Italy Pictures Cont

Here are some more pictures from Italy. For the whole collection check out Dan's profile. Sorry it has taken so long to update the blog, the computer we were traveling with had some technical issues and we weren't able to get anything up.

Italy!

We rode the train through the alps and arrived at Florence train station where we hitched a ride on a bus up into the northern hills of Florence. We got off the bus and the only thing the directions to our hostel said was to walk up the hill about 10 minutes. I think by hill they meant mountain, but when we arrived at the top of the hill we came to a beautiful Italian villa in the hills with an amazing view of Florence. Actually this was no villa, is was a hospital then a monastery which could very well mean that it was haunted but this place was beautiful and medieval looking so we didn’t care. The only other guests were a group of Belgium school girls and some more aussies. We were pretty sure that these girl were around the age of 15 but I think to attract our attention they puffed on cigarettes as they gave us sharp winks, silly girls everyone knows winks are unattractive. The hosts of the hostel severed us dinner in the garden and we had one of the most relaxing evenings of our trip in the garden talking to the aussies and sipping on wine.

The relaxation continueed the next day as we all got up a little late and walked down to the town that our hostel was near to pick up some wine, cheese and meat to enjoy back at the hostel. Here we saw for the first time the PDA that Italians are known for as a boy and girl who were with a group of friends began shamelessly making out in the middle of the checkout line. We brought our purchases back to the hostel and enjoyed them while discussing the discrepancies between American’s and Aussies. Ever since we have got here to try and get anyone to fake and American accent and apparently this is a stupid question because I only get blank stares in response. I don’t know why this is such a difficult question. To Pat and my delight we also learned about some new Mcdonald’s terminology. The first is a McFu**, this is a Big Mac which has one of the hamburger patties replaced with a chicken patty, yum. For those of you on the, “ I want to be as American as possible” diet, the Mc Gangbang is for you! This wonder of a sandwich is a double quarter pounder with, you guessed it, a MCchicken in between the two patties. We have honestly missed McDonald’s here in a way that we were not expecting. IN Europe McDonalds is slightly high class. You want a double cheeseburger in the US? You will likely fork out around $1.20 or roughly one euro. How much in Europe? 3.50 euro. The one euro menu which exists in select locations only has single cheeseburger. Hey you want ketchup with your fries? That’s 20 euro cents per package. There are some upsides however, the ketchup comes in dip-able containers which I have always thought is far superior to the ketchup packet while both are inferior to the pump and cup. In addition the McDonald’s are all huge and nice so they have been our safe havens while waiting for long periods of time at train stations.

We ate dinner at the hostel again, which was again wonderful. It is difficult to explain how wonderful this place is, so I attached a video to give everyone a glimpse of this slice of heaven.

The next morning we took our sweet time leaving this wonderful hostel and headed back to Florence to catch another bus to our next hostel which was located approximately 40 km away from Florence. We checked into our hostel and walked down a path in the Tuscan and more specifically Chianti country side. This was wine country, everywhere you looked you saw rolling hills of grape vines. We made it to an old castle, which just happened to be having a medieval festival. For all the ladies who have seen Under the Tuscan Sun, we saw what I can only describe as flag throwing? I think Lauren Day shed a tear of joy at this sight. We then looked around the town some more and stopped into a restaurant overlooking the Tuscan hills. Lauren and I looked around and everyone speaking Italian was eating pizza so naturally Lauren Day and I got huge pizzas. Pat got a miniscule serving of pasta, he also may have shed a tear at this bad, but delicious, deal. We also got a bottle of water for the first time in Europe. Now in the US you expect to get a glass of ice water just for sitting down at a restaurant. Not in Europe you have to pay for that stuff, you want it cold? Extra 50 euro cents. Even though we were upset with having to purchase this, we thought we had not had such good water in our whole lives. In Europe they also refuse to serve you anything cold, its extra, so cold water was incredibly delicious. We headed back to the hostel for some rest. There we talked to the hostel manager who said he would tell us what he thought we should do some wine tasting and he would tell us where to go in the morning. We arose to the hostel manager being gone, he would not return till 4 pm. With no plans, we decided we would walk aimlessly and we ran into some other people staying in the hostel who happened to be from Mercer Island in Seattle. One of the girls had been living in Italy the past semester so was nearly fluent in Italian and helped find our way to a nice little Italian restaurant in another town. After our delicious lunch we decided to take a bus back into Florence to try and go to the annual gelatto festival. We took a bus into town and found the area where the Gelatto festival was suppose to be but the festival had closed down a few hours prior to our arrival so we decided to get some of the delicious Italian ice cream at a store close by. Florence is a beautiful city, like all European cities, and we eventually made our way back to the hostel to sip on some tequila sunrises.

