Seville

Tuesday 19 May started with a three and a half hour bus trip from Granada to Seville (Spanish: Sevilla. Population 703000), the capital of Andalusia. Seville, even though it is 80 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean, was the port that Christopher Columbus (Spanish: Cristóbal Colón) set sail from for his discovery of the Americas in 1492; wealth from the new world was then imported through Seville.

After checking in to Hotel Don Pedro  (which has good reviews) and eating some tapas for lunch we walked to some of the city’s landmarks including:

• Metropol Parasol (a wooden structure located at La Encarnación square, in the old quarter colloquially called Incarnación’s mushrooms)
• Royal Tobacco Factory (Spanish: Real Fabrica de Tabacos, now a university building, that was the setting for the Barber of Seville)
• Spain Square (Spanish: Plaza de Espana, built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929.

After dinner we watched Flamenco at Centro Cultural Flamenco  (which has very good reviews).

On Wednesday 20 May most of the group bought tickets for the Alcázar, a “royal palace. . . originally developed by Moorish Muslim kings. . . regarded as one of the most outstanding examples of mudéjar architecture found on the Iberian Peninsula.

After that we kept doing the tourist thing and had a look through the Seville Cathedral (the largest Gothic cathedral and the third-largest church in the world) as well, including walking up and down the 34 storey bell tower.

Tapas for lunch in Seville, Spain

Seville, Spain

Tapas in Seville, Spain

Seville Cathedral, Spain

Seville Cathedral, Spain

Giralda bell tower in Seville Cathedral, Spain

Giralda bell tower in Seville Cathedral, Spain

High Alter in Seville Cathedral, Spain

Seville Cathedral, Spain

Royal Alcazar in Seville, Spain

Royal Alcazar in Seville, Spain

Royal Alcazar in Seville, Spain

Royal Alcazar in Seville, Spain

Royal Alcazar in Seville, Spain

Royal Alcazar in Seville, Spain

Royal Alcazar in Seville, Spain

Metropol Parasol (mushrooms) in Seville, Spain

Flamenco in Seville, Spain

Spain Square in Seville, Spain

University was the Royal Tobacco Factory in Seville, Spain

Cleaning the chalk bill off the bar in Seville, Spain

Matador in Seville, Spain

Granada

On Sunday 17 May we traveled by commercial bus (Intrepid use public transport) to Granada (population 245000). The country side was like Perth, dry and sandy looking; we saw many olive groves and a few vineyards. There were many run down small stone buildings with missing roofs, just like in a western movie. Beside the motorway there were also many neglected and graffitied modern commercial buildings.

Carlos, our tour leader, lead us on a short walking tour around the city after which we did our own exploring before we met up again for a sunset picnic at Mirador San Nicolas (Saint Nicholas lookout) overlooking the Alhambra.

The daily Spanish timetable is about two hours after what you would expect in Brisbane and so is sunset, after 9pm in Central European Summer Time (CEST). Cafes start serving breakfast from 8am, lunch time rush is at around 2pm and dinner after 8pm. Shops open at about at 10am and close for siesta (which apparently is just as much about a big family meal as it is resting) from 2pm to 6pm or so and then trade late into the night.

On Monday 18 May, after breakfast at our hotel, Macia Monasterio Los Basilios, a few of us visited the cathedral, Basilica of St John of God and the Monastery of Saint Jerome.

In the afternoon we all visited the Alhambra, which according to Wikipedia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, that “was originally constructed as a small fortress in 889” and exhibits “the country’s most significant and well known Islamic architecture, together with 16th-century and later Christian building and garden interventions.”

Click on any image to view full size slide show . . .

Alhambra from St Nicolas lookout in Granada, Spain

City view from St Nicolas lookout in Granada, Spain

Alhambra from St Nicolas lookout in Granada, Spain

Alley in Granada, Spain

Tapas bar in Granada, Spain

St John of God in Granada, Spain

Monastery of San Jeronimo in Granada, Spain

Monastery of San Jeronimo in Granada, Spain

Monastery of San Jeronimo in Granada, Spain

Monastery of San Jeronimo in Granada, Spain

Monastery of San Jeronimo in Granada, Spain

Looking toward St Nicolas lookout from The Alhambra in Granada, Spain

People at Alcazaba in the Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Alhambra in Granada, Spain

View from The Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Generallife next to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Generallife next to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Generallife next to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Generallife next to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Generallife next to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Palace of Charles V in the Alhambra in Granada, Spain

Palace of Charles V in the Alhambra in Granada, Spain

VidaXtra restaurant in Granada, Spain

Spain – Arrival

Hello from Madrid!

