Life´s a Beach

¡Lo siento, amigos! I´ve been without internet access for the past few days here in the city of Alicante. ¡Que lastima! Eric and I had to locate an internet cafe today to reconnect with the world. We found one close to our pension, but when I saw the "must be 18 or older" sign on the front door and noticed there were a lot of suspicous-looking booths, I decided to walk my dogs over to another internet cafe where everyone´s out in the open typing.

Let me quickly backtrack to a few days ago where I abruptly left off. At that time, we were scrambling to get out the door to catch a bus from Granada to Alicante. When we arrived at the bus station, we figured we´d be able to grab a bus rather quickly since 7 go out daily. But what we didn´t calculate was that most of them leave later in the day. We missed the 10:00 o´clock bus, and the next one was scheduled for 15:45, giving us a 5 hour wait. We didn´t feel like walking very far, since our packs were weighted down with all the extra food (potatoes, sandwiches, water, eggs) that we had accumulated from the previous hostel. I felt like a pack animal lugging around all that extra ballast on my back. So to pass the time, we wandered over to some nearby grocery stores. They had an ALDI in Granada, which was the same as the ALDI stores you find in Chicago. I told Eric that this was where all the poor people shopped at. But then I suddenly realized that, hey, I was now part of the poor people, too. Crap. So we wandered around ALDI, and against conventional wisdom, we picked up two bottles of cheap sangria to weigh down our packs some more. But for 1 € sangria, how could you not buy it?

We then went over to this store called Alcampo, which is a combination supermarket and superstore. It felt similar to a Sam´s Club/Wal-Mart. It was nuts walking into it. All the employees were zipping around on roller skates. You could buy almost anything there, but it contained a lot of cheap products that you don´t really need. I felt that I was in a casino, because I couldn´t find the exit to get out of the store, so I just went through the self-checkout line, was scolded by an employee, then had to wander around the store a few more minutes to finally find another checkout line to flee out of quickly before someone noticed.

Our bus ride to Alicante took 7 hours total because the driver kept stopping at smaller towns along the way. We finally pulled into Alicante at 22:30, lugged our packs over to Pension Versalles where we were staying, and were greeted by an older gentleman named Miguel running the place. This guy is a total hoot. He reminds me of the Spanish version of Sean Connery, mixed together with a little bit of Ernest Hemingway. Pension Versalles is a run-down hotel and feels a little seedy, but there´s a courtyard patio area that makes it all worthwhile. It has a vine-covered terrace under which you can drink, read, eat, drink, talk, and drink with all the other guests. We´ve met two Swedish girls (how come all the Swede´s are beautiful?), two German girls (they´re constantly drinking and smoking), a couple from Spain, and an American. Plus there´s this little terrier dog that Sean Connery here owns that comes up to you and wants to play fetch all the time with rocks. If you´re familiar with the Tintin comics, this dog looks just like Tintin´s sidekick dog. It is such a cool dog...I wish I could stuff him in my backpack and take him home with me.

There´s also a kitchen at the pension equipped with just a fridge and a portable stove. For the past 3 days, Eric and I have been in hog-heaven because we can finally cook for ourselves again. We´ve been making the greasiest American breakfasts each morning: hash brown potatoes, eggs, sausage, toast, juice, yogurt, and bananas. For dinners, it´s been spaghetti with vegetables and buttered bread. I´m finally getting some food back into me here in Alicante. For the past few weeks, I felt like I was starving and scraping by to survive. Now, my stomach´s full and I´m living happy again.

Coming to Alicante was a great idea. It´s like having a vacation from the vacation. We just wake up, have a great breakfast, then walk over to the beach to lay in the sun and jump in the Mediterranean waters. The ocean here is pretty salty, so you´ve got to keep your eyes closed or it burns. When we first got to the beach, everything seemed relatively normal. But then I suddenly realized, "Hey, that woman isn´t wearing a top." I had totally forgotten that a lot of the Spanish beaches are topless. At first, it´s a little titilating, especially if you´re an American guy not used to seeing this sort of thing. But then you start seeing some women who SHOULDN´T be going without a top, and then it´s not so appealing anymore. Spanish beaches are actually more conservative than I had expected...probably only 5-10 percent of the women decide to show their stuff. And after awhile, you realize that it´s really not such a big deal anymore.

Right now in Alicante, they´re celebrating the Festival for St. Joan, so we get to end every day with a midnight fireworks show on the beach. It´s like being at Disney World.

It's All About the Alhambra

From Granada

Well, I'll have to eat crow about Granada. There IS something nice about this city and it isn't the total cesspool of despair as I had originally made it out to be. Granada is home to the world famous Alhambra (must have named it after the beer I had the other night). But like the early invaders trying to infiltrate its walls, La Alhambra is hard to get into. Tickets are sold out up to a year in advance, so you have to wake up at the crack of dawn and line up (or "queue" as they like to say around here) outside La Alhambra to get the limited day-of-sale tickets. The line of people starts wrapping around on itself, making you feel as if you're trying to get tickets for U2 concert.

We woke up early and then headed on up to La Alhambra, but I didn't have my good map on me, and I thought we could take a short cut, so we ended up lost for 30 minutes in the back alley ways of Granada. This city has the worst street layout of any city I've seen (and that says a lot, considering every European city I've been to so far looks as if someone used a plate of spaghetti to plan the streets. Makes me yearn to be back in Chicago with their easy-to-use grid system. Oh, John Burnham, architect and city planner of Chicago, Europe could have used your talents). So I finally ended up just following the shuttle buses hauling tourists up to La Alhambra, because obviously they knew where they were going. It's a steep walk getting up to the La Alhambra since it's built as a fortress on the highest spot of town. When we arrived, there were already 200 people lined up in front of us. If this was a concert, we would have been screwed, but since they sell 2000 day-of tickets, we were fine.

