Roman Adventures

It is hard to believe that I am sitting here in an internet cafe in Rome!

Ruth and I had a fairly smooth trip to Rome from Barcelona and met up with the family at the baggage claim belt, which could not have worked out better. We are staying in a nice apartment close to the Vatican; it is nice to be able to cook some of our own meals for a change of pace.

On Sunday we had the grand tour of Rome. We got a guided tour around the Spanish steps, the Via Corso, the Trevi fountain, the Piazza Nouvona, the Pantheon, and lots of other piazzas and monuments. It was surreal to see random Roman columns on back streets next to medieval buildings. The Pantheon was also amazing, especially when one considers that it was built almost 2000 years ago and is still intact and lovely. It is very hot here, so we are also very thankful for the many fountains around the city that we can drink out of.

After our first real Italian meal at a little cafe on a backstreet, we toured Trajan's Forum, the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Mammertine Prison where supposedly Paul and Peter were jailed. The Colosseum was amazing, but also sobering. To think that this huge structure was built by the government to distract and amuse the public by making killing a spectator sport is quite horrifying.

Today we took it easy to help those suffering with jet lag, as well as to avoid heat stroke, since it was so hot. We toured St. Peters Basilica, which was stunning in all of its vast expanse and rich decorations. We overheard a mass while there, and the music followed us as we took an elevator up to the base of the dome, and then climbed the 320 steps to the top of the dome. The view of Rome was gorgeous, and worth the many stairs and small, winding passages that we took to get there.

Rome is as beautiful as I thought it would be, but hotter than I thought. It is a great city, and hopefully I will have more later. Ciao!

Barcelona: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Ruth and I are heading off to Rome to meet up with our family in just a few hours, so I wanted to finish off blogging about Spain. It´s hard to believe that the first leg of our trip is almost over!

Ruth and I enjoyed our day in Salamanca. We saw the the astronaut on the cathedral, meandered around the University, and spent more time on the Plaza. Then we were back to Madrid to catch our night train to Barcelona.

The night train was an experience, for sure. Ruth and I were on the top bunks, where it was about 4237890395 degrees. We did manage to sleep a little, but all the next day we felt the rocking of the train, even when we were wandering around Barcelona.

Barcelona is an interesting city. We got in really early in the morning, so we had a long day on Thursday to explore. We walked on the major shopping/tourist street, called the Ramblas, and managed to see about 100 living statues, a huge open market where you could buy whatever you wanted ever in life, two very naked men just kind of walking around, and a huge march in protest of the elimination of 150 jobs somewhere. (I´ll leave it to you all to determine what was good, bad, or ugly...) It was quite the happening place.



We ended up at the Mediterranean, at another monument to Columbus. We spent the afternoon at the Picasso Museum, which was very interesting, as it had many of his earlier works, and not many of his later works. It gave a very interesting glimpse into the evolution of his work over time, as well as some very traditional works that I wouldn´t usually associate with Picasso. We were close to the beach, so we went to dip our feet in the Mediterranean. Dipping our feet in was really all we did, since the beach was so crowded. We were also way too fully-clothed to be on the beach, since we were wearing our clothes. Most of the women on the beach weren´t even wearing tops, which was slightly unexpected. I think the North Shore spoils me, but I really like having more space on the beach, where you´re not sitting on top of your neighbor. Despite that, the sea was beautiful, cool, and refreshing.

Yesterday was a Gaudi-rific day, as we spent most of our day seeing the major Gaudi sights in Barcelona. We saw the Block of Discord, the Casa Mila, and the Sagrada Familia. The Sagrada Familia is a huge church that has been abuilding since the 1880s, and it is estimated that it won´t be finished for another 50 years. It is truly a work of massive proportions. The interior of the cathedral that is finish is very lovely and impressive. It has modern, clean lines that are based on things in nature. For example, the columns are modeled after tree trunks, and the stairways are modeled after the curly interior of sea shells. We got to go up in two of the towers at the top of the church, and the view of Barcelona was amazing. I really enjoy Gaudi´s architecture; it is so interesting and beautiful.