The next day we moved to our hostel that was located in the heart of Florence. This hostel was a carnival, it had a pool, dance club and an amazing terrace which you can see in some of the pictures. We dropped off our bags and made our way to the market where we found great deals on ties, pashminas and leather goods. To my delight the vendor pulled the old calculator trick to attempt to convince us that he was in fact giving us a good deal. Of course, we were the wiser group of bargainers and I snatched that calculator from him to do a little math of my own. Fighting fire with fire, we offered up our best deals via calculator, convincing him to cut us some serious deals- we will have a few happy friends. We went back to the hotel room where we talked to a couple of our roommates, Patricia and PJ. PJ is a good old southern boy, (well man, he’s 30) who agreed to go on this trip with Patricia (Trish) because her friend bailed on her last minute and by last minute I mean PJ only had to pay $150 to change the name on airline ticket AND the eurorail pass, so essentially free trip to Europe. Trish is an Uhhmerican, in all the wrong places. We all decided to go to dinner at a place the hostel recommended, problem was this place only served booze and potato chips, clearly we exude an image of tourists looking for some fine Italian dining. After dinner we went back to the place who provided little in the way of food, but plenty in the way of euro shots. We went home because Lauren Day was super sleepy, I woke up with my shorts ripped down and Pat was unable to utilize the breakfast buffet. Yes, you heard right, Pat did not stuff his face at a breakfast buffet.

The following day we toured around Florence with a couple more of our roommates. We went to Brunelleschi’s dome, which was enormous. It was the Machiavelli family who wanted its construction, pretty much because they wanted to have a dome that was bigger than another family’s dome. Obviously it paid off because I can recall the Machiavelli’s and not the other family who put up a little dome. It of course, in European fashion, was being worked on. Scaffolding on great buildings is a constant in Europe. We chose not to climb up the dome because it was 8 euro to climb up some stairs, but the dome was none the less spectacular. We went by the museum that the David is located in but it was like 15 euro so of course we are not going to pay to see a big rock, we just went and saw a replica of the David in its original location. The David is absolutely enormous and it’s amazing to think Michelangelo carved the entire thing from the head down and was able to keep the proportions of the body correct the entire way down. We actually passed what was supposed to be an “American Dinner” while passing through the streets of Florence. In the window on display there was, hotsauce, ranch dressing, maple syrup and Patron, apparently theses 4 items sum up America. Patron by the way means Boss, like mob Boss in Portuguese. We went with our group to grab some lunch then went back to the hostel to hang out for a bit. While we were enjoying some wine and conversation we noticed that the pub crawl had a free buffet. While the pub crawl was not of particular interest to us, the food was, so Pat and Lauren walked over to the table and sheepishly grabbed a couple pieces of Bruchetta, which is incredible in Italy. I was a bit more hungry than that and went over and began to shovel as much food as possible into my mouth. A employee came over and asked if I was on the bar crawl and I am no liar so of course I said no and continued to eat. The employee said he didn’t think I am allowed to have the food, I asked him to make sure that it wasn’t ok because no one else was going to eat the food. He agreed to go call downstairs and at this moment all three of us began to munch on this delicious Italian food. Turns out we are not allowed to have the food, they resell it to customers at the restaurant, I think we did everyone a favor. We finally met up with Dawn and Avril again and enjoyed a delicious authentic Italian meal with our good friends.

The following day we made our way to Cinque Terre National Park. Cinque Terre is a grouping of 5 small Italian towns that are located on the western coast of Italy. All of the towns are connected by trains and walking paths. Some of the paths are hardcore hiking trails straight up and down the mountain side, some are more leisurely. This area was hands down the most beautiful we have seen thus far, the views are spectacular and the water was so incredibly blue. We wished we could have stayed another day just to relax on the beaches of some of the towns but we did enjoy the 5 hour hike between towns and took hundreds of pictures. We enjoyed some sea food in local restaurant, for those of you who know of my allergy, I did NOT throw up. We then went to the only bar in our town and got some gelatto and drinks. We felt very old, this was a hot spot for under 21 year old college kids. Also Pat and I agreed that the caliber of IU girls is far superior to anywhere in the world. To be honest we have not been impressed by the women that we have seen backpacking, I miss IU. We then ran into, you guessed it, more aussies who invited us down to a rock outcropping where we sipped on a drink before we headed to bed. Lauren Day went to bed early.