The La Alhambra was pretty impressive, I do have to admit. The size of it is hard to imagine until you get there. It just goes on and on...and on. The buildings are beautiful. Originally it was a Moorish stronghold, then like everywhere else here in Spain, it was taken over by the Spanish, then Napoleon, then it was abandoned until Washington Irving came along and wrote a book about it. Then Spain woke up and realized "Oh shoot! We can make money off of this!" and lo and behold, La Alhambra the Tourist Trap was born. I can see now why the rest of Granada looks like an urban disaster zone...because they pump all the city's money into maintaining La Alhambra and have nothing left for the city below. They have over 2 million people visit this each year, and they have a staff of over 300 gardeners and maintenance workers keeping it going. All the sultans and royalty lived here and added their two cents worth into the design of the palace. For 10 Euros, it was completely worth it, but after not having breakfast all morning just to secure a ticket, and wandering around 4 hours in the heat, it was quite draining. Around noontime, my favorite Spanish word suddenly became "Salida."

Whoops...gotta go catch a bus to make it to the next town on our journey: Alicante. I'll finish this later. See ya on the beach!

Granada Es Nada

From Sierra Nevada...

Getting out of Sevilla on Saturday was a bigger challenge than we had expected. First of all, we didn't realize that there were TWO bus stations in the city, and of course, we went to the wrong one. I didn't mind hiking down to the other station, because we got to pass by some other parts of town that I had previously missed, such as the Parque de Maria Luisa and the Plaza de Espana. Sevilla is a beautiful city, filled with tons of artsy stuff like street performers dressed as gold statues, or street performers dressed as silver statues, or...uh, gold and silver statues of street performers. If you want a more peaceful city in Spain to wander around in where there's fewer cars, buses and police scooters to run you over, then Sevilla is your city.

After spending 30 minutes wandering around the park lost in the summer sun, we finally located the bus terminal and booked one to Granada. This time around, the bus was actually pleasant to be in. It had glorious air conditioning blasting on me! Oh, I've been craving air conditioning this whole trip! Sometimes I want to wake up in the morning and just bathe myself in cool, crisp, refreshing air conditioning. I didn't want to get off of this bus, it felt so good! And driving across the country of Spain is a real treat as well. The landscapes look like those you'd find in a country calendar. With all of the fields of yellow sunflowers going by, you think you're in Kansas. But then you see hills go by and realize it can't be Kansas.

Arriving in Granada, we wandered downtown to get to our hostel and started realizing that, from a first glance, Granada appears to be the armpit of Spain. Grafitti is found everywhere you turn, making you feel as if this entire city is a ghetto. In the distance, you can see a haze near the Sierra Nevada mountains. I think its smog from all the stinky cars whizzing by around here. Think of Palm Springs, CA without the golf courses and the country clubs, and you've got Granada.

After walking for an hour because we were too cheap to pay the 1 Euro in bus fare, we finally arrived at our hostel. Man, talk about flea bag hostels...this one took the cake. The bunk beds were crammed into a room slightly smaller than a college dorm room. From the window you could almost see the crumbling neighborhood around you, but the jail cell bars made it difficult. The hostel's bathroom was a real challenge. Only half of the showers had hot water, so you had to play Russian Roulette and hope for the best (I got a CLICK. My friend got a BANG). The toilets...man, that was a joke. They didn't even give you room for your legs when you sat down and shut the door. The toilet butt up right against the door, so you had to do gymnastics over the toilet just to do your business. If there was ever a bad hostel in Spain, we somehow found it. When it comes to scraping the bottom of the barrel, this one took the prize.

Ready to get out of this stinkpit of a hostel, we wandered the area looking for our other hostel that we would inhabit for the next two nights. We didn't have a clear map, and the hostel lady wasn't quite certain about its whereabouts, so we wandered the general neighborhood looking for it. We ended up outside of a Policia Stacion, looking bewildered at our maps, and one of the police officers came out and tried to help. He couldn't figure it out himself, so he dragged us inside the station and got a fellow officer involved as well, but she couldn't find our street, either. The first officer then gave us directions on where he thought it might be, but when you don't understand Spanish that well, it all sounds like an adult talking like a muted trumpet on a Charlie Brown special.

We eventually gave up our search and then turned towards looking for a supermarket to buy some food, but could find none in sight. Craving anything to eat at this point, I finally found a quickie mart and bought a box of pineapple juice and just guzzled it all in the alley way. It was a temporary band-aid on the food problem. I still needed something in my system. So after more wandering around, I finally caved and we ended up at a Chinese restaurant. I know, I know...it isn't Spanish. But desperate times call for desperate measures. And sometimes nothing tastes better than sweet and sour chicken with a cold Alhambra cerveza. Mmmm...that's good eating! Feeling warm and satisfied, we made it back to our Spanish dive and called it a night.

This morning, we woke up early to try something different out. Breaking the cheapskate barrier and actually paying 1 Euro for bus fare, we hopped on the city bus with our full packs and rode all the way back to the main bus station, then booked a charter bus to the Sierra Nevada mountains. Don't be confused...these aren't the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, but the original Sierra Nevada mountains of Spain. I couldn't believe it myself. I wore my Sierra Nevada Brewing Company shirt for this special occasion, to try to unite the two Sierra Nevadas and have them kiss and make up.

