SAHARA DesertTrip

On Sunday at 6:00am we got up ... fully awake within seconds because the three of us were really excited to travel into the Sahara desert !!!

Hot mint-tea, "pancake-bread", butter and honey and then we're ready to start :-)

 Before actually getting to the desert, we need to cross the High Atlas Mountains - picture taken at the 2,260m high viewpoint ... snow chaos up there !!

**3 seasons within a few hours - incredible**

Mollywood - yep, Morocco is obviously becoming a serious movie-country: 

Babel, Gladiator, Sex and the City 2 and many more were produced here!!!

...dressed up like a real Tuareg ... well, almost ;)

We stayed overnight in these nomad-tents ... a 10,000-star hotel ... amazing!!!

 good morning in the Sahara :)

breakfast in the desert ...

I, Anki and Friederike in front of our tent :)

Selbstgemachte Pizza :)

Yeah - PizzaNight! 

We have been talking about it for a few days so - tonight my flatmate Sarah and I actually did it: SELF-MADE pizza with fresh yeast growing smoothly into a tender dough and a delicious tomato-garlic-onion salsa that we also prepared ourselves. 

Four pizzas with a variety of different toppings fresh out of the oven ... awesome!!!

 Andrés, Sarah and I

Thx buddies - good teamwork, real tasty food!

Herbststimmung in London

Yippie - I'm back in da city ... for a few days at least :)

It's autumn here, colorful leaves falling from the trees, sunny mornings and foggy afternoons, mild temperatures, chestnuts in the parks and Guy Fawkes Night: remember remember the 5th of November - the Gunpowder Plot!

Arriving at home, a delicious dinner awaits me and we go eastwards to the huuuuge mall in Stratford ... no doubt, Christmas is around the corner ;)

My weekend is wonderfully relaxing with highly enjoyable massages, looong beautiful walks, a cosy pub in Notting Hill, my new georgeous stylish handbag, delicious eat-outs, a funny cooking night, clubbing in London, crazy morning jogging, a movie night, self-made sweet birthday cake with quite some candles, a birthday quiz and MUSICAL NIGHT .... 

** THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Mr.B **

Zaragoza & around

We arrived in the city early afternoon, greeted by blue sky and sunshine and after some slight dissonance (with our GPS, the radio and all these street signs, of course!) we found a nice parking lot right across the cathedrals on the other side of river EBRO ... yesss, this big spanish river - I finally saw it ;)

~ ZARAGOZA ~

market hall

caracoles - snails for dinner :)

Daniel hosted us in Zaragoza, took us for some delicious  "papas bravas" - potatoes with a mayo-red pepper sauce and some other tapas. We shared interesting talks and ... I got sick :((

Well, it has been a long time, I didn't vomit outside an open car window ... I'm sure the pedestrians had fun watching me get rid of my breakfast while cruising round the traffic circle ;))

.... not so funny after all when I feld creeping coldness although my body temperture was rising up well above 38°C ... yep, this meant strict bed reast for the following couple of days *aaaargh*

Nevertheless - it was a nice trip! Good idea and ... thx for driving Geri!

in 2008, Zaragoza hosted the World Expo on Water

~ Guadalajara ~ ... on our way back to Madrid

Valencia

We enjoyed wonderful sunny weather and warm temperatures in Valencia ... Luis was hosting us for two nights in his splendid typical Valencia-style country house, playing piano with me, taking us out for some great spanish tapas and also for dancing the night away and a little tiny pueblito surrounded by orange-tree plantations *thank you very much*

~ VALENCIA ~

Valencia's city center is nice - full of tourists though and I was most struck by the modern architecture in the new Ciudad de la Ciencias y de las Artes! Walking there in the dry river bed which was turned into a park was lovely and experiencing sunset and the "blue hour" surrounded by these stunning architecture was just great!

Ciudad de las Ciencias y de las Artes

old city center

Touring Spain

Last week of October - time for getting to know some more of Spain!

That's why I flew down to Alicante, met Gerald there and then we rented a car for a 5-day roadtrip :) Along the coast we drove down to Cartagena at the seaside, further to Murcia, up to Valencia and via Teruel in the spanish meseta to Zaragoza from where we then headed back to Madrid. So far so good ... we experienced quite some adventure when within the first five hours someone broke into our car and stole the backpacks - lot's of time spent at the police station and a horrible, literally "deafening" drive back to Alicante to change the car.

Arriving rather late in Murcia we enjoyed this lovely city with beautiful old town center and well, had to do some shopping on Saturday in order to have something to wear for the upcoming days *aaaargh*

~ CARTAGENA ~

~ MURCIA ~

~ TERUEL~