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Blogs from Andorra, Europe - page 3
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April 22nd 2010
Sunday 18/4/10 So where was I? Ah yes, Andorra. Think Colorado meets Queenstown meets Kuala Lumpur. The scenery is stunning. Andorra is at the top of Spain and bottom of France and appears to be nestled in the base of a valley. It´s surrounded by big fuck-off mountains about 2500 - 3000 metres high so is a major skiing capital. Also it´s a tax haven so lots of cheap electronic goods and impenetrable (not to mention discrete banks - I know where my money´s stashed!) Major construction going on here with big roads and huge hotels being built so obviously the recession has done Andorra some favours. I drove around the very narrow windy roads for an hour trying to find a hotel as it was getting late and dark. I finally came acroos the Bates ... read more
April 21st 2010
Hooley dooley! OK, so I finally made it out alive out of Barcelona. What an awesome place - could easily spend another 6 months there. A friend of a friend gave me her friend´s (Pep) number here in BCN. Pep is a company director here and took me out to his fave place in BCN - La Cabana de Parque. (If you´re reading this, Brenda, Pep said you´d be jealous!) He also took me to another great place - Cafe Velodrome - where only the cool kids like me can hang out. Very classy. And the man paid for everything! He only just met me so very impressed - Muchas gracias, Pep! 16/4/10 It´s now been a year since my wee bus, Kitty, was stolen so am now spending the insurance money! Would rather have Kitty ... read more
March 14th 2010
Today in Andorra we had the opportunity to experience a calçotada, a popular gastronomical event held around this time where calçots, a type of green onion, are consumed in large quantities. Somewhat milder than onions but looking like thinner versions of leeks, calçots are native to eastern Spain and not really consumed anywhere else. The tenderness of the long, center is achieved by planting the onion bulbs in trenches and successively increasing the depth of the soil around the stems throughout autumn and winter as they continue to grow. The catalan verb calçar apparently means literally to cover the trunk or bottom of plant with dirt, hence the onion's name calçot The calçots are barbecued in large quantities over fire, then served - today they were divvied out and wrapped in newspapers. Once you receive your ... read more
February 16th 2010
The end of Friday's classes marked the beginning of the first of many spring vacation periods for me - Carnival! As luck would have it Boston Public Schools has their February break, so some time ago Chris and I planned his visit to Andorra for a few days followed by somewhere more festive. Give that all my roommates left for their own Carnival excursions Friday night and Saturday morning, it was somewhat painful waiting all day alone until 4:30pm for Chris' bus to get in from Barcelona. Seeing as I had purchased his tickets it was no surprise that his connecting flight from Madrid to Barcelona was delayed 1.5 hours (on the runway of course) and that he subsequently missed his bus to Andorra. Oh well, he eventually made it. That first night was pretty low ... read more
February 9th 2010
Thought it's now been over five months since I transplanted myself into the Pyrenees, up until this past weekend I still hadn't indulged in one of Andorrans' favorite past times - skiing. My roommate Mike and our friend Pere had made plans to do some cross-country skiing (esquí de fons) on Saturday, so I sucked it up and decided I'd go on with them. One of the people I tutor lent me an old pair of ski pants, and the boot/pole/ski rental plus the pass would only run me 20€ or so, so why not? As the day drew nearer I started to research cross-country skiing a bit more. Wikipedia states that "as a sport, cross-country skiing is one of the most difficult endurance sports, as its motions use every major muscle group and it (along ... read more
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January 24th 2010
So where was I? It's hard to keep track with all this stuff. The more that I sit down and try to think through all the things that I've simply done autonomously doing day by day, the more overwhelming it is. Bloody HELL we've done a lot of stuff, and seen a lot of things and met some amazing people and taken some incredible photos. It was only after talking to Mama Wetzlich this morning that I realised the scope of what we've accomplished, and the fact that we're still together after three months of living on top of each other is nothing short of a miracle. We drove and drove all the way from Sevilla to Evora, a 260 km stint. One thing that I must remind you is that the average speed you do ... read more
January 17th 2010
Today, on the Feast of St. Anthony, all of Andorra gathers together in various plazas throughout the country to celebrate what is called L'escudella. Escudella, itself, it the name given to a traditional Catalan stew full of delicious things like Catalan sausages, beans, and various vegetables. Apparently in the early 70s some friends in Andorra got together and prepared plates of escudella for their neighbors and the shopkeepers in the area. They were essentially reviving the centuries-old tradition of distributing food among the poorest in the parish on St. Anthony's day, January 17th. As you might have guessed, this became quite popular and now the entire country participates. Lucky for us, in Andorra la Vella the festivities were taking place just a 5 minute walk from our apartment in the Plaça de Les Arcades. Basically the ... read more
January 14th 2010
Thursday 14.1.210 day 91 Andorra We drove to Andorra today. Andorra is one of the smallest country in the world, 464 sq km 2 ½ times smaller than Paris. It has the best skiing in the Pyrenees the lifts can get 95,000 people up to the ski fields an hour, the population of the country is 76,900. It has great hiking and motorcycle riding in summer. There are no taxes in Andorra so petrol food and alcohol are very cheap. There is more than 1 shop per 40 residents in Andorra we saw about 30 motorcycle shops in about 5 km of one another. There are police on almost every pedestrians crossing directing traffic helping people across the road including people in wheelchairs and giving directions to tourists. We read that the speed limits is mostly ... read more
January 7th 2010
Hi Everybody! I really planned to just do a photo blog on this trip. Walt and I are cruising in the Mediterranean. We went to Barcelona a couple of days early and took a side trip to Andorra. Andorra is a small country located in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France. It has a population of around 77,000 people and an area of only 468 sq km. Andorra is known as a great place to ski and for its tax free shopping. There were many huge electronics stores there. It took us 5 hr. to travel to Andorra from Barcelona and 3 hr. to return. We passed by beautiful lakes, rugged mtn., old stone ruins, and many dairy farms. I wish that I could have spent more time in Barcelona. I hope to someday return ... read more
November 5th 2009
The Fasthotel might be cheap and the room small(the shower/toilet)is like a cubicle they added after the room was built,a bit like what you would buy at Mitre 10 and have installed except a bit bigger because it has a toilet and washbasin as well.The cubicle obviously wasn’t completely and firmly attached as it rocks a bit when you walk or should I say step in there because there isn’t much room to do anything else.However we must say the water pressure in the shower head is very good and we have tried out a few showers over the past 7 months!! It is time to bring out the long sleeve shirts and put them on top of the shirt pile in the Kathmandu shirt bag and relegate the short sleeve shirts to the bottom probably ... read more
