Jun 2007

The person who can figure out the reference in the title of this post will get 50 bonus points. Hint: the older folk reading this may have an edge on this one. The first stop in Spain was Barcelona. It wasn´t as hot the last time I was there which was nice. Another day spent on the beach felt amazing again. There really is nothing like sitting on the beach looking out on to the Mediterranean. The beach at Barcelona is nothing to write home about, even though that is what I am doing, and it was packed but the water was warm and took away the aches from climbing the hill to our hostel. The hostel was nice, clean, had free Internet, and interesting people to talk to but it was a hike. It was farther out of town and up on one of the hills. My things are still feeling it. We went into the Sagarda Familia this time instead of just looking at. It is by far the most impressive unfinished building I have seen. If they finish it while I am still alive and that is a big if, I am going to fly to Barcelona just to see it completed.
Then it was train ride to Cordoba and this was our first bad train ride of the trip really because at least the night train was quiet. This train had about three little kids who took turns crying for seven hours. Cordoba was an interesting and frustrating city. The warren of streets in the medieval quarter is fun just to walk through and it was nice not having to take the subway everywhere. The frustrating part is that everything closes at 9:00pm. This is of course after having just opened up again at 5:00pm from the siesta. I am not sure when people actually get any work done. We went to the Mezquita which is the mosque Cordoba is famous for and it was a let down. It would have been more interesting but parts were under renovation and after seeing Chartres and the Sagrada Familia it didn´t have the same impact. However, we saw an excellent flamenco performance and then went to Medina Al-zhara which is the ruins of a palace city built by one of the caliphs outside of the city. I had never heard of it before but it was well worth the stop. I guess if for every famous thing that doesn´t live up to its billing if we find one that we didn´t know of before we are doing ok.
Now we are in Madrid and were luck to find a place to stay. In fact we are staying in three different places in three nights. There is a huge gay pride festival going on and they expect about 2 million people to come in for it. So the city is packed.We made it to the Prado today. It was the first major museum of the trip and well worth it. The collection of Goya´s is not to be missed.
I am running out of time online. It is not free tonight. I will post pictures in the next few days. Keep the comments coming, Neal and I really enjoy them.

So we were heading into Paris on a Saturday to meet Aaron. We had a train from Nice in the morning and got in around 12:30. The major concern was, not meeting up with Aaron but finding a place to stay because it was a Saturday, in June, in Paris and we were without a room. A few phone calls later and some sketcy directions hammered out using the poor English of the girl on the phone and my even poorer French found Neal and I riding the metro out to Hoche. We later found out that we weren´t even in the city any longer but out in the suburb and it was a questionable area at best. We were able to get a room for the night and make it to airport in time to meet Aaron. We were so happy about finding a room that we didn´t even mind his flight being delayed.

That night we went back to the hostel and ate mircowaved mac and cheese. It wasnt easy mac but the stove was broken so what was going to be a good meal of mac and cheese turned into a mircowaved mess of undercooked noodles and semi melted cheese. We then headed out to the the city because Aaron hadn´t been there before. We took the metro to the Eiffle tower and then walked over to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysee to the Louvre. On Sunday we got up bright at about 7:00am and early to get over the Eiffle tower so we could go to the top before the lines formed. We didn´t get up early enough. There were lines and I think that no matter how early we got up there would have been lines. We then took the train out to Versailles and went to the gardens. The line was too long and it was 25€ to go tour the inside unfortunately. The gardens were packed though and we couldn´t figure out why until all the fountains came on. They don´t run the fountains normally and it was lucky that we just happened to be there. The gardens were amazing without the fountains and ten times better with them. We headed back into the city stopped by Notre Dame real quick and then got on our night train to Barcelona.

If you ever take a night train and it only costs 15 more euro for a sleeping car you should probably consider it. The recling seats that were suppose to go back 160 degrees and be nice and comfortable... didn´t and weren´t. We did end up meeting the girl in the row across from us and taught her how to play euchre and were able to get a decent amount of sleep although my back wasn´t too happy about it in the morning. We are in Barcelona now. We have two nights here and then it´s off to Cordoba. We´ll hit up the beach and go see La Sagrada Familia and do some relaxing.

There is nothing like spending three days on the Cote d'Azur. All the trouble zwe had in Rennes just melted away. We were able to find an apartment to saty in with a full kitchen. That was great because there was a supermarket up the street and our enitre food buget for the three days here was less then 25€. There was a group from Finland staying in the other room of the aparment and we taught them how to play 31. It feels good to just sit around and not doing anything. That isn't something we had a chance to do yet this summer and Neal and I both needed it. We are meeting Aaron Tournoux in Paris on Saturday and after that it is off to Spain. We visited Monoco, which was unreal. I mean honestly, do you really need a helicopter on your yacht? We also got amazing tans spending 2 days on the beach.