The flight here was arduous. Since it departed and arrived during sensible daylight hours I thought it would be OK, but after 40 hours either waiting in airports or in the air (and getting dehydrated), I remembered that flights are certainly not my favourite part of a holiday.

The time is Spain is Central European Summer Time (CEST) (+2UTC during daylight saving, +1UTC otherwise) which is eight hours behind the east coast of Australia.

What they say about Spain enjoying food and drink with their family and friends is all true. Friday was the San Isidro bank (public) holiday (in Madrid only) and there were crowds of people at the concert and fair in the Matedero complex, over the road from our hotel. There seemed to be a tapas bar every block or so, all full of people and noise. We tried a couple of the Ibericos y quesos accompanied by some local vino y cerveza.

We stayed at the Gran Legazpi Hotel which is where we met Carlos and the other six guests on the Intrepid Best of Spain tour on Saturday night.

 

Shrimp wonton and noodle at Hong Kong

Travelator at Hong Kong International airport

Festival at Matadero complex in Madrid, Spain

Pastries in Madrid

Posters on traffic light control boxes

Jamón and sign in the tapas/coffee bar

Churro and coffee

Sausage, Cheese and bread (Ibericos y quesos)

Potato crisps in Madrid

Street art in Madrid

Lunch in Madrid

Matadero in Madrid, Spain

Matadero in Madrid, Spain

Using Windows 8 Software

Hi again! This post has been sitting in draft since 2013. Here are my thoughts when Win8 was still shiny. . .

Installed Software

Windows Explorer, oops I mean File Explorer, had been open a few times at this point and had used the new ribbon interface. I’m already a fan of the ribbon in MS Office 2010 so think it is a good idea; it did not take me long to find the “File name extensions” check box in the View tab. I like to know what the file type is before I launch it.
Tried to create a new word processor document to write all this down and noticed the options in the New menu included “Journal Document”. What’s that?
This page, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Create-and-personalize-handwritten-notes-using-Windows-Journal, says it is a Window 7 application that “you can use your tablet pen to take handwritten notes on your Tablet PC” and that “By default, Journal notes are saved in Journal note format (.jnt).”
There’s a viewer available here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20771

WordPad

Good old WordPad is installed, I used it to make these notes. I have not used it much because I usually have MS Office is installed (or would be using OpenOffice, or LibreOffice) but it does seem fully featured. I had no trouble inserting screen shots and my favourite CTRL + ALT + V short cut for the paste special dialog worked without changing any options. But I did miss the CTRL + ALT + 1 (or 2 or 3) to create headings. Equally missed is the spell checker.

Paint

I searched apps for Windows Paint. The search results included a link to %windir%\system32\mspaint.exe which I clicked but nothing happened. I repeated the search and clicked, still nothing.
After searching (using Bing, I still have not changed any Internet Explorer 10 settings) I found a few articles, about “Fresh Paint for Windows 8”, a free download from the Windows app store. According to this neowin.net article (quoting TechNet) it is the “#1 app in the Entertainment category in the Windows”.
By the time I’d found those articles two sessions of the mspaint.exe that we’re used to opened, I don’t know what took so long?
The Snipping Tool is installed, %windir%\system32\SnippingTool.exe, but I haven’t figured out how to use it to capture anything that disappears as soon as it loses focus.

DVD/Media Player

I thought Windows Media Player was not installed, but it is on my Pro edition. However it would not play DVDs (as per many articles but I thought they were only talking about Media Centre). I also checked plexapp.com and xbmc.org media centres but they sounded like more functionality than I wanted i.e. I only need a media player not Media Centre (See media centre reviews) so I installed VLC but there was no 64 bit (nor WinRT) version available.

Other

• Native mount of ISO files
• Typing shell:startup into File Explorer takes you to C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
• System File Checker: According to Wikipedia sfc.exe is a utility in Microsoft Windows that allows users to scan for and restore corruptions in Windows system files

Personalisation

I created a shut down short cut similar that described on wesurfweb.com:

C:\windows\system32\shutdown /s /t 0

Video Tutorials

• Basics intros
• Mouse and keyboard commands