We were dropped off above a ski resort town that was dead due to the lack of snow. Strapping on our full backpacks, we started off on a quest to scale Mt. Veleta, the second tallest mountain in Spain coming in at a whopping 3395 meters (about 10,000 feet). We felt like rugged mountaineers, ready to prove to the world just how tough we really were. Yes sir! Nothing could stop us!

After 5 minutes of climbing uphill, we were physically exhausted. So we ditched our backpacks on the side of the trail in a rocky little alcove hidden from view and then resumed our quest along the trail. We were rugged mountaineers. Yes, sir! Nothing could stop us!

We hiked for what felt like an eternity along the trail leading toward Mt. Veleta. We passed several groups of elderly tourists that were bused in, as well as several cows that had somehow wandered up this high. When the trail finally disappeared, we blazed our own path up the side of the rocky steep mountain and made it to an overlook just 45 minutes or so from the peak of Veleta. At about 3000 meters, we were breathing pretty hard, and were both quite proud of our accomplishment. Within less than 2 hours, we were able to book it back down the mountain and back to our bus pickup point, where I was cussed out by the restaurant owner for making a ham and egg sandwich on his outdoor plastic table. I moved over to a stone wall to finish my meal, hoping somebody didn't own that as well.

Once back at Granada, we found our new awesome hostel located in the Realejo barrio, then went out to an Arabic restaurant, and I had a tuna pita and some of the tastiest lemonade in the world. Boy, do I love a good lemonade. What a perfect way to end a successful day of mountain climbing!

A Siesta from the Fiesta

From Seville, Spain

Not a lot happened yesterday, and for good reasons. I decided that I needed a day off from all the running around, just to catch up with all the boring things in life that you often forget about while traveling, such as laundry. I pushed off doing laundry as long as I could, but when you start realizing that that foul smell is not coming from some place else...but from you, it´s time to do something about it.

I took a page out of my traveling companion´s book and tried washing clothes by hand in the sink. Since I only have a few shirts and shorts, it doesn´t justify going to the laundromat and dishing out 6 € to do the job. The washing went fine, but the drying part is what doesn´t work so well. You string the clothes up to dry in your room, and the place suddenly smells like a mildew farm. I´m sure my fellow roommates weren´t too happy. Since I had to go walk into town to buy a new camera, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. So I wore half my damp clothes outside so they´d dry in the warm Spanish sun. Within a half an hour, they were dry. In normal life, I wouldn´t ever go to the extremes that I´m doing here. But as a backpacker, you´re in a different world, having to adapt constantly and do things that most people would consider insane.

Buying a new digital camera wasn´t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I had located my store the day prior, but spent 30 minutes wandering around the center of town yesterday trying to find it again. Spain has this store called "El Corte Ingles," which I guess means "The English Court." If you can imagine JC Penney´s combined with a Circuit City, Bed Bath and Beyond, IKEA and grocery store...then that would be El Corte Ingles. The town of Sevilla has about 6 of them, but each store only sells certain items in its arsenal of stuff. One store might sell furniture, while the other specializes in children´s clothes. So I ended up going to about 3 different ones yesterday until I finally found the one that sold electronics. They actually had some pretty decent prices on cameras. I ended up getting one made by Fuji, but the instruction manual is written completely in Spanish. Should be an interesting ride on the bus today figuring out how to work my camera.

I also stopped by El Corte Ingles´ supermarket. At a first glance, Spanish culture and supermarkets are very similar to what you´d find in the United States. But as you start digging deeper, you start noticing small diferences. For example, "No touching the produce!" The Spanish are very germophobic here. You must put on a pair of plastic gloves just to pick up a damn apple to buy. I made a mistake yesterday by picking up an apple to see how much it weighed, and the snippy employee yelled at me, so I dropped the apple and ran off to hide in the bread section. So I didn´t get my apple. Besides, produce is EXTREMELY expensive here. My cheap bananas in the U.S. are about 5 times the price here, probably because they have to travel a much farther distance from South America to get here.

Another difference you will find is that if you look around a supermarket, or almost any bar or restaurant in Spain, you will find these legs of cattle just hanging from the ceiling. Big, beefy cow hoofs which appear to have been preserved with a coat of laquer or varnish. It looks very unsanitary for a culture so obsessed with not spreading disease. They must use some special process to preserve the meat, so families can just take it home, throw the cow leg on the table and tell the kids to "dig in!" I was looking around the store to see if they had a vegetarian version of the cow leg, but didn´t see one. Now don´t get me wrong...I do like Spanish bacon...that´s some good tasty stuff. But I´m all about the presentation of my food, and if I see my meat coming straight from a nasty cow leg hanging up from the ceiling for who knows how long, then I think I´ll just order the vegetable dish.

One more slight difference you will notice about supermarkets is that employees won´t bag anything for you. That´s not a big deal for me, since I pretty much do it myself back home at the local WinCo supermarket. But it´s odd at first. The cashier will ask you if you want a bag (balsuda?), so you think he/she will throw your stuff in it. But they just shove the bag to the side and start pushing the next person´s food in with yours until it becomes a big mess. So you have to jump and start stuffing your bag quick so you don´t hold up traffic. Like I said, this is not a big deal, but when you´re not familiar with the culture, it can be a little awkward.

I spent Friday evening drinking cheap wine, eating a frozen pizza with the other travelers at the hostel and reading "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer. The book is about crazy people who push themselves to the limit by doing something extremely stupid on the other side of the planet, just to prove that they can. Sounds a little familiar, doesn´t it?