In the evening we went to Park Guell, which is a failed gated community that Gaudi designed. We got a little lost on our way there and ended up wandering in to a club for male senior citizens on accident. (That´s one thing about Barcelona- they speak Catalan, which is a related language to Spanish, but not close enough for us to be able to read signs or understand really at all. Hence, the detour into the males-only club...) We quickly realized our mistake and found our way to the park, which had very interested landscaping, the longest (and prettiest, with mosaics everywhere) park bench in the world, great views over Barcelona, a few houses by Gaudi, and the famous lizard fountain. It was a gorgeous park. I´ve decided that I´m going to build a house in the Gaudi style, because I just like it that much.


And thus, our adventures in Spain end. It´s hard to believe that it´s been only two weeks, because we´ve done so much. My time is up, so I´d better go. More later, from Rome!

The Journey to Salamanca and Home

So, with me being a such home-body and all, I´m definitely feeling a little homesick, despite Europe´s manifold charms. There have been two things that have reminded me of home and that have made it feel less far away. First, Ruth and I came across two paintings of St. Anthony´s Falls in the Thyssen art gallery, which made us stop and go, ¨Awwww.... Home!¨ Second, when we were on the train to Madrid from Toledo, we met a couple from Minnesota! The woman had been teaching in Morocco for a few years, and she and her husband were having a last voyage around Europe before heading home. It was so nice to have a conversation where we actually understood each other, and we even had the same accent! It´s funny how Minnesota has followed us to Spain.

In other news, we are in Salamanca, and it was a journey of somewhat epic proportions. We got up and out of our pension early this morning to head to the train station to make sure that we could get tickets, since trains have had a tendancy to fill up when we want to take them (and to escape the not-so-friendly eye of the pension owner, after the laundry incident). We got to the station, checked our big bags into lockers, since we´re just taking a little night trip to Salamanca, and then bought all of our tickets for the rest of Spain- to and from Salamanca, and then to Barcelona.

We spent our last few hours in Madrid wandering in the Puerta del Sol area and picnicking in the Retiro Park, which has a cute little man-made lake and great people-watching. We were a little late getting to our train to Salamanca, and, somehow in the frenzy of making the train, I lost our tickets. We have finally decided that there must have been a warp in the time-space continuum that caused them to mysteriously disappear, because I had the tickets in hand on our way down the stairs to the platform, but, by the time we were on the platform, they were gone. We searched like mad, tearing through all of our bags and pockets, but to no avail. We ended up having to reserve more tickets for a train that left over two hours later. We whiled away the time at the train station, only to have the train delayed several times. Finally, however, we got on our way to Salamanca.

The ride was very beautiful- up into the mountains, past some exciting wind farms, and then onto some plains that were very much like Nebraska, just with older buildings. When we left Madrid it was about 85 and sunny, and when we arrived in Salamanca it was about 55 and rainy. We weren´t quite prepared for the weather, so we got some University of Salamanca sweatshirts- practical souveniers. (I never thought that we´d be cold in Spain; I´ve always thought of it as a hot, dry place. However, since getting to Madrid, we´ve had more rain than sun, and definitely cooler temperatures than expected, with highs in the 60s often. Although it is nice to have escaped the heat, we definitely were not prepared for the cool weather. It´s not so cold that we feel like wearing fur-lined winter coats as we´ve seen some doing, but the sweatshirts are definitely appreciated.)

This evening we saw the Plaza Mayor, which is a beautiful plaza where the community gathers, had a nice supper (finally on Spain time- at 8:30), and then enjoyed a community orchestra concert on the plaza while the rain held off. Right now we´re in an internet cafe with a view over the Plaza, which is all lit up and lovely.


Tomorrow we explore Salamanca, and then we´re off to Barcelona for our last few days in Spain before meeting our family in Rome! I think I must sign off here. The internet cafe is a little interesting- not only do many of the keys not even have letters on them because they are so worn, but the screen itself is excessively, flamingly pink, and I am beginning a headache. Have a wonderful week, and thanks for tuning in!

Rainy Madrid and Sunny Toledo

Sorry for the abrupt end last time... Anyways, the Valley of the Fallen was amazing. The size alone was breath-taking, and the whole place portrayed the agony and pain of Spain´s Civil War, not to mention contained the grave of Franco. Besides almost getting pick-pocketed and watching a poor old couple get ripped off (which you can read about in Ruth´s blog), that was pretty much it for Saturday.

