made me think about religion. 

Originally, this little room was not walled off from the little garden outside, because in Islam, God had made man and nature as one, therefore they should live as one. A later different religion walled off the garden because its beauty and the sound of the rippling fountain was a distraction to prayer. People have already asked me which was my favourite place in the Tour. There wasn't one. I must admit that before we left, I sort of thought of Stockholm and Berlin as interesting places to see, between the two places I really wanted to go to, which were Paris and Seville.   What a lovely surprise. I enjoyed them both. However I must admit that If I went back to Sweden, I would stay in Stockholm for a while, then go out into rural Sweden, which, from what I can make of it, is something different again. 

 How do I feel about Berlin? The same as I do about New York. I am glad and fortunate that I went, but now that I have done it, I can tick it off the list and move on.