The following day we made our trek to Rome, which according to many visitors, is busy, crowded, dirty, and expensive. We chose to stay in a camp ground that was outside the city because it was cheap(11 euro a night as opposed to 33) and because it was well reviewed. One review of the place said that you were essentially living in a shed, which Pat and I were while Lauren Day relaxed in her private room with bathroom attached. The place was sort of like a low budget resort, it had a pool, dorms, restaurant and RV parking, the whole package. This place housed retirees who were RVing through Europe, who knew anyone outside America thought this was a good idea, and a ton of 15 year olds who came to the bar to drink. I have never seen kids try to look so cool as they slammed down sweet sangria and Bacardi premixed drinks. We turned in because we were about to have a really long day in Rome.

Our Frommer’s guide book said Rome was not built in a day and so we wouldn’t be able to see it in a day either. Well Frommer- we did it. We started our day off however on the completely wrong foot. Of course, I had lost my metro ticket so I was going to have to buy a new one at the station, goodbye 4 euro. We got to the train station where I bought my ticket and we got on the above ground metro into town and we got off the train to be greeted to be greeted by some Sad little Italian men. We showed them our tickets and they let Lauren Day and Pat pass, I however had not had my ticket validated because our little train station did not have a gate to go through to have your ticket validated, instead there was a machine located on the train somewhere. Showing absolutely no discretion these little man, looked at my ticket which was marked as being purchased less than 30 minutes earlier and told me because I had not had it validated I owed them 50 euro. Funny thing is Pat and Lauren’s tickets were not valid either because the 24 hour pass in Rome only lasts till 24 oclock( military time) and they had bought their tickets the other day. Rome sucks, these men were clearly trying o catch tourists unfamiliar with their system. Let me buy another ticket, take my ticket, 50 euro’s is in no way equivalent to such an honest mistake. Rome sucks. We then got on the underground metro, where to say the least I was not happy to have just given away more than my whole days budget for the day. Rome decides to add insult to injury as once on board the train a little kid playing the accordion parks himself within 2 feet of us. Rome sucks.

We eventually get off at the stop located near the Vatican City and we quickly hop into line for the Vatican Museum. The line is approximately an hour and half long and we eventually get into the treasure chest of Catholicism. We decided not to have a guided tour because we were being pestered by advertisers the entire time we were in line but I would recommend one. There is simply so much art and history in this place and explanation are often needed. We managed to scheme our way into following tour guides as they described the history of many of the pieces. It was interesting to see all of the stuff the museum had “bought” aka stole. There was a huge rooms of Egyptian art and sarcophaguses and they even had the tomb and body of Amanhotep from the Mummy on display. They also had thousands of Greek and Roman works of art which had more history involved with them then I am sure anyone would like to read about. We also saw the famous fresco of the School of Athens and of course the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel is a bit of an odd experience because no one is suppose to take pictures or speak while in the Chapel. Of course I took pictures because there is no reason our followers should not get a glimpse of this amazing work. The mood is sort of ruined however because many people are talking and to subdue this the Swiss guard or rent-a- cops at the chapel think the best solution is to yell “No photos! Silencio! No Pictures!” the entire time you are in the chapel. In addition there is a recording that comes on every two minutes telling everyone to not take pictures and to be quiet. No exactly effective, everyone is taking pictures and talking about how annoying it is that these guys keep telling everyone to be quiet. Oh Rome. Seriously though the work is amazing and ridiculously intricate, sadly the few images I was able to grab of it will not do it justice. We moved on to the next section which was modern religious art and I don’t think I have seen a group of people breeze through an art gallery so quickly.