It´s off to Granada next. Catch ya again at the next Internet station.

The Roller Coaster Ride of Backpacking

Backpacking is like a roller coaster ride. Some days you´re up...somedays you´re down. And somedays your entire car derails off the track and you gripping on for dear life.

Coming into Toledo on Monday, we knew we were taking a chance by not having any accommodations reserved well in advance. But we lucked out and happened to snag a night at the "hastle." We were living high, literally like kings of the castle. There were hardly any other travelers staying at the hastle...it was eerily dead there. So we decided that it´d be safe to reserve an extra night there first thing Tuesday morning. No problem.

After having breakfast Tuesday morning, I approach the front desk, and using my best Spanish, I confidently tell the staff lady "un mas noche, por favor." She looks at me, shakes her head and goes,¨"No. No no no." I look at my buddy Eric, wondering if I really butchered their mother tongue this time. The lady then shows me her bookings for the day...and all the rooms were taken! What the.....??? How could this be? There´s nobody at the hostel right now, there´s over 90 beds, and it´s a Tuesday, not exactly your prime travel day. And how could all the beds magically disappear within a 24 hour period, when plenty were available the day prior?

We hijacked the only available computer at the hostel and started popping in our Euro coins to access the Internet. As we were trying to figure out our future travel plans and accommodations, massive groups of kids and young college kids started piling into the hostel. They just appeared out of nowhere. One of the girls who arrived was wearing a Clemson shirt, so I yelled out "Hey Clemson!" thinking a fellow alum would be more than happy to talk with me. She was mortified. As I started asking more questions, I found out that this group of young students was from Virginia, probably with a church group touring Spain for 2 weeks. They were probably straight out of high school. One girl kept bugging us on how to use an International Calling Card. They all seemed pretty naive. And I wasn´t too happy with them, because they had taken our accommodations for the evening. I tried to extend the American hand of friendship, but after losing my room to these dang ungrateful kids, they were now my sworn enemies.

We didn´t make much progress on the planning...we were trying to find a campground in Cordoba for Wednesday night, but the computer kept crapping out on us, so we finally got so frustrated that we left and decided to access the Internet later that day while exploring Toledo. Turns out, Toledo doesn´t have anywhere to access the Internet. I figured most castles nowadays would be hooked up with all the finer things in life, like wireless internet and TiVo. I guess not.

So we wandered a mile or so out of town and found a campground named "El Greco" to lay our heads. This was supposed to be a 1st class campground, complete with working restaurant, bar, convenience store and swimming pool. My Lonely Planet travel book made a big deal on how the view from the pool was "spectacular." We arrived there, and luckily were able to get a spot to camp. But the restaurant/bar was closed on Tuesdays, the conveniece store was closed, and the swimming pool had been drained for cleaning. But the book was right...the view from the pool was "spectacular." You could see the whole town of Toledo from there. I noticed that the book didn´t mention the plague of feral cats running around the campsite. I was afraid to pet them for fear of catching some nasty disease. Eric and I ended up wandering back into town on a quest to find a supermercado, but at 21:30 on a Tuesday night in a small town, that is a mission impossible. We finally found a 24 hour conveniece store, horded up on sandwiches, fruit and juice and just found a park bench to gorge ourselves silly. We then made the trek back to El Greco in the dark and decided to call it a night.

Wednesday had to have been the low point so far in this trip. Our original plan was to hike back into town and jump a bus heading towards Ciudad Real, then find a connector bus or train to take us to Cordoba for the evening. In Spain, it´s cheaper to ride buses from city to city than to take the train, and most of the Spanish take buses. When we arrived at the bus station, we found a bus service to take us to Ciudad Real, but it was schedule for 16:00...a good 5 hour wait. And I didn´t know what awaited us after that. We could be stuck in the armpit of Ciudad Real since it, too, is a small town. So after some wrangling with Eric, we finally came to a consensus to hop the bus back to Madrid since that seemed to be the hub for all transportation across Spain.

Back at the bus station in Madrid, we changed our plans about going to Cordoba and instead booked a bus for Sevilla (Seville) since it seemed to have more going for it. The bus ride took a total of 6 hours, with a stop-over at some sleazy truck stop in the middle of La Mancha. The bus we took, Socibus, looked pretty good from the outside. Inside, it felt like a rickety airplane about to fall apart at the seams. They had a movie playing on the screen at the front of the bus, but the image kept flickering in and out, and they didn´t have any audio for it, so I gave up after giving it a try for a few minutes. There was some smell eminating from somewhere around me. It smelled like a dirty diaper, but for all I know, it could have been me. When you start realizing that you´re the one that stinks, it´s a pretty low point in your travels.

Getting into Sevilla, we backpacked to the hotspot party hostel in town, Oasis Hostel, hoping we might luck into getting a few beds for the evening. But the snobby Frenchy lady there shooed us away, saying they were booked for next couple of weeks. So we then wandered to a cheap hotel that my book recommended, but it seemed deserted and noone responded to our buzzing. Getting frazzled, we scoured the barrio looking for an internet cafe. The first one we found was full, so we finally found a second one, sat down for half an hour and looked online for places to stay. Luckily, a hostel nearby still had a few beds available. We jumped on that and reserved it for Wednesday night, then reserved a more fun hostel for the next two evenings.

