A smattering of photos from Madrid-Sevilla-Granada-Barcelona-Paris.

The main train station of Madrid has a miniature rainforest inside. There were turtles.


Busking flamenco dancer by the lake in Park Retiro.


Nora and I frolick in Park Retiro, like the fairies we truly are at heart.




Please note the daisy crown.


Sevilla was full of these beautiful purple flowers.


Horse-drawn carriages carried all the most sophisticated flamenco dancers to Fería.


The gardens of the Real Alcázar were beautiful and full of knobby trees.


View of the Alhambra and the city of Granada, from the porch of our guesthouse.


It was cold and rainy when we went to the Alhambra gardens, so we wrapped ourselves up to face the wind.




Quality snuggle-time with the guesthouse puppy, a baby boxer who peed and pooped all over the place, and liked playing with my dangly earrings.




Interior of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.




Jane is a flower princess.


La Boquería market, in Barcelona.


Cathédrale Notre Dame!


View of Paris from the top of Montmartre. The thing sticking up on the far right (right by the greenery) is the Eiffel Tower.


I am kissing the lipstick-smeared grave of Oscar Wilde. It's a tradition.

For those of you who are wondering when I'm coming back:

21 June. For sure. I'll be arriving in Detroit late that night and driving back to Grand Rapids with my dad, so I won't be seeing any of you Ann Arbor folks right away -- but you should expect a visit from me sometime within a week or two of my arrival. Offers of places to crash are quite welcome.

xoxo.

I know you are, but what am I?

Looks like I've made London angry by all the nasty things I've said behind his back, and he's out to prove me wrong. I have never before seen such consistent good weather in London, and have not in a long time spent so much time wandering around out of doors, and reading in sunny parks and squares, as I have the past five days. Today the temperature got into the 80s. Lavender and deep purple lilacs are to be seen everywhere. While my family was here, we had to keep the heater going all night; now, I leave both my windows open all night.

In short, London is trying to prove that he has just as much sunshine and just as many flowers as Spain does -- though, despite the awful, cold weather I had while in Spain, I can't say I'm thoroughly convinced by this sudden show of gallantry. He's doing his best, though.

And yes, London is male. Just because.

A visit from the family.

As you know, my mother, step-dad, sister and brother flew into London the morning of Thursday before last. We didn't do much Thursday, since everyone was exhausted from jetlag; I just met them at the airport and took them back to the caravan site where we were staying on the outskirts of London. Napping and delicious vegetables and rice for dinner (courtesy of my mom) were the order of the day.

Friday, we took the tube into central London, and I took everyone to see my dorm, after which we had a long walk along the Thames, to see Big Ben and the statue people. We saw Somerset House and the new Globe, ate some pasties, rode a double-decker bus, had some gelato, and rode the London Eye before heading back to the caravan for dinner. It was fun to see everyone's reactions to the things I've gotten so used to over the past 8 or so months.

Things were going pretty well, but if it's not one thing with my family, it's another, and this time my mom dislocated her knee while trying to jump a puddle on our way into town Saturday morning. An ambulance took her to a nearby hospital in the boondocks of London, and we spent much of the following days going to and from the hospital on long bus rides, and trying to figure out just how, exactly, my mom was going to fly back to Chicago with an economy seat, a full-length hard cast and a leg that needs to be constantly elevated.

My siblings and I did a little bit more sightseeing over the course of the trip; I took them through Green Park, past Buckingham Palace, through part of Hyde Park, souvenir shopping along Oxford street, through Picadilly Circus and Leicester Square (where we passed Susan Sarandon being interviewed for a movie premier), past Trafalgar Square, and to several pubs, where they tried jacket potatos, spotted dick with custard, and several pints of ale and/or cider. On a different day, we went to Borough Market and got some gourmet chocolates to take to my mom, saw Tower Bridge, and briefly toured St Paul's Cathedral.

My mom's time at the hospital was made more stressful by the nurses trying to prevent her from receiving visitors, but on the bright side, they served her delicious tea and biscuits every few hours. Finally, we got her back with us to the caravan last Thursday, and took her out to eat at a nearby pub, which was nice. We packed everything up that night, and got up early to take a taxi to the airport, where I left them in the care of a helpful airline disabilities employee, and lugged bags of leftover food and a heavy Red Cross wheelchair (which I will return next week) back to my dorm.

It was nice to see everyone, and weird to try to merge two parts of my life: my family, and my school life in London. But after all the stress, it's been nice to just relax at home for the past few days, catch up on mail (and Facebook), and read poetry (notably Anne Carson and Seamus Heaney) and watch movies (notably Miss Potter) at my leisure. Apparently, the flight back to Chicago went well, and the airport staff were very accomodating. Now, my mom and everyone else is safely back home, relaxing (I hope) and catching up on quality time with Niemann (our black cocker spaniel), who has been miserable in a boarding house this whole time. It's a shame that my family's first trip abroad (for my mom, sister and brother, at least, if not for my step-dad) had to be so stressful, but hopefully it will just be an incentive to be more careful next time -- and I'm determined that there will be a next time.