We moved onto St. Peter’s square which smack dab in the middle of it there was a giant Egyptian Obelisk with a giant gold cross strapped to the top cross symbolizing the triumph of Christianity over Paganism. Seriously? After the cold war did we take a bunch of the soviet’s communist statues and put American flags, Bald eagle and Jeff Gordan 24’s all over them? We continued on into the tombs of the popes which was interesting as some popes clearly got better tombs than others, John Paul’s tomb had a large group of pilgrim’s around it which was fairly moving. There was even a sacred area which I really wanted to take a picture of but I think the Swiss Guard knew of my intentions and shooed me away, the room was seriously one of the coolest things I have ever seen. We continued on to St. Peter’s Basilica, you think rappers have bling? Check this place out! Seriously one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever been inside. Its massiveness dwarfs anyone who is inside. Michelangelo’s famous Pieta sculpture of Mary holding Jesus is there behind bullet proof glass because some guy thought he was Jesus and started smashing the sculpture with a hammer. The story goes that people actually picked up the pieces that he managed to knock off before being apprehended. The Church got them back by saying anyone who kept them would be eternally damned, it was a quite effective strategy, they got all the pieces back. Another cool thing about the place is that nothing is actually painted in the basilica it is all mosaics of marble and precious stones, I can’t imagine how long this could have taken, check out the pictures this place is huge. They also had the bodies of St. Peter and another pope in the Basilica as a demonstration of how Saints don’t decompose. I think people were catching on to the fact the bodies are definitely not looking to fresh so one of the bodies is covered in Bronze. Overall the Vatican was quite a site to see, though a tad bit ridiculous in its splendor.

We then made our way to the Trevi Fountain in the heart of Rome where we threw in a couple coins and made some wishes. Lauren Day wished for something that seemed pretty serious, I just think it was more gelato, and Pat wished for Meat. We then went to the Coliseum where we ponied up for the guided tour. The coliseum is pretty interesting in that nearly 700,000 people and nearly 3 times as animals died there in the name of entertainment during its 400 years of operation. What is also interesting is that it was only a place of entertainment for a short part of its existence, it was actually largely abandoned for much of its life. All that remains of it is its brick in mortar skeleton, the marble which used to cover the whole thing went to building churches and the Vatican. The Vatican actually took 4 of the primary pillars of the coliseum and put them in St. Peters square. We also went to the emperors palace on the hill where Romeulus founded the Roman empire according to Roman history. This sprawling palace shared a similar fate to the coliseum which was also stripped of its marble for use in the Vatican and surrounding churches.

We returned home for another fine dinner and turned in early because we were going to have to get up at 5:45 in order to make our train from Rome to Brinidisi. While Rome may not have been our favorite place, the Tiber Hostel and the man who unexpectedly offered to drive us the 2km from the hostel to the train station at 6:00AM may have warmed us to the city a bit. From Brindisi we will take a ferry to Patras in Greece where we will catch a train to Athens where we will catch another boat to Santorini. The majority of places in Italy, along with many other European countries charge you to use the restroom. Pat actually paid to use a restroom, 1 euro the priciest we have seen here. Rome sucks. Wish us luck!

Munich

We arrived in Munich and checked into our hostel right around dinner time. This hostel was a palace; it has super fast internet (hence the ability to upload pictures), a huge private bathroom that had a dry area to change and sunlight, and really nice rooms. We left our hostel to check out what is considered the most beautiful city in Germany. To the eyes of a car lover this place was amazing. Being home to the head quarters of both BMW and Mercedes leaves a city with Mercedes taxis and BMW’s and Mercedes of every sort racing around every street corner.

We met our Lisbon friend Chris who was from Munich, and he showed us around the actually quite good looking city. We walked down some wide streets and saw a beautiful looking government building which our tour guide said was sort of a landmark because it was where they decided which minority groups should be removed from the German population before and during WWII. Yes, this was where the Nazi party decided that the Holocaust would be a good idea. We continued on and saw some impressive churches and the world’s largest Ko0-Koo clock which we never got to see in action. Our tour guide admitted that the clock was actually extremely annoying to anyone who lived in Munich but Japanese tourists loved it, so they keep it around. This intricate building in the main square is the only structure that came out unscathed during the bombings in WWII. We also passed by the grand palace, which ironically was also unfinished and covered in scaffolding. Europe is like a girl with giant sunglasses, they assume by covering up something you will assume that it’s pretty underneath. Seriously finish something Europe. This city is beautiful as you can see from the photos.

Our tour guide then took us to the famous Hofbrauhaus, which has the famous bier garden and only sells beer in liter mugs. These things were simply enormous and the beer was incredible. German’s take beer very seriously, along with their pretzels and sausages. The traditional german breakfast is white sausage, pretzels and beer. Yes, we joke about breakfast beers in the US, but a German would not get the joke. Everywhere you go Germans are drinking, at a minimum, half liter beers. Beer is cheaper than soft drinks and they even serve it in McDonalds. Also they have no idea what a light beer is and all beers are full flavor.