Finding the first hostel, Hostel Urbana, was a chore, especially when it´s 22:00 and you haven´t eaten in 10 hours. Both Eric and I were getting delusional. We finally bumbled upon it, checked in, then wandered the city at night looking for food. I was starting to get to that "Man vs. Wild" point, where I was about to eat anything alive that moved in front of me. We finally ended up at a pizzeria and I ordered a rice dish with vegetables and had a cerveza. It was probably the best meal I´ve had, since I was so famished.

Hostel Urbana was cramped and not much fun. We discovered in the morning that a South Korean girl and her French-Canadian friend had shared the room with us that night. The South Korean was chatty on Thursday morning, but the girl from Montreal wouldn´t get out of bed. She appeared to be hung-over. We ditched the unfun hostel, then proceded over to our new digs at the Triana Backpackers hostel in the Triana barrio of Sevilla. This hostel is filled with Americans, Canadians, and folks from the UK. Plus they have unlimited internet free access (hence my being able to ramble so much with this posting). They even have a rooftop deck where you can sit and drink and enjoy the evening. After the chaos of the last few days, we are finally back on top again, and have sworn to have everything planned a few days in advance.

We spent Thursday wandering Sevilla, looking for camera stores and supermercados. We found the coveted 1 € bottle of wine, which we thought was only legend. But it does indeed exist. Trader Joe´s Two-Buck Chuck in California can´t compete with the 1 € wines. We spent the afternoon seeing "el catedral" in town, which was larger than the one in Toledo. It had a lot of ornate wood carvings inside, and was similar to the ornamentation at Toledo´s cathedral. We climbed the cathedral´s bell tower and were able to look out across all of Sevilla. Eric happened to be standing under the very bell that started going off and probably suffered some ear damage. But the crown jewel at the cathedral was Christopher Columbus´ tomb, held up by four statues acting as pall bearers. It´s amazing the stuff I somehow bumble myself into.

We then checked out the Alcazar Real just south of the cathedral. Alcazar used to be the palace grounds where royalty stayed. It contained beautiful architecture and tiling, with a definite Moorish influence. I hung out in the gardens, listened to the peacocks and pigeons going off, got lost in their outdoor maze, ended up losing Eric, then just wandered back to the hostel to officially check ourselves in. I partaked in my cheap bottle of wine and some microwavable paninis picked up at the supermercado. Not bad for cheap wine made in La Mancha.

We then went out with all the other folks from the hostel to a flamenco bar in town. The girls we roomed with at the previous hostel came as well, so Eric and I spent the evening chatting with them. We then ended the evening at a bar in the Triana barrio, drinking pitchers of sangria and discussing all things Canadian. I somehow confused the girls when I started talking about how Rush is Canada´s biggest band. Neither of them had heard of Rush, which suddenly made me realize that I was dealing with a generational gap type of thing here, and that I really was old. Dang it. I thought everyone knew who Rush was. C´mon...they wrote "Tom Sawyer" and "Closer to the Heart." How can you not know them? It´s a Canadian travesty, I tell ya.

King of the Castle

Yesterday, we took a 1 hour bus ride to the tiny village of Toledo just 40 miles south of Madrid. It´s an incredibly pretty place: small fortress town built on a hill and surrounded on 3 sides by a river. It looks like one of those backgrounds that you would see in any Renaissance portrait, such as Mona Lisa´s. You see it, and you really can´t believe it´s in front of you. It looks unreal.

After jumping off the bus, we made the short trek up the hill to the castle where we would be spending the night. HI (Hostels International) placed a hostel inside a castle overlooking the village. I couldn´t believe the accommodations: for 10 to 15 €, we were given a room equivalent to any you´d find in a nice hotel. We were in heaven. This castle hostel (or "hastle" as I like to call it) had suits of armor scattered throughout the building, warding us off from whatever forces were going to attack us in the night. No one spoke English throughout the building, which I had anticipated for a small town like Toledo, so I really butchered the Spanish language and yet somehow was able to make things happen.

Inside the walls of the fortress village, we visited the Museo de Santa Cruz to learn a little bit about the history of Toledo. They had a few goofy multimedia exhibits, showing a computer animated St. Ildefonso walking around in his Friar Tuck outfit, explaining the history of who-sacked-who in Spain over the past two thousand years. I still can´t seem to get the story straight. First some local tribespeople lived here. They were then sacked by the Romans, who were then sacked by the Visigoths, who were later sacked by the Moors, who were then resacked by the original Spanish who lived here. Then Napoleon came in and sacked the whole place, then the Spanish resacked it again, then Franco came into power and sacked everyone and it all just went to hell in a handbasket until he died. Just goes to show you the importance of having safe sacks. But now democracy reigns free in Toledo, and the people can rejoice and show their freedom by selling Conan the Barbarian broadswords, suits of armor and chain mail and copies of Cervante´s "Don Quijote" to the tourists now invading the village.

It´s quite easy to get lost in Toledo. None of the streets are set up in any logical design. You think you know where you´re going, but then you end up in some back alleys without any street markings, and you´re suddenly in some "Plaza de Whatever" that´s not even on the map, so you just say "to heck with it" and hang out in the shade, eating bocadillos and drinking cerveza like all the other Spaniards. You´ve got to be careful on your wanderings around town, though, or you´re liable to get run over by cars, buses or scooters. Not even their tiny sidewalks are safe. Since this is a castle town, the roads weren´t designed back in 1000 AD to accommodate motor vehicles zipping around, so you´ll find yourself ducking into doorways just to avoid the Citreon about to plow into your ass. During the daytime when all the lazy tourists are being bused up into Toledo, it becomes gridlock as the charter buses squeeze by with only inches of clearance.