Well, everything was going tip top until today. We spent two night in Paris. The first day was just getting organized and situated but we went up to Sacre Couer
and then down to the Seine to watch the sun set.
Saturday we spent in Chartes which was amazing. The view from, the north bell tower is amazing.

Sunday we took the train out to Bayeux. This was our second ti,e using the rail pass qnd everything went smoothly. We did learn the hard way thought that everything closes in France on Sunday, including super markets. The hostel in Bayeux was in a wonderful old home and had a garden, a library, an outdoor game of ches. It was fairly epmty being a sunday night. I would love to stay there again with more people around; We were hoping to get a tour of the D-Day beaches on Sunday but had to wait until monday morning but it was well worth it. Point du Hoc and the americain cenetery were both beautiful and moving.

This is when the troubles started. Since we did not leave Bayeux until late we missed the last bus from Pontorson to Mont St Michel. Then we got into Rennes but it was too late to coninue onto Le Mans or Tours as we hoped. Then to top things off we tried to book a train from Paris to Nice for later in the week think two days aheqd would be enough. It was not. So now we are not sure what we are going to do. It has been fun, exciting and tiring so far and we are still getting the hang of this whole travelling around with no plans. I am being to think that we may have to give up some flexabilty to make sure we have a place to stay and a way to get there. All in all its been a crazy and fun four days

Also Neal is having trouble with the size of his photos and taking up all of our storage space so for now look on facebook and hopefull we can work it out soon.

This point du hoc. For those of you unfamiliar, this is where the US Army Rangers scaled the cliffside and took out German posts to prepare for D-Day.

An example of a gun, with something like 150mm cannon and a 12 nile range

and after a hard days work of travelling, we checked our email and had dinner...

It is 2am Icelandic time while I am writing this. It is still light out but its raining and 45 degrees so we decided to stay inside. Our plan to camp out in the bar has been hampered by the fact that the bar is closed. Instead, Neal is reading and I found some free internet access. By the way, Ms. Parker, if you are reading this I dropped a cracker on the floor when we first got here. I´ll let your imagination decide what I did with it.

How has the trip been going you ask? Well, the train station in Elyria consists of a double wide and a bench and we had to sit on that bench for 45 minutes because the train was 20 minutes late. Amtrack wouldn´t be a bad way to travel, you have big seats, room to walk around, a lounge car, plugs to charge electronics, if it wasn´t for the fact that the train has to stop for every freight train that comes along. Amtrack doesn´t own the track and so its trains spend a lot of time waiting on sidings. What was suppose to be a 13 hour ride turned into 15.5. I did learn however, the location of a nice bar just a block from the train station in Albany, NY, for future reference. I was a little sad when we got into Penn Station because I was hoping to get a sub. I figured that Penn Station subs were over priced in Columbus but in New York I wouldn´t mind paying that much. I couldn´t find one though.

Our hostel in New York was in a Brownstone on the Upper East Side and three block from central park. We roomed with a couple from Argentina and had some very good pizza. The next morning we were able to see a little of the city before flying out on Thursday afternoon. We walked around the park, got some bagels, admired the sky-line. I´ll have to go back and spend a longer amount of time in the near future.

That brings me to the flight. We were on Icelandair and that is why we have 8 hour stopover in Iceland. The flight was crowded and the Icelanders decided to have a party. They were constantly up and down the aisle,talking to people, drinking a lot of Viking beer, and generally having a good timea. I guess when your country only has 308,000 people you are bound to run into some you know. The guy Neal was sitting next to was from Sweden but now lives in the US and was taking his kids back to Sweden to visit his parents. He, however, spent 6 summers traveling around Europe for a month or two when he was in college and was full of great information. There was a also a couple and their three kids in the row behind us who are from Powell. They are traveling onto France as well and we are hanging out together in the airport. The seven of us are the only people here besides the occasional sercurity guard. It would be creepy but it is still light outside so it feels like the middle of the day in here.

All in all it has been fun so far. We haven´t gotten lost yet and I have already finished two books. Neal is about a third done with his first one. He falls asleep everytime he starts reading. Now I know what he does at the library all the time. Here I thought he was studying and it turns out he was just napping. Sorry for the typos and errors but its late and don´t feel like taking the time to fix them. Next stop Paris.