While our time in Munich was short it was also a good experience, we are now heading to the Tuscan hills near Florence to see what all this fuss is about Italian food and leather goods.

Amster Continued

Given the huge number of pics we have from Amsterdam I have made a second post to put them up since i can only load 5 pics per post

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a wonderland. We arrived in Amsterdam and found our hostel which we actually had not reserved for that night , so we walked down the street to another hostel which offered a private room for a pretty good price. The hostels in Amsterdam are quite different because where most have a common room to hangout on the ground floor, this hostel had a straight up Irish Pub. We grabbed a few Heinekens, which is brewed in Amsterdam and actually doesn’t taste terrible and headed out to a local coffee to grab a cup of joe. We then went around Amsterdam to check out the night life. Amsterdam has something for every desire. They have streets full of stores which sell kebabs, ice cream, pastries, pizza, hamburgers( out of vending machine), Chinese, Indian, Dutch and any other possible type of food you could possibly want, except for Mexican food which was strangely missing. The food was incredible and looked like something straight from the states. I am telling you that the locals would be the fattest people in the world except for the fact that they bike everywhere, which I will explain later. Pat continued his quest for a good deal on a kebab. Every store we walked to he would walk in check out the price walk out. After about 4 stops he walked into a store came out and said , “Well this is by far the lowest price I’ve found, but let’s keep looking” . When we eventually found a kebab that was to Pats liking he chowed down and spilled a good portion on his shirt.

We made our way through the Red Light District, which is actually amazing to see as it is straight up legal prostitution, so watching girls legitimately trying to advertise themselves is pretty hilarious. What you don’t realize is that many of the people in the district are actually there to find a love for 15 minutes( 50 Euro for a basic, prices increase with additional bells and whistles. Average number of clients in a night is roughly 20). We really noticed this when we were walking through fairly later at night and we noticed that out of the 400 or so people in the alley Lauren Day was the only girl All of the girls are independent entrepreneurs who rent out the windows for various amounts depending on location and time of day. They have a union and don’t answer to a strong pimp hand. It was funny to see guys bargaining with girls to get a better price and we even saw a dad taking his son around for what I assume was a 15^th birthday present. There was all shapes and sizes of women and men who dressed like women in one area we stumbled into. What is pretty interesting I thought was that there was a gigantic church right in the middle of the Red Light District, you would imagine the purpose of this church was to try and help the prostitutes and visitors to find salvation and stay away from all the sinning going on in Amsterdam. Nope, this church sold indulgences to patrons of the local area and therefore was extremely well funded and quite beautiful. Pat wanted to try his hand at bargaining with one of these ladies of the night but said, “ I know I would get a really good deal and I would feel bad when it was time to walk away.”

The next day we took a 4 hour walking tour of Amsterdam which is seriously one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in the world. The central palace, which is supposed to be extremely beautiful was under construction and covered in scaffolding. I am beginning to this that nothing is ever complete in Europe or nothing is as pretty as they say it is, so they cover it up to save face. Lauren Day loved the urban planning of the city and continued to take numerous pictures of streets, green places, and the canals of boaters. The houses are taxed based on width, so naturally everyone has extremely narrow houses. This means that they have ridiculously steep and narrow stairs, knowing this Lauren Day decided to read a map while walking up the stairs and fell on her face- she is clearly intelligent. Also, all of the houses have hooks that the top of them so you may hoist items to which ever floor you need to get them to, instead of shoving them through your narrow stairways. To solve the problem of having the load smashing into your windows if it go to close, all of the houses are built leaning forward as to save the windows. It was until several decades later that people decided that maybe they should just place the hook a little farther out and save themselves from the difficult task of building a forward leaning house. In addition the houses are all built on a swamp land so many of them are leaning in odd directions as certain parts sank over time. In addition to the beautiful houses there are a number of canals which run through the city where you find a bunch of boats running through full of happy tourists and locals. What also adds to the feel of Amsterdam are their streets. You are never really sure if you are on a road or a sidewalk because there are so few cars in many of the areas because EVERYONE rides a bike. It looks like an add for cutting down on your carbon footprint; you find people in suits, women in dresses, and bums alike all riding these old as hell looking bikes in huge streams in the same way you see people driving cars in the US. Fun fact: there are 400,000 residents of Amsterdam, 300,000 tourists give or take and 1,000,000 bikes at any given time. There is no trouble finding a bike. I brings you back to Bloomington having to dodge bikers going from place to place. The difference is that the bikers in Amsterdam aren’t the self righteous pricks from Bloomington who think they have right of way under every possible circumstance and are more than willing to run of your foot, Amsterdam bikers are extremely nice and ring their little bells to get you out of the way and they politely say excuse me! In addition there are trams and mopeds constantly going up and down the streets and somehow everyone manages to not get hit. It looks incredibly dangerous, but somehow everyone is safe.