But Toledo is a pretty place (at least Spain´s version...I can´t vouch for Ohio´s). Eric and I spent today wandering through the town with our full backpacks on seeing the town´s highlights. We started by checking out another town market trying to push its cheap wares onto unsuspecting tourists. We then saw some ruins where the Romans had originally placed their town meeting square, or "circus" as they called it. They had a small amphitheatre which resembled the types of ruins you´d see at Rome´s Coliseum, except on a much much smaller scale. We then found a series of escalators that takes you all the way up into Toledo so you don´t have to break a sweat. I nicknamed it the "Escalator to the Gods." I´d like to personally shake the hand of the person that came up that escalator.

Next on our agenda, we stopped at the town´s main cathedral, which is definitely a must for any tourist. Toledo used to be the center for Spain´s Catholic church, so they built this incredible cathedral which equals anything you´d see in Italy (St. Mark´s in Venice, St. Peter´s in Rome). You can see the clashing of the different artistic styles and cultural influences inside: Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Muslim, Catholic, etc. You´ll be taking tons of pictures of this place. Unfortunately, my camera just happened to die on me, so I went into photography withdrawal not being able to capture any of it. Damn Canon PowerShot. Two years of treating it well, and it craps out on me at one of the most amazing places I´ve seen. Go figure.

We finished the day by swooping past the town´s other cultural treasures--mosques, synagogues, knife shops--and then spit ourselves out on the west exit of the fortress and headed down into Toledo suburbia below. Toledo is definitely worth checking out. Just remember to wear your suit of armor inside town in case a bus decides to joust with you.

SCOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, the things that I get myself into. I don´t know how it happens half the time, but I somehow bumble my way into stuff that most people would only dream of.

Sunday started out pretty dreary and miserable due to the rain. Around noon time, Eric and I headed south from the Gran Via to check out El Rastro (which translated means "the stain"), which is Madrid´s popular outdoor flea market that they hold every Sunday. The call it the "world´s largest flea market," but I´ll be honest: I´ve seen bigger. Shoot...El Rastro can´t even compare with Anderson, South Carolina´s world famous Jockey Lot. Now THAT is a large flea market. But anyway, El Rastro was interesting to walk through. For a couple of Euros, you can buy crappy bootleg T-shirts, crappy music, crappy black market Levi´s, and crappy women´s purses with misspelled names like Prodo and Couch.

After El Rastro, we made it over to the Museo del Prado to see some of the world´s older artwork. I enjoyed that museum much better than the Sofia. I was able to see works by Rafael, de Goya, El Greco, and many of the other masters from the Renaissance period. Great stuff.

We then headed back to the hostel, but I jumped on a subway and headed north to the futbol stadium to check out the pandemonium that was about to ensue. On Sunday, Madrid was hosting one of their final futbol games agains Malcorra. If you know European futbol fans, they tend to be overly passionate about their team, much more so than Americans. The streets outside the stadium were packed with aficionados donning their Real Madrid jersey and waving flags and blowing horns and noise makers and jumping up and down. It felt like Franco had just fallen from power and the crowd was rejoicing. I then headed back on the Metro to the hostel and watched some of the futbol game on television. As predicted, Real Madrid won, and since this was one of David Beckham´s last games with Madrid before he leaves for L.A., this game was extrememly important. This game also determined that Madrid was tied for first place with Barcelona. So after the game ended, fireworks went off all over the city, the crowds hit the streets yelling and screaming and going nuts and marched down the Gran Via to the plaza downtown. I drank beer for 2 hours watching the insanity, then joined in on the march. What an awesome way to end the evening.

The Rain in Spain

¡Buenas dias amigos! It´s a Sunday morning here in Madrid, and skies are looking muy gris. It´s been raining on and off since Saturday, making weather quite cool, but a little miserable to walk through. But as a tourista, you suck it up and try to do what the madrileños here do: enjoy life.

After a long day of walking around on Friday, checking out the Real Jardin Botanico and Parque del Buen Retiro (the two big parks in town), Eric and I grabbed some food over at the Spanish equivalent of a convenience mart (the Spanish also have those triangular sandwiches). We also bought some cheap wine and went up to our rooms to inbibe awhile. What´s fascinating about our room at the Hostal Metropol is that if you look out the window, you can look straight down onto the plaza and see all the people scurrying about. It´s almost as if you´re playing God, or it´s your own live version of "The Sims" going on before you. People hooking up with people. Party people going pub crawling. It´s a people watcher´s dream come true. For 2 hours, I hung out the window, drinking wine and watching my own little soap opera take place in front of me. I couldn´t have asked for better entertainment on a Friday night. My friend and I then went downstairs to the hostel restaurant/bar to watch a complimentary flamenco dance take place, complete with Spanish guitarist and singer. I would be afraid dancing the flamenco with a professional...they´d crush my feet with all that stomping. The flamenco appears to be Spain´s version of Appalachian clogging, except with a lot of dramatic arm movements and dress swishing. Pretty cool.

All day Saturday was drizzly. We had a late start getting going. While Eric was passed out, still recovering from jet lag, I caught up on my reading about Madrid and listened to a few podcasts on the city. To save some money, I went over to the convenience store again, stocked up on lunch meats and cheese for sandwiches, then came back and had lunch while Eric regained consciousness. We then took off to find tickets for either a bull fight or football (the European kind) game. We got lost, but bumbled into some odd event with thousands of madrileños standing in line to get into one of the court/government buildings. It must have been really important for them to be standing in the drizzly rain, and there were camera crews. We then went down to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia to see some modern art (it was free day there on Saturday). I got to see Picasso´s Guernica, which was a big deal for me. I never realized how big it really was. I also never realized it was all in black, white and shades of grey. They had other stuff by Dali and Miro there, but the Picasso stuff was what made the museum.