Yesterday it was still determined to rain, but we decided to brave it anyways and visit El Rastro, which is the largest flea market in Europe. We went, it started monsoon-like raining, so we left. I was wearing flip flops, which, being wet, were making very loud squeaking noises. Some French women came up behind us as we were walking back to the pension and started making fun of me and imitating the noise my shoes were making. As if that weren´t bad enough, I suddenly slipped on the wet granite sidewalk, and my flip flop broke beyond repair. Talk about wardrobe malfunction! We were in the middle of the government district with no shoe stores in sight, so I tried shuffling along, which did not work out so well. Finally we just tied a plastic bag around my foot and marched off down the streets. The other pedestrians looked at me somewhat askance, but I made it back to the pension, which was all that mattered.

The rest of yesterday was spent touring the art museums, which are free on Sunday. We saw the Guernica by Picasso, Las Meninas by Velasquez, and lots of other very famous and pretty paintings. We also experiences the frenzy surrounding a Real Madrid game, which involved women in their 50s emerging out of moving car windows to shake their Real Madrid scarves and scream cheers. When the team won, the celebrations were at least as crazy as when I was in Boston and the Red Sox won the World Series.

Today we were chewed out by the pension owner for doing our laundry in the sink in our room, which is apparently forbidden (whoops). We spent the rest of the day touring Toledo, which was very sunny and hot and charmingly medieval. Tomorrow we´re off for Salamanca. Hopefully we´ll get some pictures up soon, but we´ll have to see how things work. It´s a little tricky over here. Until next time!

Madrid Explorations

I have two addendums to my prior entry before anything else.

First, we did, get our bags actually last Monday, which I failed to mention. The arrival of the backpacks was cause for great rejoicing on all sides.

Second, I spelled Moors wrong in my last entry. Even though I had read about the Moors about a million times since coming to Spain, I just didn´t think about it. Please excuse this egregious error.

So, now we´ve been in Spain for a week- it´s hard to believe it´s only been a week, because so much has happened. We´ve had our ups and downs, but it´s been mondo fun.

Yesterday was our first day in Madrid. We took an early morning train to Madrid, and were off an exploring by noon. Our pension is right in the museum district, so we are less than five minutes from the Prado, the Thyssen, and the Reina Sofia (as well as the huge Retiro Park, which is gorgeous!). We visited the Thyssen, where they had a special exhibit on the paintings that Van Gogh did in his last couple of months before he killed himself. The paintings were beautiful, and it was interesting to have a window in to what he was thinking in those last few weeks.

After the museum we went on a walking tour of Madrid, visiting the Puerta del Sol, the Plaza Mayor, and finally the Palacio Real. Madrid is brimming with history, so there were monuments and statues everywhere. We even caught a peek of the ceremonies surrounding the moving of the city hall to new buildings, which was interesting. We toured the Royal Palace, which was beautifully decorated and had interesting collections of silver and clocks and such things that royals deem necessary to collect. We´re learning more and more about the history of Spain and the royal family, which is eye-opening and intriguing.

Today we took a day trip to El Escorial, which is an austere palace/monastery about 45 minutes from the city. We saw a wedding taking place in the basilica, which was possibly the most interesting part. We then went to the Valley of the Fallen, which is a huge (300 m long) underground basilica that honors all of those who died in Spain´s civil war. My time is out here at the cafe, so more later...

The Whirlwind of Sevilla, Cordoba, and Granada

Here we are after a week of travels, and it does not feel like we have been gone for that long at all... Since I last blogged, we have had several adventures, and we have also been adapting to the way of life in Spain, enjoying it immensely.

We took a day trip to Cordoba, which houses the famous Mesquita, which is a huge Moorish mosque that was turned into a cathedral during the Reconquista, but the structure of the cathedral was not changed at all. It is huge, with huge double red-and-white striped arches throughout the entire building. It has been interesting to see how the fight between the Muslim Moors and the Spanish Catholics has shaped the history and culture of Spain. We also rambled around and Old Jewish Quarter in Cordoba, which provided sufficient old-world abience with narrow, twisty lanes and flower-ladened window boxes. We were there during the siesta, so the only people we saw were in tour groups, because people in Cordoba take their siesta very seriously.