After the walking tour we met up some friends from Lisbon and went to a bar where a pub crawl was suppose to begin. On the way we picked up some more Kebobs and Pat again spilled a large portion of the kebab on his shirt which he had spilled on previously. The crawl was suppose to last 6 clubs we made it to three. At one of the bars I was talking to a local whose drink was getting low and I offered to refill it and asked what it was. “Gnagerghashl” she said, obviously I was confused, I asked her to repeat, “Hambgrashel”. I quickly turned to the bartender and asked for two of whatever she was having, it was wine, yes I bought wine at a bar. Language barriers are cruel. It was another fun night of us showing up the other dancers. Pat and I got some food on the way home from a fastfood place called Feedo. This place takes the grossness of fast food to the next level. The do not take your order, you simply walk up to a wall of little plastic boxes, put in a couple euro, pull down the door and pull out your sandwich which may have been sitting in this greasy vending machine for anywhere between 2 minutes to 48 hours, yum.

The next day we set out to go to the Ann Frank museum and Vincent Van Gough museums. The Ann Frank museum was incredible. We literally went into the house where her and her family hid out during the Nazis occupation of Amsterdam. We then went to the Van Gough museum which was also interesting though expensive. We saw a number of cool self portraits, a few famous works and we learned a lot about Vinny. It was a little disappointing for Lauren and Avril as their favorite Van Gogh piece, the Bedroom, was being restored. Looks like yet another thing here is not yet finished. Being a artist he of course hated his parents and being a genius he of course hated everything he had to do in art school. Of course, even though he is now incredibly world renown, his works sells for millions of dollars and they were selling cardboard boxes in the gift shop with his work on it for 30 bucks, he considered himself a failure and shot himself in the chest. After the museum we had worked up quite a hunger and went to a burger joint a guy on our train from Barcelona to Paris recommended, BurgerMeester. Literally the best burger many of us had had. Check out the picks it was ridiculous. My cheese had truffles in it, enough said. We then went back to the hostel and since we had an early train in the morning we decided to just head to a coffee shop and chill out for a bit. We took our friends through the red light district again and got ourselves some more Kabobs. What do you think happened next? Yes, Pat spilled approximately a Kilroys shot glass worth of sauce and greasy meat on his Bib. This was the shirt he was wearing out every night. This is exactly according to plan however as his original plan was to look like a bum in order to deter pick pocketers, mission accomplished.

We crashed in our 18 person hostel room, which contained only sweaty naked fat men whom smelled like sweaty boat shoes in the worst way possible. These stinkers would attempt to negate their smelliness with body sprays adding to the stench of our courters. Needless to say we let Lauren Day, the only girl, sleep in the bed hidden around the corner.

After a bit of debate we have decided to cut out Prague and Copenhagen in favor of allowing us to chill in places for longer periods of time, and we are now able to add the Greek Island of Santorini to our schedule upon multiple recommendations. So now we are heading to Munich and Lauren is looking forward to finding some good Bratwurst.(German Sausage)

BARCELONA!!!!!!

After what may be described as the most uncomfortable train ride ever we arrived in Madrid, Spain to drop off my bags for my stay in Spain after our trip. We got off of the train and both Pat and I tried to figure out which was north. Apparently our Spanish was terrible because all we got were directions to the metro station. I called my head hunter company to make sure it was ok for me to drop off my bags at the language school I would be attending and of course no one picked up. I then called the school who had no idea what I that I was planning on leaving my bags at the school and they didn’t think there was any room for my bags. We decided to find our way to the school which at this point I was half expecting to be a complete scam. We entered the actually quite beautiful school and talked with the secretary and then head of the school who eventually agreed to let me leave my giant duffle bag in a broom closet, crisis averted. We then boarded our high speed train to Barcelona.

We arrived in Barcelona tired as hell from our horrible train ride and crashed for a couple hours in our hostel. We then got up and tried to get our bearings and went to a local grocery to get some bread and cheese for dinner, where we ran into an American girl. It was at this point we realized our hostel was not near any of the major tourist attractions when she said, “What are you guys doing here? Is there even a hostel around here?”. We then realized that we were in the middle of a Barcelona apartment suburb and headed to bed for the night.