We made a quick detour over to the Atocha train station to see where the bombings happened back in 2004 that killed 191 people and injured 1755. They had a memorial built inside the station: a giant well in the ceiling with expressions of horror written in multiple languages. Not a happy way to end the day. So we then wandered back towards our hostel, found a place to have tapas and sangria, then went back to the hostel for a night of beers and card til 2 in the morning. Madrid´s the party city, so you have to stay up late like the locals and live it up.

Puddle Jumping to Madrid

Hola de Espana! It´s a crisp, Friday afternoon here in Madrid following some rain showers that went through last night. I expected oppressive heat here, so this cooler weather is a happy surprise.

Most of yesterday was spent just getting here to Madrid. I didn´t think it would take up the entire day. After having a crackin´ good breakfast again at the Palmer Hostel, I spent some time talking with two Canadians from Toronto, getting advice on where to find free Internet and water fountains in London. I then checked out of my hostel and thought I could take a leisurely stroll from Swiss Cottage down to Victoria Station, taking in the sights along the way. However, the blister on the back of my heel was killing me from the day before, and I suddenly realized that I had only 3 hours to spare to board my plane. So I had to splurge for an Oystercard (London´s name for their Underground transit card. Don´t ask me how they got that name. Maybe the term "oyster" has a better connotation in London than it does for me.) and jump in the Tube to get my butt over to Victoria in a hurry. While getting my Oystercard, I had Underground security approach me. I had accidentally left my water bottle by a bench, and they must have thought it was a bomb. You want to see a paranoid city? Go to London. I´ve seen more security cameras here than at a Wal-Mart. I´m surprised they don´t have cameras pointed at you when you´re in the bathroom (or maybe they do. I shudder to think about it. No wonder why "Big Brother" is such a popular reality show here).

I made it to Victoria Station, rushed to buy a ticket to board the Gatwick Express. I had visions of Harry Potter suddenly enter my mind. I thought maybe I would get to find Platform 10 3/4 and a magical train would suddenly appear and transport me to the Airport of Wizardry. Nope. It was just a Muggle train...nothing magical about it at all. I did talk to some Texans from Dallas on the train and talk to them about France some. Americans have been easy to spot around here in London. They´re not dressed in black business suits and look much happier.

Once I got to Gatwick, I checked my bags. British airport security is far more neurotic than anything we´ve experienced in America. They´ll take your picture right before you go through the metal detector. I thought this was like being at the DMV, so I stopped in front of the camera, gave my best smile into it for a few seconds, and the British security lady goes, "I already took your picture, so you don´t have to keep posing into the camera." Sorry...I thought this was a photo shoot. I do want to look my best on television if my picture is ever broadcast. My bad. Once I got through security, I used up my final 2.50 pounds on a sandwich (I´ve noticed how Europeans have all these premade sandwiches in this cute triangular plastic packages. They must like their sandwiches.)

For my flight over to Madrid, I took a carrier called easyJet. I think Hooters Air must have donated their entire fleet of ugly orange planes to easyJet when they went under. And in a weird twist of fate, all the stewards were male and wearing orange. Maybe they have a chain of greasy chicken wing joints in Spain called Easy´s that caters towards women. easyJet is quite the no-frills airline, serving you nothing at all in regards to free food (I was looking for the chicken wings). And half the people on board were whiny kids from England (Brit Brats) being chaperoned by school teachers. I realized that it doesn´t matter what culture you´re in...teenagers across the board are just annoying and whiny. And even more so on planes.

At the Madrid airport, I looked for my friend Eric but couldn´t find him. I waited an hour (his plane landed immediately after mine), so I got fed up, figured he must have missed his flight (or I somehow missed him), and I bought a Metro subway ticket and took off to my hostel. The Hostel Metropol is in a great location in the heart of the city. There used to be an old hotel here, but they converted it into a hostel, complete with a lounge and bar. Once I arrived, I succumbed to going to the McDonald´s underneath the hostel, because I was desperate for any type of food. And if you´re tired and don´t feel like dealing with speaking a foreign language, you can somehow communicate in McDonaldese because that seems to be a universal language. I finally found my friend when I got back to the hostel, ragged at him for experiencing "culture shock" and getting confused about where to go at the airport, and then went out to check out our new digs.

Today we spent the day wandering the streets of Madrid. We checked out the gardens and parks around here and started formulating some plans on what to see these next few days. Madrid seems like an easy-to-negotiate city. But I think I did sense someone trying to pickpocket my camera from me. I´m now hanging onto it at all times. Can´t trust anyone anymore.

Stompin' Across London

After having a wonderful breakfast of corn flakes, a croissant, toast, orange juice, and coffee (you can judge the quality of a hostel by the breakfast they provide for you. This hostel: outstanding (except for the creepy sea captain portrait that stares at you as you try to eat. Very creepy). At most hostels, you're lucky to get a cup of coffee and a roll. This hostel gets Brian's 5 star approval), I planned out my entire day in London. First, I'd walk from the hostel into downtown London, then check out my Big 3: The Tower of London, The Tower Bridge, and St. Peter's. It was a great plan.