For our last day in Sevilla we decided to tour the cathedral, which is the largest in the world. It is undergoing renovations and constructions because the large supporting pillars have a bad habit of cracking, so we did not get to see it in pristine condition, but it was a beautiful old church with lots of ornamentation, and the tomb of Columbus. We also got to climb the Giralda Bell Tower, which gave us a wonderful view of the city. We enjoyed our last paseo, or evening walk, around Sevilla. It is so fun to watch all of the young families and old couples out for their evening walk. I really like that spending time with family is so central to every day life here. To top off our evening, we went to a flamenco show in a private patio of an old house in the Sevillan Jewish Quarter. The show was amazing, and was definitely the best way to finish off our stint in Sevilla.

Yesterday, we spend most of the day getting to Granada, but we explored the Albaycin, or old Moorish Quarter in the evening. We had a lovely dinner overlooking the Alhambra from across the ravine.

Today we toured the Alhambra in all of its glory. We almost did not make it, because we were supposed to be leaving at 8 AM, and we did not wake up until 820... Luckily our hostel is literally 3 minutes from the entrance, and we are good at getting ready very quickly. The palace was amazing- intricate plaster and wood work, fountains everywhere, and gorgeous views of the city. The Alhambra was the sight of the final surrender of the Moors to the Spaniards, as well as where Columbus was commissioned for his journey to the New World. There were also lovely gardens, which I thoroughly enjoyed. We spent the afternoon wandering around the Alcaceria, or old silk market, and the rest of the city. It was very enjoyable. Granada is a larger city than Sevilla, so it definitely has a more metropolitan, edgy feel. There is also a large hippie population, which gives the city a less traditional atmosphere than Sevilla had. It is a wonderful city to wander around, and the Alhambra was gorgeous. It has been fun, and tomorrow we are off to Madrid!

Hope you all are well, and hopefully we will have more soon!

Traveling Craziness in London and Sevilla

We´re here!

After three flights and over 24 hours of travel with no sleep, we finally made it to Sevilla. Unfortunately, our baggage did not, and we´re still waiting for it to show up...

After arriving in London and discovering that we did not have our bags, we decided to go into London for the day before our afternoon flight to Sevilla. We wandered around Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, and Green Park, where we saw a huge parade of bands (marching bands and bands on horses) and the British military, who were apparently practicing for the celebration of the Queen´s anniversary next week.

Seeing all of the different, colorful uniforms and the funny hats was quite amusing. I´ve also never seen people playing instruments astride horses, much less a band of 100 of them. After this exciting event, we flew to Sevilla.We wandered around Sevilla for almost an hour before finding our hostel, but we got a nice tour of the city.

Our hostel is fairly quiet and comfortable, and we were very glad to sleep. This morning, we were awoken by a huge parade passing under our window. There were people leading the procession with flags, then others carrying huge candles that were as tall as they, then a float with the virgin Mary that was probably carried by at least 25 people, then the priest and a little girl who was celebrating her first communion, followed by little boys with incense censers, lots of family and friends, a 20-man choir, and a 75-person brass and percussion marching band. Luckily we got some video of them. It was quite amazing to hear all of those brass wailing away in the small streets. I didn´t know that the first communion was such a huge deal, but it was quite a site.


After this interesting procession, we toured the Alcazar, which is an old castle, where Columbus was received and honored after his voyage to the New World. It had a huge garden, which was very pretty. Besides the tour, we had a relaxing day wandering around the city and seeing all of the beautiful buildings and getting sunburnt, since our sun screen was obviously in our bags... Sevilla is quite pretty, with narrow, winding streets and sunny plazas. It´s very exciting to finally be here!

It doesn´t look like I can put my pictures on to this computer, but hopefully somewhere on the trip we´ll be able to. Hope you all are doing well! We´d love to hear from you!

On the start of a travel blog

As you might guess from the title, this blog will aim to document my travels. I have only one big trip planned in the near future, but I've caught the traveling bug, and I'm sure there will be many more trips.

Now, on to the immediate impetus for this blog: I will be backpacking around Europe with my sister, Ruth, for two months this summer, and I want to share our adventures and experiences with you all.


Our general travel plan is:

Spain June 9-23
Italy June 23-July 3
Switzerland July 3-6
France July 3-16
UK July 16-30

I hope to post fairly regularly, but I guess we'll see what happens. I hope you all have a wonderful summer and enjoy this blog!

Adios!