The next morning we got to got on the metro and two trains and twenty minutes later we were at the Parc de Guall. We walked to the park which was designed y the famous artist Gaudi, who like Seal, is apparently famous enough to only have one name. The park was pretty cool, apparently Guadi designed it to be a utopian neighborhood and has a beautiful entrance and some interesting sloping roads. While the entrance area was beautiful, there were only two houses ever built in the area. So essentially the park is an unfinished sub development.

We then went to a little store to find Aaron Day a Barcelona soccer jersey (Messi). At one store we went to the price tag said forty euros. The shop keeper clearly spoke English but used a calculator to instantly display that he would mark down the price to thirty five euros. We decided that we kind of stared at each other saying that we are not so sure about this price. The shopkeeper recalculated the price of the jersey, aka typing into the calculator thirty euro. We were still not impressed but since Pat was Chinese he gave us yet another discount, now the jersey was 25 euros. We decided to look around more and went down one more store, which actually was the same store. The bargaining again started at forty euros and he gave us a discount down to thirty euros even though this new shop keeper claiming that the price for the jersey was fixed by the Barcelona Football Club. We then told him that the top half of the store offered us twenty five euro but because this jersey had Messi on the back, the other jersey did too, it cost and extra five euro. We then asked why he could give us a ten euros off in the first place and he said it was because they didn’t have to pay tax on the jersey. He also pulled demonstrated these complex calculations by displaying 40- 10 on a calculator. Clearly these guys both graduated from the same ivy league business school. So the shopkeeper was willing to perform tax evasion to get us to buy the jersey AND the tax on this jersey was 25%. BS whatever, Lauren loves Aaron and bought the jersey.

We then made our way to Las Ramblas which is a huge strip near the marina. Here we found a huge variety of stores which included an unreasonable number of outdoor pet shops which sold birds of every type, rodents, rabbits, lizard and turtles. We also went into an awesome open air market which smelled like heaven, except for the meat section which smelled like rotten flesh and stinky fish. After leaving the market we made our way down the rest of the street which had tons of street vendors and outside restaurant. We eventually made it to the marina and then beach where we sat and had glass of Barcelona’s famous sangria and were entertained by a man in short shorts singing and selling donuts balanced on his head while he banged on a triangle, he looked like the British guy in the holiday, Lauren was in love again with his tan bod and tight swim trunks. We made our way back to the hostel after this fun filled day and met up with a few aussies , a kiwi(new Zealander) and a couple frenchies (they enforced all stereotypes about French people). Actually the frenchies were pretty nice, just the girl sucked. She would speak in French to her friends and roll her eyes when she had to speak English. Sorry for Partying. We talked to the aussies about all the bars that people had recommended around Barcelona, which were recommended for great deals on drinks and great atmospheres. We even were informed about a couple secret bars where you had to knock on the door in order for them to let you in. Also a guy who doesn’t go to bars or clubs knew of one on the beach that was expensive but had no cover. A group of twenty of us hopped on the metro and headed straight to the beach clubs ignoring all prior advice. 30 minutes later we came out of the metro to be greeted by a couple shady guys in Fedora’s and vests, classic “I am full of shit but this outfit will make people trust me” outfit. They told us they could get us into the best club for free and handed us all passes. We begin to walk to the area where the bars are and we notice everyone is passing out these tickets, so suspicion rises and when we get to the club they say they cannot get us in, but they can get us into another club, classic mix up apparently. We being to file into this club and they stop Pat they say something in Catalan, but when someone is trying to say no in any language you usually understand. Pat had arrived in shorts and flip flops, an apparent no no at this high class club. We beg with the bouncer to just let us in, after all we did bring about 20 patrons to his club all of whom are properly dressed. He insists on not letting Pat stay. The French girl says, in French, to her friends this would not have happened if everyone was French reminding us all that French people instinctually know where there will be dress code . Pat and decide we will run back to the hostel being sure that we are able to make it back before we the last metro leaves for the dance club area or else we have at a minimum of a 2 hour walk to the club, in a city where we have no idea. We run back as street performers change their music to go along with our sprint from metro to metro. We get on literally the second to last or last train to the bar area, Pat now donned in black Good-Will dress pants and 8 year old mall walking shoes which is somehow more classy than banana republic shorts and flip flops. We make it into the club which is something out of a movie and begin to get down. Lauren Day, Pat and I throw down some solid dance moves on the dance floor and quickly begin to realize that American’s are fantastic dancers. We look around and it really looks like everyone is just standing and talking on the dance floor to each other while loud techno remixes of American songs muffle out their conversations. Lauren Day found another love, this one was physical therapist from New Zealand, he looked a little like Turkish from Snatch, but he was not nearly as good a dancer as I imagine Turkish would be, Lauren was able to look past this shortcoming however. The French girl got mad because “Americans have fun over nothEEEng” which was meant to be an insult I suspect but I am still trying to determine what she was getting at. One of the Auzzies from Melbourne who was fanstic at the shuffle gave us a quick lesson and I guarantee that both pat and I are more proficient after 10 minutes of practice than either Gunnar or Kyle, one because they are too soft and uncoordinated for such complicated moves, two we’ve got skills. Boo Ya The club eventually closes and we check our watches, it is 3:30, we were planning on staying out till 5 which is when the metro opens. We decide to buy a few beers off of some guys selling them directly out of the grocery bags which they took them out of the grocery store in, plopped down on the beach and waited for the metro to reopen. The French guy decides to go skinny dipping alone and we eventually make it back to our hostel at around 6 am and take a well needed rest.