Of course, none of that happened at all. Plans steered immediately off course when I started walking and taking pictures of pretty much anything that exists here, because to me, it's all strange. I still can't get a hang of this driving on the left side of the road. Not that I'm driving, but I keep looking the wrong way while crossing the street and just about get plowed over by those out-of-control black taxi cabs. Thank goodness England realizes that there's dumb tourists like me out there wandering around, so they paint "Look to Right" and "Look to Left" on the roads. They make everything so trouble-free. I especially like "Mind the Gap" being uttered everytime you leave the Underground so you don't fall down the gaping crack between the train and the platform. I also like the "Please Mind Your Head" sign I saw today at the Wellington Arch. I took a picture of it because I thought it was hysterical. The Brit working the gift store inside the arch comes over to me and wanted to know why EVERYONE stopped to take a picture of this sign. I explained to him how, in America, the sign almost infers that you have a problem keeping track of your head, or you're possibly crazy. It was a true cultural exchange today.

Anyway, back to my story. I didn't hit anything I had intended. Instead, I wandered through Regent's Park (full of quite lovely flowers), passed by the London Zoo, then kept wandering and hit all the biggies: Hyde Park (no one at Speaker's Corner), Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Piccadelly Circus, then I bought a ticket to see "Stomp" over at the Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand. I'd been wanting to see that show for some time. I love people banging on trash cans and using push brooms as musical instruments. Then I walked all the way back home late tonight, because I was too cheap to fork over 4 pounds (roughly $8.50) for a one-way trip to the hostel. Man, my feet are hurting tonight.

Tomorrow it's off to Madrid to meet up with my buddy Eric. I'll catch up with you all again from there. Cheers!

The Journey Begins...

Hallo everybody back home in the United States! This is Brian here, reporting from London. Yes, I made it here alive in one piece. Just to give you a quick recap: on Sunday, I spent the night in San Francisco so I would be able to catch my flight out Monday around noontime. The HI hostel at Fisherman's Wharf is really a treat and has a spectacular view. Too bad I didn't get to stay at that one and instead had to walk past street pimps and crack dealers to get to mine near the Tenderloin District. But once you got inside the HI, it was really inviting and safe.

Monday was the day that never ended, and transitioned into Tuesday without any sign that there was a divider between the days. For some reason, it was light outside the plane the entire flight, and my biological clock was off 8 hours, so I wasn't able to sleep any of the flight. I landed in Heathrow, and with one cup of coffee flowing through me, I hit the ground running. Stepping outside the Underground at Westminster and being greeted by Big Ben is one of those "Jesus Christ!" moments, where you're in the midst of something incredible and you just can't believe you're seeing it. I spent the day meandering along the south bank of the Thames...saw the London Eye ferris wheel, then attended Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and saw "The Merchant of Venice" and just about passed out on the floor due to sleep deprivation after standing amongst all the other groundlings in the pit. I then ended the day with fish and chips at a local pub. London is expensive, and all the people here are pasty white.

That's all for now. My internet time is over. Catch you the next go-around.

Welcome to my Blog!

Oh, how nice of you to drop by! Please, sit down and make yourself comfortable. Would you care for something to drink...perhaps a Fresca maybe? They're quite refreshing. Sorry for the mess around this place. You see, I'm about to take off on a 10 week journey through Europe, so it's been a little chaotic lately trying to figure out what I need to pack. Should the extra pair of tube socks come along? Do I bring 5 pairs of underwear...or 6? Would the SPAM T-shirt be considered in good taste...or bad? Do Europeans even know what SPAM is? Oh, decisions, decisions. It's enough to make this poor head of mine woozy with confusion. Or maybe it just the cold medication I'm on right now. Hard to tell.

Sorry I don't have much to show you right now. I've got about 425 photos of my niece and nephew at a water park in Virginia if you're interested. Oh, they're cute! C'mon, I know you want to see 'em! Who doesn't like a good photo of kids floating on the Lazy River? Well, alright then. I'll just hold off on sharing any photos with you until I begin my trip tomorrow. I'll be heading out early on the Amtrak to go down to San Francisco, where I'll spend the night at the HI (Hostels International) in the heart of the city. Then I'll catch my flight out of SFO on Monday around noon and be on my way to merry ol' England to begin my grand adventure!!! It'll be such a blast, getting to meet all sorts of new people, seeing new things, and.......

Hey...don't cry. Here...take this napkin from In-N-Out to dry your tears. There you go. You know I'll only be gone for 10 weeks. That seems like a long time, I know, but you'll hear from me every day or so....I promise. Just check out this blog every day or so and you'll be able to find out where I happen to be, and what's going on in my travels. These 10 weeks will go by just like THAT! I'll be back home before you know it. So promise me you won't cry. PRO-MISE???? Good. I'll make sure I bring back something for you when we meet again in 10 weeks. Heathrow's Duty-Free stores have lots of great gift items. Nothing says "I love you" better than a cheap bottle of Smirnoff.

Well, I've still got a lot to pack here, and you'll probably be bored watching me, so you might as well just take off. But I do appreciate you stopping by. You're such a great friend, and you mean so much to me. Oh, while I'm away, could you make sure you water the plants while I'm gone? And feed the cats? And vacuum the floors? Man, that cat hair can really pile up! Also, my car could use a good wash while I'm gone. Make sure you do it by hand and don't take it to one of those automated drive-thru car washes...they can really scrape up the finish. Send me an email if you need anything. And have yourself a great summer! Of course, it won't be nearly as great as mine, but I'm sure it'll be OK. See you in 10 weeks!