The next morning we got up and headed to the train station to get our tickets out of Barcelona . We are surprised to find out that even with our eurorail pass our train “reservation” fee was 71 euro or around 100 bucks which is marked down from 120 euro. Happy that we ponied up for the eurorail discount card we bought our tickets and went across the street to a restraint to try the local delicacy, Payaya . We are seated and they bring us a couple small alcoholic drinks. After being charged for what we thought was free bread in Lisbon we were suspicious. At first we said we were not going to drink it but they sat there for so long (3 minutes) that Lauren Day began trying to come up with excuses for why we should drink it, “It has ice! Its our last meal in Barcelona!”. We ask the waiter about the drinks, they are free. Still suspicious we cautiously sip the drinks. They then bring out a plate of French fries and dipping sauce. There is no way this is free. We stare at the fries and ask a waiter if they are free. He says yes but he didn’t seem to speak English very well. We eat a couple more fries as if we are stealing them and decide they cannot be free and try to smooth out the sauce and spread out the fries to make it appear we hadn’t been fooled. We ask the manager if they are free and he says yes, they come with the Pallaya. Why are we such suspicious and cheap tourists? We get the Pallaya, which tastes like bland Jumbalya and then head out to see the rest of Barcelona. Lauren Day said the pallaya left a lot to be desired compared to some she had before –and we all agreed. Should have packed some hot sauce.

We walk through some more Las Ramblas and then head to the Gothic District which has buildings that actually have survived from the Roman era. We saw a Cathedral that was designed by Gaudi which was started in 1883 and guess what? It is still not done! The current estimate is that it will be done by 2020. Imagine that proposal by Gaudi, “ Guys this will be an awesome Church, unfortunately neither you or your children will likely see it as my design will take over a century to complete”. Whatever Barcelona. Lauren Day loved the layout of the city and its narrow streets. We walked around the gothic district some more and we realized how cheap we were as none of us were willing to pay the 2 euro to get into any of the museums in the area as we just took pictures from outside or through the windows. We went back to the hostel and got our stuff together to headed to the train station to get on the night train to Paris.

Last Day in Lisbon

Today we woke up late yet again and headed out with our Australian friends where we got some pizza which was fantastic. We then made attempt number two to make it out to the Aquarium, or oceanarium as they call it. This time we took the subway which was wicked fast and a far better choice than the bus. The area surrounding the aquarium was awesome(see image) and the aquarium was awesome. The Aquarium is the 2^nd biggest in Europe and had a bunch of cool fish and sea creatures on display. The middle of the whole place had a enormous main aquarium that had everything from manta rays to maco sharks. Lauren Day was captivated by the sea otter which did nothing more than look incredibly adorable as it tried to take a nap.

We then went to dinner with a couple of friends from the hostel. We went to what may be the only asian buffet in Portugal. They had dishes from Japan, Korea, China, India and Thailand and it was delicious. We then tried to explain what State Fair food was to our foreign friends which was absolutely hilarious. Foreigners already think Americans are glutunous pigs, but when you attempt to describe what an elephant ear, corn dog or deep fried twinkie is, you really feel like a fat ass. Think about it.

Now we are currently sitting in a train to Madrid where I will drop off my stuff for when I take up residence there and then we are off to Barcelona!